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Started this after I beat BG1 the other day, on 'core' difficulty which is like the default (no buffs or debuffs to damage or dice rolls, beyond which you naturally get). I've beaten the first dungeon and did two largeish quests in the first area of chapter 2, but have many others in the journal. There's a noticeable step up in detail, not necessarily visually but in that there's a lot more unique voice lines for each character over BG1. Characters tell you their backstories, they do this a lot actually and it's kind of annoying when you're trying to prepare spells and devise a strategy for a difficult room full of annoying snake mages and Minsc is yammering on about his hamster. But you can sort of see the start of modern Bioware here a bit, though it still feels a million miles away from something like Mass Effect 2 or 3 imo, which is where bioware got really good at this I think. The first quest I did after the tutorial dungeon, which was incredible long, was this one where you had to defend a keep of a rich aristocrat's daughter that had been taken over by trolls that required ice and fire attacks to finish them off. So they're reminding you early on about the importance in DnD of preparing spells and equipping arrows, and the baptism of fire which was BG1 and some of its late game fights have made me a bit more smart about this now. These are RTFM games, you have to read what things mean before hitting your head against stuff, like I did at times. And then you have to read again in game when you get a magic scroll, which is full of all this lovely and lore-heavy flavour text about what actually happens when someone makes themselves invisible or throws a massive fireball at something tbh, I struggled with the keep quest cause the game doesn't really tell you what level is appropriate for what quest, but I got over it when my Inquisitor Paladin found a +3 flail which applies Ice, Acid and Fire damage in the same dungeon, so sort of lucky that that is what I selected my +1 proficiency in. Then I devised a strategy which involved throwing Minsc into a room berserked to fight beetles that cast confuse, and spamming doom magic at the main boss in the next room so that my debuffs could hit it more easily, and his saving throws/THAC0 took a hit. THAC0 still sort of spins me sideways, as well as the way in which the UI will say something gives you +1 to your armour class, but actually make the number smaller, cause the way THAC0 works is it's the 20-sided dice roll you must get to hit someone with armour class 0, so if your THAC0 is 14, you must roll 14 to hit 0. If you're trying to hit armour class 6, then you must roll at least 8, if they're -6 then you gotta roll 20. Which you probably won't, so you need some buffs to even hit stuff. It actually took me playing an entire DnD game to even internalise these rules, which are simple but the way they are applied in reverse means they feel like they aren't. I never picked it up in PS:T cause you can skip so much fighting in that game. Not even going to get into what saving throws do. BG3 did away with THAC0 of course Right now, I'm playing two rival factions of the Shadow Thieves against each other, who are at war with some mages or something. I don't even know if I can complete this quest on my Paladin cause Paladin's lose abilities if they fall off the Lawful Good path, so if I can't then I might have to let Yoshimo go (and get shanked, maybe). There are also a million other quests in the capital city of Amn so I'm trying to avoid walking around too much cause they kind of bombard you a bit, compared with BG1. The chapter seems extremely open and I've had to deny some quests that would take me down an evil path, though they sounded interesting. The other quest I did was to defeat an evil gnome in a circus tent who cast illusions on everything, which is where I got hit by this. Solve it and you win maf's new monitor

I played 30 minutes of it. It asks you to create a bethesda account before even being able to play which is really annoying but you can get around by setting steam to offline. Anyway it seems good. Kind of more focused on just murder arenas from the look of things. But I'm totally ok with a game like that. You can turn HUD off but it's hard to play. The HUD is a bit much tbh, I need to spend some time figuring out what parts I can turn off. Playing on ultra violent

Just by typing the title I realised they could just have dropped the "2" from it, nobody played the first one anyway unfortunately and it would look nicer visually. Anyway - I've finally started playing this over the weekend. Due to certain circumstances I didn't get as much time with it as I had hoped (see here), but I did manage to finish the prologue of sorts which takes about 5 hours. Lots of good things here with few negative stuff, but overall so far it's pretty much exactly what I would have wanted from a sequel. Fundamentally it's still Monster Hunter x Pokémon, meaning you gotta breed them all by collecting and hatching monsters from eggs. Those monsters will then accompany you on your travels and both help for traversal on the map due to their faster running speed or other special skills (jumping, cimbing, swimming etc.) and during combat. During combat you only have limited control over them, but each has its own tendencies, so switching between them depending on the enemy is the way to go. The basics of combat being rock-paper-scissors haven't changed, so you still use this feature to build up the Kinship Gauge, which is basically a mana pool that allows you to use skills and command your monster more directly by letting it use special moves as well. New to Wings of Ruin are weapon classes. In the first game your weapon only influenced the skills you could use as your character was more of a support for your monster, but this time you play a more virtal role and can target weaknesses with a weapon type that is particularly effective. An early example is smashing the rock a monster uses for a weapon with the hammer, or cutting its tail with a greatsword. Outside of combat it's a classic JRPG experience with semi-big HUB areas, quests, treasure chests and such. One thing I have mixed feelings about is the NPC partner that's with you most of the time during these initial 5 hours. I don't have anything against the character and she's certainly easy on the eyes, but it takes away from the feeling of it being a solitary adventure, with only you and your Monsters à la Pokémon. Now it could be that she goes her own way at some point but the fact that she levels up after combat and that some enemies have rather huge HP pools I get the feeling that it's designed to have a party of two (or four, technically) most of the time. There's been a lot of talk online about the technical side of the game. In context with the hardware it's running on, it's certainly less impressive that the original. Where MHS1 was basically a triple-A game on 3DS, this feels more of a budget mid-tier game that suffers from a low-ish framerate and some horrible pop-in. It's not without its charms though, as it has a very vibrant and nice style, the character models are great and during combat it really shines with impressive animations and effects. And the sound effect that plays when you land a critical hit on a downed monster might just be one of the most satisfying I've ever heard in the game.

I'm starting this thread, eh? Weird... Anyway, PokéMon Violet. There are issues. Even I, someone who doesn't take note of framerates, screen tearing etc can see it plain as day. Draw distance is a thing. Note this is apparent from the second town. Before you reach the main school. The worst part is that every single PokéDex entry causes slowdown and stuttering. This isn't great for flaws in the most basic, yet fundamental game stuff. That's the negatives out of the way for now. Stay tuned for more on that, I imagine. The results of play session one. Not bad going really.

Picked this up as it was discounted on Steam and I’m feeling very intelligent after playing Blue Prince. I thought there was a thread but I guess not. Anyway, I booted it up to try it out and 90 minutes disappeared very quickly. Artistically, the game is a knockout. The mysterious animal theme is a very nice. Now that I’m thinking about it, the mysterious atmosphere of the game reminds me of Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, even though they have nothing else in common (I haven’t thought about that game in over 10 years). The subtle visual and sound effects are very well done too. Gameplay wise, it’s kind of like a compact metroidvania with a focus on puzzles.

The glow up for Suikoden 1 is almost immediately apparent. The script has been tweaked IE better translated. The sprites have QoL improvements and the overworld & town maps have been given a modern facelift. I capped off my first session with acquiring your base. Roughly six hours in. It reminds me there is a reason I hold this series in very high regard. Even the "bad" one (Suikoden IV) isn't terrible. Hopefully if this remaster is a financial success, Konami might even revive the series proper. Or at least give a collection with the other three games (and maybe DS spin-off).

Played through the first two worlds and a bit into the third one over the weekend. I'd say if you've seen any trailer for this you kind of know what to expect, with a minor caveat maybe. Fundamentally this is a Donkey Kong game with a character palette swap. It's classic 2D platforming, with mounts, barrels and, well, not a rolling but a sliding attack. Unlike the DK games both playable characters have the same toolset, so it's just down to personal preference whoever you want to play as (and equal rights in multiplayer). The land-based mounts meanwhile can be summoned at will (if you have their token in your inventory) in certain segments of the stage, which I actually haven't done yet. The game doesn't really incentivise you to use this feature, so I've been relying on the sections where you break a box and they pop out, DK style. What the game isn't is a Crash Bandicoot copycat, despite the trailer maybe suggesting as much through the usage of 3D segments during the stages. Those amount to at best 5% of your playtime and are mostly there to add a bit of visual flourish to proceedings, so it's ultimately more of a gimmick than a true feature, so more reminiscent of how they were implemented in Trine 3. I don't think that's an issue at all, just putting it out there because I was expecting this to be closer to a 50:50 ratio. As for the game itself, you run around your typical tropical locations, do platforming, defeat enemies. Controls aren't quite at the same level as its inspiration (the Dino mount in particularl feels needlessly floaty), but it's still a very nicely tuned platformer. The stages themselves are rather diverse, though I will say there hasn't been anything particularly memorable so far yet. It's very much replaying the DK orchestra while missing a beat here and there, which still results in a very enjoyable platformer, but not a game that's going to alter the perception of the genre. Speaking of orchestras, while this certainly isn't Wise's best work, his tracks ooze the same charm you've come to like from recent DK games. In terms of difficulty I find the normal stages to be rather easygoing so far, but some of the special mini stages (of which there are two per level) can be rather devious. Completing those unlocks a key, which I presume will unlock something else at the end of the game, but I'm not that far in yet. The collectibles are hidden pretty well, too. It's rare that I finish a stage on the first try with everything bagged. As for the negatives, I think some checkpoint placements are a bit off and it also does that annoying thing where you sometimes need enemies to reach collectibles but they don't respawn if you mess up, so you have to kill yourself if you want to try again. I've also run into two bugs so far, one where I couldn't use the glide anymore until I killed an enemy and the other one was when the water mount (seahorse) didn't despawn so I could just float around the remaining part of the level. Which was hilarious, but also kind of adds to the feeling of it lacking a bit of polish here and there. Nothing game breaking though, just these two oddities so far. Loading times are also surprisingly long, relatively speaking. In general though I think this is really solid. The actual gameplay (controls, 'feel') is slightly below that Marsupilami game we all played, but it IMO makes up for it by being a bigger and more ambitious project overall, and visually this is a really nice-looking game easily on the same level as Crash 4. It's a difficult genre to get into as a small developer because it has basically been perfected years ago, but this is probably as good as a DK game can get without having the backing of a big publisher and the skillset of a Nintendo employee.

So I started this, played like a 2 hours or so. It's very anime. It's also way more action RPG than you might expect. Combat is fast but grounded and overall your options seem pretty limited early on anyway. Kind of like Nier Automata. Attack, dodge, attack, dodge etc. So far. I've not fully worked it out yet. It's hard to learn so far cause theres a lot going on the screen at once and the frame rate is pretty bad. It's got a cool style though. It makes me roll my eyes when people say "X is like Bladerunner" , but this is like that. But anime and not as dark. Your "legion" does it's own thing usually, but you can leash it around and have it counters attacks while your cop guy or girl does his own thing too. Like if you see a red beam on the ground then it's a tell for a charge attack. You send your legion over and you can catch them before it hits. Stuff like that seems like it could be cool. But honestly so far it's pretty mashy and hard to follow. The frame rate is a killer. I am getting D ranks tho so my rubbishness is definitely a factor Mission 2 boss is cool though.

The best way to describe this is what if Suda51 had a queer Indian cousin who also made games? It's really out there, in every sense of the phrase. The setup is basically Scott Pilgrim through an Indian lens, with the protagonist returning to her hometown after a breakup and then having to confront all her exes. From a gameplay perspective you're either talking, skating around, doing some QTE-based minigames or fight in turn-based battles. I don't want to call the gameplay loop gimmicky because it's a bit derogatory, but it still explains it best. There's not much depth to anything you do, but it's a very enjoyable cocktail presented in a very wacky and charming way. During dialogue sequence you can pick answers which in turn give points for one of three different 'thirstsonas' (their word, not mine). Supposedly this impacts both the narrative and gameplay, but I haven't noticed the former and the latter just boils down to minuscule shifts towards either your HP pool, your offense or your defense. Skating is wonky and clunky, but you can skip every challenge the game asks you to do before progressing. I think it's a nice enough diversion, but it's no Tony Hawk for sure. Combat meanwhile is a solid spin on the Paper Mario/Mario et Luigi formula with timed button inputs influencing damage dealt and received. Debuffs are called taunts and certain skills you have deal bonus damage if a debuff has been applied. That's pretty much it, but it's a solid template and the boss fights, while quite a bit talkative, are the clear highlights, with the exes withdrawing into some sort of mind palace where they take different forms (a bit Persona-like, now that I think about it). There's also a part where you can cook meals for combat use or to make up with your exes, which is technically just a series of QTEs intertwined by a heart-to-heart with either your mum or dad (depending on what menu you choose). I'm definitely enjoying it a lot and it also has a very stylish presentation. 3D modelling can't quite keep up with the art but it's a really 'cool' game to look at with a lot of visual flourishes, nice UI art etc. The OST is really good as well, though in a less eccentric way. Overall a nice little feelgood game that still tackles some deeper subjects from a different perspective than we're used to in games.

Balatro. What can I say about Balatro that will do it any justice...? For the uninitiated, this presents as roguelike poker. You're dealt a hand of cards and use your card counting skills, or your natural-borne luck, to build a game-winning combination. Everything from high card draws to the fabled royal flush will score points, and it's your job to work through eight rounds of three games. I've managed to get half way through a game up to now - ante 5/8 - before crashing out horribly. Like I said, though, it presents as poker. Realistically, it takes poker to a whole new place, and this is thanks to the store between rounds. You can buy a range of bonuses to increase your chances of reaching the end. Tarot cards apply specific bonuses to individual cards from your deck (this could be anything from giving you an extra $3 if it's not used by the end of a round to a multiplier if it's played and scores). Planet cards provide bonuses to specific hands - I'm a fan of bumping up my two-pair bonus, as it's one of the most common hands I play, and it can become especially prolific for points the more you increase its level. You can get packs that add more cards to your deck, and then there are Joker cards (that's Poker with a J... Coincidence?) that give you overall bonuses. The key to the game right now seems to be the Joker Cards. A two pair hand with two 10s and two 5s can score around 50 points as a base. But add in a Joker card that adds 4 to your multiplier if you play clubs, as well as the joker that adds 30 chips if you play a 10, AND a +4 multiplier for the same numbers, and that two pair hand quickly shoots up to almost 10,000 points. Skipping some rounds is an option, and will present you with a bonus if you do so, but this comes at the cost of making more money to go into the store with. Is that card pack, which is usually $6 worth accepting, rather than playing the round and getting to $10 so you can buy a new bonus card or a couple of new Jokers? In each round of three games, there's also a 'boss' match. This will add further complications to the gameplay. Some of the ones I've encountered include all face cards being dealt face down, specific suits being debuffed (so those awesome bonuses are completely negated) and even ALL dealt cards being handed out face down. These are super tough at times, and if you hit a bad run, you're essentially screwed. I'm under no illusions that I'm not great at this game, but it has a fantastic 'one more go' quality that makes you hop in for another round. I honestly can't express how much I'm enjoying it right now. I'm determined to figure out a way to get through all 8 rounds.

Yep, it’s definitely a Smash game. Played a little bit last night and a couple of hours today. Unlocked Sonic, Inkling and a couple of others I think. Inkling seems really fun, and plays like you’d want a Splatoon character to play. You have an ink meter that will run out as you chuck ink about and you have to turn into an octo to get more back (down and B I think shield and B). Also made a Mii fighter and obviously I’m going for the most ridiculous I can make it so far. So a bear head and maid’s outfit is the current look. The amount of stuff in this game already, how it got made and how expensive it was, I’ll never know.

I'm cheating a bit here because I only played the demo, but this came and went without any kind of exposure but I think it might interest some people here. It's cheap to compare a game to others in an effort of explaining it but I like doing it because it's also quick and easy to get the message across – so this is basically the indie baby of classic Resident Evil and Killer7. At least as far as its gameplay foundations are concerned, the overall tone and setting is somewhere between SMT and Paradise Killer with very weird, supernatural characters that float somewhere between being human and godlike entities. You're playing as some normie girl working a boring late-shift job but suddenly stuff happens and you receive the boon of being able to perceive an alternate dimension where demons live. Gameplay is presented from a bird's eye view reminiscent of the aforementioned RE classics (there's even an option to toggle between direct and tank controls) and mostly consists of figuring out classic adventure puzzles. An early example is that you come across a computer that doesn't have a keyboard attached and is locked, so you need to find a keyboard and a passcode. It's basic, but it works in the sense that it shuffles you through its claustrophobic levels to force you to combat the demons. Combat then is where it morphs into Killer7 because holding the trigger to ready your weapon switches to first person while activating your demon-sensing ability highlights weak points on enemies. Smaller enemies die from one critical attack (melee or ranged are available), bigger ones might need multiple shots. Landing multiple of those critical hits in succession fills up a special gauge for a an extremely powerful shot that discards any normal enemy and is necessary to defeat bosses (at least as far as I can tell – there's only one boss in the demo). You can also attack enemies 'normally', ie. without first scanning for their weak points, but it's suboptimal and kind of a waste of ammo. The risk-reward here is that your scan has rather short range, so while enemies are easier to dispatch, they're also more likely to counterattack. I quite liked the demo, just quickly glanced at metacritic and it's around the 80% mark, so it seems the full version is pretty good. Might pick this up sometime this year. Quick note as well, despite the RE inspirations I wouldn't call this a horror game, it's more of a surreal, slightly spooky atmosphere it conjures.

Creating a thread for this as it seems like it might be quite a bit meatier than some other games I’ve played recently. Citizen Sleeper is the latest game from the developers of In Other Waters, which I played recently and was quite good. I guess like In Other Waters, it involves a lot of reading and clicking on various menus. Not quite a visual novel, but an adjacent genre I guess. You’re a “sleeper”, a robot of some sorts that escaped or survived some mysterious past and somehow gained sentience, which is apparently a big no-no, so shady characters are coming to put an end to you. You’ve wound up on some kind of space station called Havenage. Here you meet characters and complete tasks to achieve various goals. I can’t describe it beyond that. It’s too complicated. But it’s quite unique and intriguing so far. Based on what I’ve played of this, and In Other Waters, the developers’ (Fellow Traveller) focus is clearly on telling unique stories in unique settings, with an emphasis on mystery and the unknown.

First of all, Nintendo can go screw themselves for coming along with this almost 20 years after the previous game in the series. The last time they were this tonedeaf was when they announced Federation Force. Secondly, it's not so bad. I mean it's basically just classic F-Zero with more direct controls and without a collision detection that makes Newton spin in his grave. It adds the spin attack from GX but puts a cooldown on it and tackled enemies drop coins which fill up a special bar you can use instead of your boost to drive 'on top' of the course and avoid the massacre below. I don't see it having a huge lasting impact or the immediate pull of something like Fall Guys, but it's decent enough for a freebie (if, again, extremely poorly timed). Anyway, I immediately won my first race. I guess the newbies in the lobby thought Death Wind was easy after looking at its map.

Somehow I was convinced radiofloyd played this when it came out in Japan and made a topic. I played it for about five hours over the weekend, which is roughly the length of the tutorial/prologue. Origins and VIII are the only Ys games I've played, so I'm not an expert on the matter. Chronologically this seems to take place almost at the very beginning of Adol's adventures (after 1 & 2 to be exact), but in classic fashion it's not really necessary to be aware of those other games. Characters hint at certain things early on, but it's very much self-contained otherwise. So in Nordics you end up in a very cartoonish, pop-culture version of northern Europe with Vikings Normans who have claimed the northern seas for their own. After some exposition and the game introducing major NPCs, stuff happens, magic happens, and you then sail around the archipelago with a young Norman princess, Karja, in tow. While the whole Norse/Viking theme has been a bit overdone in the west in recent years, it's nonetheless interesting and refreshing to see it through the anime/Japanese lens for a change. I'm definitely quite enjoying the setting, and Karja is a surprisingly likeable sidekick, a bit of a tsundere voiced in a very bratty tone, but with a reasonable side to her as well. I remember some people, myself included, being a bit disappointed when they announced it would only feature a party of two, but after experiencing the battle system for a bit I can see that any more would easily have overwhelmed the player. There's a couple of ways in which you can fight: the basic one is just running around as either Adol or Karja, attacking by yourself and letting the AI take over the other character. I find this relatively useful when engaging groups of smaller enemies, in a 'divide and conquer' kind of way, as the AI draws some aggro, too. While playing like that, however, you can always change to the other character by pressing a button, which happens instantly and also works mid-combo. There's not much use for that early on, but I can see maybe casting special attacks with longer durations and then immediately switching to keep the pressure on as an option when unlocked. There's a second Duo mode for combat which activates while holding the right trigger and it's here where it becomes a bit much to wrap your head around early on. In this mode, both characters are linked by a magic chain and can't move, but they can block and parry (with very forgiving timing) and attack in unison while also having access to a different set of special attacks fueled by their combined Mana pools (in a funny twist, you can also use these if one character can make up the cost with their mana bar in case the other doesn't have enough – no idea how the developers expect you to properly gauge all that mid fight while parrying and dodging). But all this is only the very baseline as the game keeps giving you tools upon tools in rather quick succession. Early on you unlock a grappling hook for traversal, but it can also be attached to enemies, you unlock launchers for air combos or a unique move activated by holding the attack button which lets Adol cast a burst of fire and Karja a pillar of ice, affecting certain elements in the area (plants, water etc.). And that's just the feature handed to you in the first 5 hours. I find it a bit overwhelming at the moment, but it's cool to see so much depth and potential – I did really liked VIII, but combat in that game mostly revolved around last-minute dodges and not much more. The other big part of the gameplay, outside the usual traversal and exploration, is naval combat, which I think is a first for the series. So far this feels like its weakest link, as the ship is rather unwieldy – but not in a physically realistic, but rather a 'that's an odd control scheme' kind of way. In the early game you have two options to attack, a long-range cannonball to slightly damage and stun ships, and a short-range barrage which does enormous amounts of damage. So you use A until you get close, use B to finish them off, rinse repeat. It does suggest a lot of upgrades to you ship which I'm hopeful will make these encounters more fun and engaging the further along you get, so I don't want to judge that aspect too harshly as of yet. It's not as immediately gripping as the ship combat in AC Black Flag for example though, just to set expectations. I'm playing it on Switch, and compared to VIII, which suffered from severe aliasing or IX with its wonky framerate (at least going by its demo), this feels like a more polished product all-around, with clean visuals and an almost rock-solid 30fps with good frame-timing. The downside of this is that a lot of objects and NPCs pop in very close to the character, which I'm not too bothered about, but not everyone is as forgiving. I suspect the PS5, or I guess even the PS4 version, to have none of these issues, but in any case there's a demo on every platform to check for yourself. As always, can't do screenshots on Switch anymore, so here's a Karja plushie:

I’ve played through the first three levels so I’m still on the linear portion of the game (according to reviews the game transforms into a full-on metroidvania after a few hours). So far it’s been an enjoyable platformer/hack and slash game, with the standout being the visuals and music The first two levels I played through in handheld mode but tonight I played using the pro controller and it’s much more enjoyable. The game has a mechanic where if you attack something mid air, it allows you to jump again, it’s a little bit uncomfortable in handheld mode but as I suspected it works like a charm using a proper controller. Not to mention the game looks beautiful on a big screen.

That is '1000 times resist', according to one of the creators I think. I put this on hiatus a week or so back, but wanted to write down my thoughts on the first half anyway. I think some of us have this on our backlog It is a sort of 'walking sim' type deal set in a very Yoko Taro-coded version of the future. A mass extinction event occurred, aliens invaded and spread a virus. The game jumps back and forth through time via a sort of memory technology called 'communion'. You're playing as this character called 'Watcher' and you live in this enclosed, somewhat infantilised sisterhood where everyone's names is their role. Nobody can ever take off their mask. There's a sort of COVID allegory to some of it, but also as the name suggests there's a theme of resistance and cycles which gets into slightly more interesting real world allegories, which I'll leave out here but they're mentioned in reviews if you're curious. Put in simple terms, it's an interesting sci fi story with lots of overlapping layers that develop its themes in interesting ways and are successful at generating empathy for their characters. Playing the game is a real struggle though, which is why I put it on break. You just talk to people in it, and you navigate these really confusing environments. It all sort of looks a bit like a second life level, or a custom map from VR chat or something like that. In a way the aesthetic is kinda refreshing or maybe nostalgic if you've ever played F2P MMOs from the noughties or something. The game does find some neat tricks with perspective, how it changes camera angles from third person free form to first person to fixed angles, trying to inject things with a cinematic flair. But it is a bit like doing the fetch quests in FFXIV or FFXVI and having being a bit traumatised by that design it makes it very hard to recommend. You'll see a few articles on some gaming sites praising the story, like massive praise calling it the greatest of all time. I'm not on that level with it, but I do think it's doing something interesting but in a way that's kind of draining to interact with, personally speaking. So I'm very mixed on it, but I'll probably try to see through the second half over Christmas. It seems like the kind of story where you can take an intermission cause of how it's structured

I think I'm going to do a video of this because I don't think a post is going to get over how good this is and how you should play it. Based on an old, presumably renewed, European cartoon called Marsupilami that I barely remember, it's basically a Rayman Legends clone without the touchscreen and co-op stuff It's a 2D platformer, or 2.5D I suppose, but the depth doesn't play a part at all I don't think. Simple stuff, you can jump, land on enemies heads which will kill them and bounce you up. you have a standing attack, a spinning roll attack, and you can slam down to the ground from the air to smash pots and break through floors. Eventually there's enemies you can't kill, boulders you need to avoid and outrun, then also things like toucans and grips that you can grab to either launch you in a specified direction or help you with some in-air platforming It's got a lot of ideas, a couple of different types of bonus stages, and even those get mixed up. The levels can be fairly simple, but eventually can get very, very difficult later on, especially if you're trying to find all the feathers and secret bonus levels. Marsupilami throws lives at you, so you're never likely to run out, and you can revisit easier levels, or even bonus levels, to rack up lives or tickets (to enter a different set of bonus levels that are all about amassing lives). Collect 100 fruit and you'll get a live, smash enough pots you'll probably find an extra life or two. The feathers are used to open up a couple of extra stages to try, nothing really beyond that, but there is an achievement system to keep you going If I were going to add some criticisms, it's a little short. It's a few hours, I'm not sure how many but certainly less than 10, maybe 5? You're basic movement is a little slow, I've found I took to rolling a lot of the time, which isn't a smart idea, but it's quicker. It's also a little jerky on the Switch, I think because it's 30fps, and while mostly it's fine, it's when you need to react suddenly or correct a movement that you really notice it. There's also a slight issue with your ability to slide down walls, a good skill that opens up some really inventive moments for secrets and the like, but it's a very generous snap to, so you'll latch on the wall when you don't expect it, slowing you, messing up your timing, or making you leap off in the wrong direction. Apart from that though, I can't fault it. I'm not saying it's a 10/10 game, but I do think it's a really good platformer, certainly one of the better games I've played this year

This had a cool demo so I decided to treat myself to a little sidegame over the long weekend. I'd actually encourage giving the demo a shot, because the game looks like a run-of-the-mill pixel indie title but it has an amount of quality and polish to it that really makes it stand out. In a Nintendo-ish way, it's entirely designed around a singular idea and that's the drill your character carries around. It allows you to drill through certain areas of the map, be it ground, snow or other, it works as a propellor underwater, it can revv up certain machines etc. I'm not going to spoil in detail what the developers have cooked up, but there are genuinely cool surprises here throughout and no two levels feel the same – again, very much Nintendo-like. This seems to have been in development for about seven years, which sounds absolutely bonkers, but it shows, because it's really an incredibly accomplished take on one of the oldest genres out there. There is one caveat though and those are the boss battle. I'm not going to mince words, they're all pretty bad. Well, at least the three I played so far. The first one was okay-ish I suppose, but the two that followed were just very tedious 'death by a million cuts' affairs that don't use its central mechanic in an interesting way. The third one, in fact, is easier if you just don't drill into the ground at all. It's weird to see how devoid those fights are of ideas considering how excellent the rest of the package is – almost as if they had been made by a completely different team. So while that might sour the experience a tiny bit at the end of every world, I don't think it drags the game down overall. From what I read it's not super long, but quality over quantity seems the focus here, and there's time trials for crazy people to get a bit more out of it. As a final commentary, the soundtrack is extremely good as well and I wish I could link a few samples but nobody seems to have uploaded anything yet. It's on Spotify though, if you want to give it a listen. Completely misrepresenting screenshotTM

I’m not much in due to illness but I thought I’d get the ball rolling. Firstly I thought they couldn’t recreate that wow moment from botw. The one so many have done themselves, before and after. But they absolutely nailed it. The first part and exploration I’m in love with as much as I was before. With some new twists and mechanics that you don’t have your hand held and guided through. Just you have this now. Go experiment, or don’t. Go there now, or don’t. The tutorial guys are so sweet and humble. I want to know more about them. I hope for a quick recovery so I can proper deep dive into Zelda again. It’s back in a big way and I couldn’t need it any more. 2023051118232200-CC47F0DEC75C1FD3B1F95FA9F9D57667.mp4

Oxenfree was released way back in January which I guess makes it a retro title by today's standards. I don't know about the PS4 or Xbox One but it's currently heavily discounted on Steam so now is as good a time to pick it up as any. As it turns out, I already own it. It looks like this. http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388880/ss_aae01eea5fc489c7fbb20c2e92440c1cf92f4e83.600x338.jpg?t=1465496144 http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388880/ss_75af452f6e7f6c5dc1ada4f001abcccac6c57db7.600x338.jpg?t=1465496144 I just played it for sixteen minutes so I can give you sixteen minutes worth of impressions. So far it's been a pleasant side-scrolling walk and talk simulator. Not a million miles from Life is Strange if Life is Strange was side-scrolling. The conversations so far have been kind of typical preppy American teenage stuff. At the beginning of the game the characters are heading to some kind of after dark party on an island. The main point I'd like to make is that the game has a really good electronic soundtrack. The art style has a bit of Kentucky Route Zero.

Seems a lot (relatively speaking) people got this, so I think a topic here makes sense after all. I don't think this needs context, but just for the record: this is a collection that includes three classic Castlevania games initially released for the DS (Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia) as well as both the original version of Haunted Castle, an arcade game from the 80s, as well as a complete remake with SNES-style visuals and some other changes of this last game. I started with Dawn of Sorrow, because it's my favourite of the bunch and also the first one that came out (despite being placed at the bottom of the list in the menu). Plus from what I recall it's the one that made most 'use' of the touchscreen, so a good litmus test for this specific release, too. On Switch you can use the touchscreen if you're playing in handheld mode, so there's nothing lost there either way, but the alternative is holding a shoulder button and moving a cursor around, which is a less than ideal alternative. Thankfully the magic circles you have to draw are now also QTEs, but stuff like destroying ice blocks is a bit finnicky so I decided to play that section in handheld mode. IIRC the further you get the less frequent these gimmicks become, so it's only really a small issue in the first hour or two. We've already discussed the multiple screen options in the News topic so I'm not going to repeat those, but I noticed there's also a setup where both screens are displayed vertically, like they were on the original system. I think it would have been really cool to have that setup in Tate mode, but that's really just a nitpick because it would only really be useable on Switch (and maybe PC depending on your monitor setup). As you can see in the picture there's a lot of extra stuff in there as well, like the complete OST that works as a music player (and those games have some of the best tracks in the entire series IMO), a gallery which even includes the game manuals, and you can also choose which version you want to play (EU, US, JP and in Ecclesia's case, even the Korean version, though I'm not sure what's different about that one except the language). In any case, I've been really enjoying the little time I played so far. I usually only associate consoles and games I played as a kid with nostalgia, but the moment I stepped into the first area with its wonderful music I got hit by quite the wave of good old times. Absolute recommendation, these are classics for a reason and M2 did a great job of porting them over, as usual. Not to mention that we get a completely new remake as a bonus, too. [Also, a bit off-topic: while I was going through the gallery I noticed a promo picture for Castlevania: Judgement, which was on the back of one of the manuals back then. I wonder if they plan on re-releasing the 3D games as well considering we're now kind of 'through' with the 2D games. I realise they're not as well-regarded, but I think the PS2 ones are somewhat decent and Judgement, despite being a super broken and unbalanced fighting game, is quite a fun little guilty pleasure with a ridiculously good OST.]

Seems pretty good. initially was a bit disapointed as its more like a traditional mario game than i was expecting, thats on me as i only watched the first trailer and thought it was going to be even more crazy. Anyway, it is a somewhat crazy and pretty cool! Been really enjoying it. i want some flowers like that in real life that give me some encouragement and stuff. the crazy bits are a bit hit and miss, well hit and less of a hit as some are a lot of fun and others are less so, wouldnt say anything has been bad so far. the levels are rated for difficulty, the hardest one ive done was 5 stars, dont know if it goes higher, but that level was really hard but i enjoyed it too. i dont like the old style lives system, although to be fair running out of lives wasnt as annoying as i was expecting. the graphics are nice. So far its probably up there with my favourite 2d mario game - the wii u one - was sort of hoping a bigger 2d mario fan would start the thread but here we are! seen a few people got it in the pics thread, how you guys getting on with it?

Found out about this by chance when I went through the Golden Joystick nominees and after watching its trailer I immediately bought it. Looked like it'd hit all the right notes for me and thankfully that proved correct. It's from a small French studio called Plane Toast (the food-puns seem to be all over the place) and seemingly their first project. You play as a young adult girl who receives an SOS signal from the ship her sister disappeared in six years prior, proceed to leave the space station you're currently residing at and start following the trail of the signal to a mostly deserted colony planet where you grew up. It's not the most unique setup, but it gives you an immediate emotional hook for what is essentially a purely exploration-driven open world game. And it mixes in some slight Dune-ish mystery elements via the titular Sand Witches and some subtext about environmentalism and corporate greed in there as well. The gameplay foundations are very light, there's a bit of climbing and platforming, there's a lot of driving around, and the only thing you find when exploring are either materials to build new tools or certain items you need to collect quests. Because there are still some people living on the planet and they're struggling to survive, so they're more than happy to have a newcomer there who can help out. Story progression is linked to the tools you build, as unlocking one moves the plot and timetable a bit forward. There's no combat, so when I say tools I mean a gadget to allow you to use ziplines or a scanner for your car to more easily find interactable objects, among them signal blockers which jam your map and are basically UbiSoft towers (they only reveal a couple of question marks on the map though, not a hundred). I can't put my hand on what it is exactly, probably just all the gears perfectly fitting together, but it's an incredibly engaging experience IMO. It's not a deep game by any means, at least mechanically. Think of it as a less obtuse version of Sable, or the bigger cousin of A Short Hike, and you get the idea. The world is densely packed and gives the impression of being vast, but you can drive around from one edge to the other in I presume less than five minutes. But it does evoke an incredibly sense of place, mostly due to the strong artstyle, great soundtrack and grounded, believable writing. It's also unmistakably French, and I don't say that with any kind of fun-poking subtext, because the media landscape has become very unified in recent years, so it's nice to see something European with a unique cultural influence for a chance. I guess part of why I like it so much might also be because it just came out of nowhere, which nobody reading this and deciding to pick it up will have the luxury anymore, but I do believe it's a really good 'experience' if you like more challenge-free games. I'm not quite through yet, but I suspect it will conclude at around the 10 hour mark, which seems like a reasonable length for a game without much mechanical depth. One last thing: I play it on Switch because I don't have a PS5 or a decent PC and I wouldn't really recommend that version. It permanently runs sub-30fps and has horrible pop-in and dynamic resolution drops. It speaks to the quality of the game that I'm still enjoying it, but unless you have no other option like myself, I'd strongly recommend playing it anywhere else.

Been playing this for around 6 hrs on Series S - and it's quite enjoyable. Has some similarities, in terms of roguelike progression, as Into the Breach, although game presentation and pathways are significantly different. I've defeated the first boss, and so I'll see how well it keeps my interest (probably up to a point where it turns into a grind (or not)). Anyway it's certainly a bit different in looks at least to the mainstream.