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I was sure there was a thread for this, but apparently not. If anyone sees it post the link and I'll merge Neo The World Ends With You plays quite a bit differently than the original The World Ends With You. Rather than knock a puck between screens, because now there aren't 2 screens, you're instead using your teammates in a battle arena, do enough damage with one of them there'll be a moment where the enemy is vulnerable to a combo attack where you carry on the attack with a different character. Doing this fills a meter that lets you launch more powerful attacks, but I can't say I've been using the special all that much really. The thing that makes the combat notable, in theory, is that each character is assigned a button based on what pin they're assigned (TWEWY is all about badges 🦡 ). So you mash the X button, then when there's a prompt that the enemy is vulnerable or that character has ran out of attack power, you switch to the Y button, or R, L, ZR, ZL, whatever it is. It means you can be looking at meters a lot, seeing if people are available to attack, although as you stick with the pins you just learn the rhythm of them. It's worth stick with some too as they all have the ability to level up or evolve, so stick with them to max out their potential, then switch to the next one. Nothing new to use, then stick on a powerful one you like The tone of the game is similar to the original game, to a point. It's not as misanthropic as Neku could be, but the flip side to that is that the supporting cast can be very annoying. That Japanese game/anime thing of a character having a particular trait, like really liking maths, so every word out of their mouth is about maths. There's precious few characters I can say I like because of this, there's one from another team who seems alright, but then constantly throws in Spanish, Italian of French phrases because he's travelled, rpgs are too long for that king of shit Given that the premise of what TWEWY is about was already revealed in the first game, to mix things up in this one everyone has latent powers. Fret can plant words in people's heads to remind them or influence them, Nagi (a character you get a few days in, it's a while before you get a full team) can rid them of corruption, and Rin can travel back in time. It's all narrative based, and Rin's power does mean a little too much fucking around, but it's better than them holding back the reveal most of the people playing already know I'll say, so far because it took until the end of the first week for me to click with the first game, that it's not a patch on the original. Which is fine, I just want it to be good, and at the minute it's just a bit dull. Possibly my fault for getting in to too many fights, but it could do with being tighter and a little punchier. The day I'm on at the minute is basically a Conquest mode, I need to run around taking on other teams in their zones to earn points, it's something a little novel and different from what's gone on before, even if I suspect they'll change things and revert back to the fannying around of the first few days

This is very good. The original was a pretty unique take on classic Metroid but this is something else. It still has recognisable hallmarks, especially in relation to the first game but it takes the unique aspects of that and uses those to build off. If anything it proves it wasn't a fluke and the unique aspects can carry a game. I dunno how many people here want to play it as I don't really want to talk about it too much at this point as the abilities you get are unconventional half the time and help keep the exploration a puzzle. It's pretty difficult though since it's mostly melee combat, but it could have been just me adjusting to it from playing the original right before this. The exploration isn't always easy, too. It keeps it a little easier since bosses can just be ran past if you're not feeling like you're ready for them on top of the very light stealth elements for regular enemies. Exploration is the core of the game. I'm stumped at the moment. I'm blocked off from where I need to go but I'm in that situation where do I need an ability I'm missing or is there some hidden way and I gain the ability in the place. I'm leaning to the latter since I've combed most of the (pretty large) map.

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.

Probably anther topic doomed to die in solitude, but this is such a unique concept that I wanted to put it out there. I also didn't see much of it in the media space, except for a preview in some magazine a while ago. I usually preface an explanation by saying "this game is a bit like X and has elements of Y" but I really can't do that here because I have never played something similar. It's kind of a dungeon crawler with the setup that people get sucked in some game world where they transform into dice. After that you have to go through multiple floors per level with your character, fight baddies, get to the exist and hopefully collect all the loot in between. 90% of it is combat and here's how I'm going to fail at painting a clear picture of how it plays. Your character has a bunch of actions and a number of dice per turn he/she can use. The dice are rolled and therefore random by nature and actions usually either require or are influenced by the number of the dice. For a strong attack you might need to stack multiple values until you reach the total it needs or if you have an attack that does [ ] damage, the value corresponds to the dice you use to activate it. But that's really just the snowflake on the tip of the iceberg. Some actions require even or odd numbers, or have a minimum or maximum you need to use. Then there are the player characters: the first one is super basic and easy to understand but it can get really complex later on. The robot for example doesn't draw dice, but calculates them on a 11-digit scale. For every time you create one, you're getting closer to the limit and if you exceed it, your turn is basically wasted, so that's a nice risk-reward feature. The witch needs certain values to brew attacks in her cauldron while the tinkerer has a special skill he can freely use, but has to switch it out for a new one after every battle, meaning you can't rely on those powerful moves forever. As borderline impossible it is to explain with words, it actually does an excellent job of teaching you when you play it so there's that at least. So far I quite like it. I don't love it, but it's a unique concept and it's the perfect handheld game, something the Switch unfortunately doesn't offer too often anymore. One run through a dungeon is a 10-15 minute affair, there's barely any loading times, battery usage is minimal due to every just being 2D pictures etc. It's currently on sale and I got it for free through star points but I wouldn't have regretted paying for it.

You know the first thing about this that made me smile? It comes with a manual! I can't really recall the last game I had that came with a real one? Anyway, this game (at time of writing, I'm not upto the second boss yet) warrants being remade. The original game was made in 1986. Gaming has changed a bit in 35 years and a straight up port isn't really going to garner any positive attention. Which, looking at some reviews and scores, this really has. Which, so far, I can only agree it deserves. Oh and two things. 1) I never played this Alex Kidd game, so there's nothing rose tinted there. 2) I definitely won't be playing this with the infinite lives cheat on. With how extremely generous auto-saving is in this remake, it isn't really necessary.

i've played persona games before but no smt games, i guess so far it seems pretty similar but without the daily routine/social link stuff, and the demons/personas are in your party rather than being sort of summoned. you have to talk to the demons to try and recruit them, although this is often bollocks as they ask for loads of stuff and then just run away, i still like it though, they say weird things and it can be pretty funny. the demons mostly look familiar too as they're pretty much the same from the persona games. i'm playing the super easy mode (which is free dlc), and it's really easy, i could have coped with some more difficulty, maybe a mode inbetween the normal one and the super easy one. but it's supposed to be quite long so the super easy mode should help with that. it's probably a good job i'm on the easy mode too as my main heal spell changed into something useless, and i've probably given most of my good healing items to demons while trying to recruit them. so i don't have many ways of healing at the moment but it hasn't made much difference. minor spoiler for stuff near the start of the game this is a ps2 game i think, i'm not sure if any graphics have been upgraded, it doesn't really look like it, it just looks like a ps2 game in much higher resolution. so far it's alright, i'm quite enjoying it but it's not been amazing or anything. i'm going to keep playing anyway.

So, this has finally seen a multiformat release (it’s out on PS4 tomorrow but pre-orders get it a day early). The Ghosts series is something I’ve always enjoyed, but rarely managed to finish. I did complete Super Ghouls N Ghosts on the SNES back in the day, which certainly took some doing. In terms of difficulty, this is certainly the most player friendly yet. If you fancy a serious challenge, stick it on Legend. Squire, the lowest difficulty gives you several hits before you die, but apparently locks away some content, though I don’t know what yet. It’s still a tough game. I died several times against the first boss. And it still has the typical death traps that will almost certainly kill you the first time, due to how unpredictable they are. I do miss the double jump feature from Super GnG, as a lot of my deaths have come from falling into pits. Or getting overwhelmed by constantly respawning enemies. I’ve reached Level 3. The second boss was a bloody chore. We shall see how it goes…

I didn't entirely know what to expect from this but gave it a go, well you take pictures of pokemon, but i thought it'd be more like an arcade game where you're scored per run on how good your pictures are or something. it's not really like that, you're more scored on individual pictures. for each pokemon there's 4 star levels of picture - which is dependent on what the pokemon is doing, and for each star level you're rated on how good the picture is. the game doesn't really know how good a picture is, i've taken some great pics and the game just tells me they're crap. it's based on more simple stuff like is the pokemon looking at you, does it fill the picture, stuff like that, which does make sense most of the time. and you can do stuff to try and change what the pokemon is doing - such as throwing an apple at it, or playing a tune. it's pretty fun, nice and relaxing, been playing for maybe 10 hours or so, it's good for 30 to 60 min go, not sure i'd want to play it for hours at a time. sometimes i miss something and keep having to replay a level to get it but the levels are pretty short so it's not really a problem, you're supposed to replay them. you can only submit one photo per pokemon at the end of a level which does seem like it's just to make the game longer, but i guess it does add an element of risk in which one you should choose/will it be worth more points than one you already have, or do you pick a crap one from a star level you don't currently have etc. I'm not always sure how you unlock more levels, but probably from leveling up the levels by scoring points on them (which makes more stuff happen on them and new pokemon show up) and sometimes they ask you to photo something specific. not really sure what to say about it overall, i'm quite enjoying it, but it's not super exciting or anything. if you want a game about taking pictures of pokemon - it's great! i'll probably end up having to look at a guide for how to get some of the different star level pictures.

edit - realised i didn't really explain the game - you're the bosses son or something and he gives you a job in this huge office building, you do jobs to work your way up, like deliver parcels, fix projectors, assemble robots. but you're incompetent and generally destroy everything. and then you get promoted. Got this in a recent sale. it's a bit all over the place and i didn't really like it at first but quite like it now. think i'm on level 6 of 9 or so. It's one of those type of games i think looks fun in theory but not sure i'd have fun playing it, like surgeon simulator or that octopus dad game - but i don't really know how close it is to these as i haven't played them. there is definitely some game in good job anyway but the controls can be really annoying sometimes - mainly when trying to maneuver/drag stuff around. and it can be pretty funny destroying an office just to put a box in the right place or install wifi or whatever. the points for destroying stuff i don't really understand as you should get points for it because it's fun but you don't, it seems to mark you down for it but at the same time doesn't seem to matter - seems like the main thing is to do stuff fast to get a better rank - but i'm not totally sure about all the scoring stuff. quite a few of the missions, especially near the start, can be boring/repetitive, but there are some great missions too. i think it generally gets better but it might be just me getting used to it. not sure, but after a bad start am quite enjoying it now anyway. did anyone else play this?

Credit to Genesis Noir for having an unusual story. Before time and existence a good give physical form to his experiences to make sense of the world, falls for a beautiful jazz singer (also a god), her ex gets jealous (also a god), and kills her. The explosion from his gun is the big bang that starts the universe as we understand it, and you travel through time to find a way to make the bullet miss her, something you can do because you don't experience time as we do. All of this is jazz themed, but you'll bounce through various times, from cavemen to feudal japan and so on As a game, its not really anything special. I've played it on pc and did everything with the mouse, it's almost always a case of clicking on something or spinning something, it's rare the puzzle itself is especially difficult. What can be difficult is knowing what's expected of you. I got stuck really early on because I didn't realise I could click on something, and that was all I had to do to move on. I've had it be temperamental too with what you're clicking on which has again led me to being stuck on very simple puzzles. The only but I had was on a clock puzzle later in the game. I needed to set a particular time, but I couldn't back out from the clock view to see the time again. I think something similar may have happened earlier in the game too looking at the clue board. It's not great but there's some cool things to look at, it's original and I could see some people really clicking with it, it didn't really do it for me though

It's difficult to talk about this game here since we don't have many Monster Hunters here. There are many nuances that are different to previous games; are they better? at this point I'm undecided. Some ways yes and others no. I dunno how to talk about MH to you guys. Just sack off whatever mediocre shit your playing now and get into this. Fuck your story based games. They're not good: play a few hours of this then watch something from the Criterion Collection. You'll be better for it. The weapon types are made in a way where you need to sink serious time into them and defeat the enemy types optimally. There's true satisfaction in that. The variety of play is so broad and also has so much depth. How ever you prefer to play you're covered, unless you're a stealth pacifist type then either get eaten or disappoint your comrades. But this has been the case this whole time with MH. I can't help you if you're not cool enough to be into it. And I'm sympethetic; I'm also a relative newcomer, but I saw the error of my ways and I hate to see people making the same mistake I did. This is a hard follow up to MH World and not only because of the obvious technical limitations, although a shift in gameplay and level design make up for it since the mobility options make every inch of the map explorable. But I will say that the ground, intuitive routes feel like classic MH so when you start to fuck around with your mobility for a moment it feels like a whole new world is opening up to you. It's so smart. We're here to fight monsters, though. And that's great. Always has been. But what Rise does different is okay. I just say that because the big drama mechanic is mounting monsters and taking control of them, which is really cool to do, but it's rarer, and less immediate than what you can do in Iceborne with the clutch claw. It just feels a bit weird this lesser console having a mechanic (which is literally having control of a monster) more advanced but it just doesn't feel as good as just being able to slam them into a wall from the position you mount them. But there is also a lacking in drama to the gameplay compared to MH World. It's not so lacking it feels like Dauntless, there is definitely more gameplay driven drama here, no doubt. And I can't stress that enough. I guess it just lacks the flourishes I got used to. I always feel like I gotta be more down on something I'm actually hugely enjoying. I'm just countering strawmen in my head. But I'm super enjoying it overall. I would talk more about how the bugs you control give you mobility but I've still not got used to them despite being 15 hours in. I've been doing okay but that new mechanic has a lot of depth I've not been able to figure out yet. Early on you can play like an old idiot and get away with it. But one of the last fights I had was against the new, flagship beast and his fight is clearly designed with high mobility in mind so I guess I gotta work on that.

Finished this over the weekend, really enjoyed it, you basically beat the crap out of loads of bad dudes. it's fun. send your team to different parts of the map and switch between them to get stuff done faster. the dodge/flurry and countering baddies with bombs/ice and that stuff is good fun. and the characters play a bit differently, which is good, mixes it up a bit. there's a really cool move impa does where she there's a big world map with main missions, loads of side missions, and fetch quest style missions - and while i don't like fetch quest stuff this is at least reasonably well done here with an icon on the map tells you what you need, you can mark it to show what missions you need to do to collect the stuff, then just click on the icon to complete it - no messing around talking to people. there are absolutely loads of side missions, i'm making up numbers here but say there are 40 on the map, i maybe did 10, there's probably more i've not unlocked. the weapon merging/leveling up is a bit annoying and boring. was playing it pretty slow, mission or 2 a day, the game timer said it took 30 hours or so, it seemed like less though, not sure. there's still loads of stuff to do, including what looks like more story stuff after the credits possibly. the story was cool how it fits in with botw, although i forgot some of the plot of that which confused me First time i've played a dynasty warriors/musou game, i'd probably play another but bad timing as the persona one is out in a few weeks, doubt i'll want to play one again so soon. oh yeah it looks really nice too, although performance sometimes takes a hit - i didn't find it too bad.

I was just two and a half hours playing the Balan Wonderworld demo. It’s not half as bad as I’d heard on podcasts that had also clearly only played the first two levels of world one before turning it off and deciding to tell everyone it’s the worst game ever. The opening levels are a bit crap but the later sheep and the cog worlds are much better. I’m not talking Mario levels of quality but certainly gets better than the opening world. Plus the later costumes you find you can use when you go back to previous worlds to get to further trophies which in turn opens up more worlds. The music is also better later on. Not completely awful but an alright time waster and with so few games of its kind on xbox and PlayStation beggars can’t be choosers.

There's kind of been 3 types of Ys games over the years. The first couple you just bashed in to enemies, then they became hyper, isometric, all about attacking. Then we got to the 3D versions and it was still a game about going on the attack, but now what type of attack was important. You'd eventually gather 3 characters, a sword character (red), a blunt attack character (blue), and a piercing character (green), different enemy types are weak to different attack types, and you can switch on the fly to suit And that's how it's been for a few games now. Ys IX follows the same formula, but brings in a more traditional RPG structure. Previously side quests would task you with just getting certain drops, you'd get them from your home base, which was a tiny area, and that would be it. 99.9% of the time you were out killing things Ys IX is a little different, structured like a traditional JRPG, it starts slow, with the plot set up, then some short easy combat to ease you in, then a chunk more story. The world is no longer 1 small safe area then a world of combat, instead you're in a city, with combat, shopping, side quests, and exploration taking place throughout, I've not seen this in an Ys game before, even if it's fairly typical for the genre. You're eased in to the world with quests to visit shops and buy gear, it's a little slow going. There's still "dungeons", sections where there's nothing but combat and exploration, but now there's also little dimension pockets where you can enter combat and fight a handful of enemies, then just carry on with whatever you were supposed to be doing The tower defence style sections are still here, now you're whisked away at certain points to fight as a team, protecting a crystal, against waves of enemies. Not especially interesting, and the camera annoyed me a little with this, it maybe could do with being pulled back a bit so you see more of the field, but then they've not been too demanding so far, so maybe it doesn't matter also it's all anime goth now

I think Murder By Numbers was pitched to me as Picross meets Phoenix Wright, and initially that seems to be a big grand, it's just picross with a murder mystery plot. A reasonably well told plot, it's got quite a sharp script, big characters, it's kind of funny at points, especially with how they use their still art assets to animate a scene, it's well done. The gameplay though is just scrolling around an area to find a hidden object, when your cursor glows red to say you're on it you trigger a Picross puzzle. If you don't know what picross is, it's like sudoku mixed with a crossword. You have numbers on the side and top of a grid, e.g. 3, 4. That means of that row a run of 3 blocks will be coloured, then a run of 4, its your job to completely fill in the grid. The solution here always ends up being a clue (near enough), something relevant to the mystery. where it does start to remind me of Phoenix wright more is that you can talk to the other characters. Mostly this is simple, you run down a list of questions. However, you can start to present them with the items you've found, which can trigger them to offer up more information, and move the plot on I'm enjoying it. I'm hoping it gets a bit more meaty. I was going to say gritty, but I don't think it needs to, it's tame really, but equally it hasn't really reached something like Danganronpa, which is silly, but compelling and adult

I bought the All in one pack for this way back in 2017, played it once, and assumed my free trial would be long expired but no, it’s still active, for however long. I played it for two hours today, basically to the end of the introduction to the game, which felt like it was more or less completely offline. Impressions so far - well the graphics show the game’s age, it was originally released in 2012 on the Wii. But the cut-scenes and close-ups are quite nice. There is no voice acting in the game but the music is nice, and already I think I’ve heard more variety than in the entirety of XI. Battles are initiated by running into enemies in the field, you can move around in battle which seems to be the biggest change, although I’ve no idea if it serves any practical purpose. Four years ago (!) I struggled with the Japanese but I can read it more smoothly now. I have a week off with absolutely nothing to do, so I’m gonna sink some time into this. It will be my first mmorpg experience.

Picked this up as something bright and colourful to counteract how dark and oppressive Outer Wilds is. You play as Stella, accompanied by her pet dog Daffodil, who has taken over from Charon as the “spiritfarer” - in other words, it’s a death management sim, but it’s not gloomy at all. The game looks and sounds absolutely stunning. I’ve literally only played 30 minutes but I loved it. Seems like the game will be a mix of exploration with gentle management elements.

I've seen this described as a cross between mirrors edge and super meat boy. i think that's a good description, i also really like both of those games, it's a first person platformer with instant restarts, quite a lot of checkpoints, and one hit kill for you and the enemies. but it seems more random than 2D stuff like this as you can't see everthing that's shooting at you. it's sort of amazing. but also really hard and frustrating. in the first 5 levels or so i'd already thought i might have to give up on two different sections. the enemies are very good at shooting guns, maybe a bit too good, you can jump over them and they'll still shoot you instantly, you just have to keep moving and hope you don't get hit. i tried playing cloudbuilt twice (two different versions) and had to give up quite far in both times, i have a feeling this might be similar. really not sure i'll be able to finish it, so an easier mode would be a good addition, but no regrets buying it (although only paid a tenner), it's been mostly great so far. i've just done the first boss, which comes quite late, think i'm on about level 7 or 8 or something, when i saw it it my thoughts were that it's awesome but i might not be able to do it. it took me about 30 mins and 200 deaths, there's a video of someone making it look easy in the spoiler below, this also shows why the game is so good: dunno if anyone else is interested in this? oh and although there are loads of checkpoints these don't save, you have to get to the end of the level for it to save. oh oh and there's powerups and stuff, i can deflect bullets back, but the timing is strict (you can upgrade it) so i just keep swiping and sometimes it saves me a death.

So that little Zelda-like with the weird title and a soundtrack from Uematsu is shifting its viewpoint (and production values) for what is possibly the most ambitious sequel in the indie space I've ever seen. Oceanhorn 2 doesn't quite wear its inspirations on its sleeve as clearly as the first one did. In its essence it's a very classic action-adventure game, but there are also shades of JRPG in there. It's not quite as clear cut as the internet would make you believe and comparing it to one or the other feels rather unfair then. If I absolutely wanted to compare it to other games, I'd call it a mix between Sudeki and Venetica in how it's structured and as far as its noticeable flaws thankfully don't impact the enjoyment too much. So far my character can fight with a sword, throw bombs and shoot non-elemental, fire or electric pojectiles with his gun. All those actions are used for combat (more on that later) and puzzle-solving. You can burn certain wooden obstacles with the fire shot, charge generators with electricity, blow stuff up with your bombs - the usual stuff. Exploring the various locales (towns, cities, fields, dungeons) yields a couple of rewards, but they're not particularly impressive for the most part and usually consist of trinkets that will be immediately transmuted into a certain amount of money. Occasionally you'll find shards which are used to power up your equipment or heart pieces which bump your maximum amount of life after finding three. I really enjoy wandering around the areas and getting rewarded for it, but there could have been a bit more to keep you motivated (maybe scrolls that unlock special moves in combat or mixed-elemental shots would have been a cool idea). I've also travelled by boat on the world map a bit but so far it looks like this aspect will become more important later on. Right now everything that isn't part of the next story destination is blocked off. Speaking of combat, which unfortunately is the game's weakest link. It's not fundamentally bad: hitting an enemy with your sword feels good and does solid chunks of damage, aiming and shooting with the gun works better than I expected it to. But combining everything together feels clunky, secondary combo hits have to be inputted right at the tail end of a swing and enemy attack patterns feel random and oddly animated so you never really know if you have time for one or three attacks before they counter, as they never flinch -- unless hit with a critical attack, which you have no control over unless it was a surprise attack. With better readability and a more fluent moveset combat would have been solid. As it is now it's more of a hit-and-run affair. It's not game breaking and there aren't too many fights anyway, but still something to keep in mind. So that's basically it, you run around exploring the world, find secrets, solve puzzles and fight the occasional monster or two. It's a very classic game-y setup but I enjoy it quite a lot. It's a charming throwback to those colourful action adventures from the PS2 era. There's a bit of story there as well but it's not the main draw certainly. Still, to give them some credit, they at least try to build upon the lore they established in the first game, but it's nothing we haven't heard or read before. The player character is unfortunately silent, but he's accompanied by two likeable, if a bit tropey, party members who can also be used in puzzles (and are absolutely useless in combat). Visually it's one of the prettiest games on Switch which came a bit as a surprise considering it's an indie title. Very clean style, popping colours, a lot of detail, good animations for the most part, solid performance, great lighting and despite all of that the loading times are some of the shortest I've seen on the system so far (it takes 20 seconds after clicking on the icon on the Switch menu to being able to walk around). This is getting a lot of flack online for being "not as good as Zelda" which I think is both unfair and not even entirely true, since it doesn't even want to be a Zelda-like. It's flawed but enjoyable, maybe lacks some depth but makes up for it with its charm and beautiful world. The price tag might look a bit steep at first glance but I don't regret buying it. Spent the best part of my weekend playing it and am looking forward to more.

I'm pretty sure this was free on Switch. There's a publisher on there that gives things free if you've bought their other games, so a couple of people on here might have this. I've got to say, it's worth paying for, it's a great little game. You play as a circle missing a slice who sets off on a journey to make themselves whole. The gameplay is simple, roll and jump. You eventually meet a stick who has never explored or experienced much who joins you, now you can stick to things. Eventually it becomes apparent that stick just wants to lay down roots and you're pushing them in to things they aren't wanting to do. So you break up, then you meet Moss who has no interest in a relationship and just wants comfort. Now you can only cling to things, you can't jump anymore. The game goes on like this, new people, new types of relationships, and new gameplay. It gets relatively heavy and does a good job of tieing its themes in to gameplay. It's way longer than I expected too, a good few hours. Genuinely one of the best things I've played on Switch this year

I was never going to buy this. I always wanted to play Gal Fighters on the Neo Geo Pocket but never picked it up, now it's really not worth the price, especially as it's just the Fatal Fury game with a different roster. SNK Heroines Tag Battle isn't Gal Fighters, but it leans on it. It's more gratuitous than Gal Fighters, which was just a fighting game, and Mai aside, treats the female characters as it would the males. This takes Terry and makes him a pretty girl, puts everyone in revealing novelty costumes, it's like a Tecmo game. I didn't want to support that, but the novelty got the better of me so I picked it up cheap intending to never play it. Boredom and lack of things to play on the Switch got the better of me, and now here we are It's not that bad a game. It's a tag battle, but with layers of confusion that make it kind of impenetrable. There's an auto-combo system, so press either of the attack buttons and you'll chain together a string of attacks, and you can finish with a special move. Special moves are a button press too, so down + special does one thing, back + special something else, simplistic but it's fun enough. There's orbs dotted around the stage than can be smashed, and I think recover energy from your support character, I'm not sure, this is where the game starts to lose me a bit You pick two characters, one is the fighter, one is support, but you can switch between them. They share the same health bar, so there's no great benefit in switching, but they have different special meters. Whenever you use a special attack your special meter drains, but does refill slowly over times. I'm not a fan of this system at all, I just don't see the benefit. However, and this is something I conceptually like but in practice I find unreadable, you don't win the fight by depleting your opponents health bar, instead you have to do enough damage to get them in to the danger zone then launch a super move. you can only launch a super move if you have enough special bar left. How much is enough? Fuck knows, so it seems better to just switch characters once you've done the damage. You can also have your support character throw shit from the background, the computer does this all the time, the final boss especially, I've never worked out how to do it. Also there's a block button rather than just pushing back, this is shit, plus there's no way to break combos, which I'm not against on principal, but with some of the cheap shit the final boss pulls. And on that note. The game is very easy, it's no wonder I never learnt how to play it, but the final boss is proper cheap, difficult SNK. It will straight up cheap at times, seeming to skip animations so it can dodge or block your supers and countering perfectly to end the fight. I was seemingly getting stunned in one hit so I could be finished too. Infuriating, and enough of a reason to never play it again. It's not irredeemably bad, but there's enough wrong with it, the story, the confusing systems, the slowdown, the final boss, that I'm not looking to learn how to play it

Don't think this ever migrated into the Games thread, but I started playing it today. It's pretty clunky, but already has a few interesting ideas in terms of making you work things out whilst investigating/researching and linking events together when using the psychic flashbacks. The Lovecraft vibe is quite obvious, and combat best avoided at times rather than head on. Promising few hours, so I'll be seeing this through.

So this is the action rogue-like from makers of Bastion and Transistor. It's a very good one. It has a lot of potential stuff in terms of weapons, buffs and abilities for a run that come together in some surprisingly interesting ways. I don't really want to go into it all, because there is so much and it's a bit of a spoiler, in a way. I do think anyone who likes Dead Cells will have a hard time not getting into this too. It's got the same kind of fast, dash-y combat but I'd argue the upgrades are probably more interesting because they're tied to more than your attacks. I guess Dead Cells has some of that but it's robust with a bigger variety of abilities that can tie to your dash, for example. But Dead Cells is better in some other ways. They're both cool and good; get both! I'm also quite enjoying the story more than I expected. It's set in Greek mythologies' underworld and done in quite traditional way in that it's mostly a family squabble the consequences of which is big, dramatic and violent fights and supernatural displays of power. It's kinda fun that you're trying to escape the underworld in a rogue-like and no-one really cares that you're doing that because they know you'll die and be back. Some give quiet encouragement or Hades himself just rolls his eyes as you leave. It's played pretty straight and it's cool to hang out in that starting area before the intense combat. I'm not sure how many stages there are but the best I've done is get to the third boss, who are a pair of cheaters. I dunno how I'm meant to do it right now. I think since I don't have a brilliant way to do a well synchronised build yet, just out of inexperience, but I'll get it.

Couldn’t find a thread on it, nobody else played this? It’s a rhythm action game for those who like metal and killing zombies. Worth it alone for noticing how close the fake versions of bands like Iron Maiden and Faith No More are. At least watch the opening few minutes of the story, I’ve been having a great laugh with it. On GamePass currently, worth a look.

so this is the new racing game that looks like virtua racing. edit- here’s a video: i like it. The handling is good, it’s like old school arcade drifting, a little bit like outrun 2 - although I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, it’s not as good as outrun 2. Not many things are. Also you get boost from drifting. so the time trials are really good fun, there’s staff ghosts to beat and leaderboards and stuff. I’ve spent most of my time trying to beat the staff ghosts and friends. the racing is where we start to see problems, the AI/rubber banding are both very agressive, it’s weird. They will ram you, and even if you save up boost and use it all at once they will still be right behind you. It’s still manageable, not had many problems winning the championships on hard mode, but guess expert mode could be annoying. I pretty much think all racing games have bad AI though so it’s just a bit more worse than usual here. I prefer time trials so it won’t affect me as much. there are a lot of cars, 8? Drivers who have 4 cars each. With different stats and stuff. Most/all based on real cars, I’m disappointed the GT-ONE doesn’t seem to be the fastest for time trials so I can’t use it. the tracks, hmmm, there are some cool tracks, they look nice, but overall I’m less convinced by the tracks, instead of having a few basic tracks, some intermediate tracks and some tricky ones, they all seem to be on a similar level, Some a bit harder but mostly quite easy to get round, quite wide. They aren’t bad mind, there’s one with dinosaurs and everything, I sort of like them but they could have been better I guess. There are a decent amount of tracks, 16 I think. And you can play them reversed, or was it mirrored? Can’t remember. its on gamepass, that’s the version I’m playing. Not 100% sure but don’t think it’s on pc gamepass. I think it’s out on everything, steam, PS4, Xbox, switch. so overall it’s thumbs up for me, think I’d have been happy to pay the preorder price which was about 12 quid, bearing in mind I really like time trials so am less bothered about the AI annoyances.