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A cosy/creepy puzzle/adventure follow-up to Strange Horticulture. Once again set in a creepy fictional Lake District village, this time you're in a shop dealing in strange occult objects. You're ensconced in your comfy shop as customers come in bringing news of grim goings-on outside, and you examine the objects on your shelves and consult your reference books to give them the right item for their needs. You get clues and messages which lead you to locations in the town on your maps, giving you little bits of story/lore and additional items. They also help you solve puzzles in your shop for more items or additional help in identifying objects. I enjoyed Strange Horticulture, but I like these weird objects more than the plants in that game. As in the previous game there's' a simple pleasure in labelling and organising your stock on the shelves according to whatever system you come up with.

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.

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.

Only played a few minutes before I go to sleep, but yep, pretty sweet so far. One thing I thought was really cool is that one of the menu options is you can change the appearance of the food in game. Could be as simple as you’re veggie or vegan and you would rather not everything be meat, but there’s also some silly options like “Castlevaniaesque” and “monster”. In related and weird news, IGN (or their freelancer) appear to have stolen an indie guy’s video review script. Apparently IGN hav taken down their review while they investigate.

Bought this a few days ago and I think this might, maybe, possibly, be a game some other people are interested in. As the name implies you're the owner of a small bookshop (in the form of a trailer you drive around with) and try to make a living in a small coastal town by visiting certain places and selling books. The books are categorised into genres like crime, fantasy, non-fiction etc. and certain areas favour one or the other – for example, if you go to the beach, you should pack a couple more children's books than usual because they're good sellers there (keep in mind this is a game of fiction and does not represent reality). You can also decorate your shop and certain decorations influence people's buying habits. A chair or a dog (don't ask) will make people stay around longer and possibly purchase more, whereas certain items with a theme could result in higher sales of related books, ie. spooky decorations push Stephen King novels and such. So below the cozy fassade this has some very manipulative capitalist energy but ultimately it's all done in a cute and inoffensive manner. The majority of the book sales happen automatically, meaning you see people walk in and out of the trailer and tiny speech bubbles showing what they're buying. But a couple of times per day someone will ask for a recommendation, which is where the slightly more active part of the process begins. Someone might ask for an easy read with few pages, someone might specifically ask for certain themes or time periods. For the most part it's easy enough to find the right one as there's also a bit of leeway, but occasionally you come across one that doesn't make much sense (asking for a happy ending but refusing your recommendation if it doesn't have one for example). Some are also a bit weird, like a fanatic of classic plays being super happy when you recommend Hamlet, as if they'd never heard or read about it. The books are real-life books of course. At first I was a bit disappointed there wasn't a list of what you could stock but ultimately this would just be an incomplete list of, well, any book ever written, so kind of pointless. The way it works is that you buy them pre-owned without any clue what's in the box and only by the time you're out and about and someone wants a recommendation can you actually go through what's on display and make an informed choice. There's a short summary of everything and I've already taken screenshots of a few that sound interesting. It's also not snobbishly discrimating, you can have Shakespeare and Le Guin right next to manga like Sailor Moon or Dragon Ball, which I think helps to make it more believable. I think it's a nice cozy game for this season, nothing too deep but also not mind-numbingly passive, a nice middleground that might even indirectly give you a recommendation here and there. Also looks fine on Switch 2 handheld mode despite being a Switch 1 game, though I suspect native resolution on a Steamdeck for example would fare even better (keep in mind the screenshots look worse than the game because of Switch 2 compression). This was my very first recommendation btw., I think the game is stalking my IP.

I thought there might be a thread for this, but there isn't. So I'll be the one to make one for the weird indie game Premise is you've got 50 games which are emulative of the style of 8bit to early 16bit era, all released by this fake company called 'Ufosoft' which shut down in the 90s. Games which are dungeon explorers, side scrolling beat em ups, weird puzzlers where you're a chameleon blending into tiles, a kinda horse betting game. Game where you hop around platforms kicking soccerballs at things. A platformer all about suiciding yourself. Apparently there's a full 20 hour classic FF style turn based RPG in there, and an Ultima style first person dungeon crawler. Lots of weird shit The games are hard. You have to actually learn them, it ain't Warioware. Naturally, as an impatient person, I'm full of salt and rage at some of it. But it is interesting, the games get more sophisticated and better to control over the 'years'. Eg, pick up the final game they released, Cyber Owls, which is a beat-em-up that 'released' in 1989, and compare it to Fist Hell from 1987. Similar mechanics but more intuitive movement and faster gameplay. Also some of the games have couch multiplayer. Some of the games are good, some seem crap though like the weird egg dungeon crawler at the beginning where they kill you for walking right. I don't have much history with this era of gaming but it's been talked up a whole lot this year so after enjoying Balatro so much that it's potential GOTY for me I thought I'd try to expand my horizons on here. So maybe I bump this later way more keen on it, or someone else might find it interesting. I did find this one potentially interesting title, Bug Hunter (1984), which is this strategic kinda turn based bomberman game you see below where you have to kill bugs. I think the idea is to find your niche and get comfortable with a few familiar games first before branching out into the more scary ones (which for me, are platformers. Fuck man, great way to get me tilted 😠) Very original idea for a game, but fuck I bet it took a shitload of work to get 50 of them. Some are a bit more throaway like the camoflague gecko game though so maybe there's some sensible overlap that they achieve when implementing them This seems to just be Windows currently, but you could probably play it on any old machine. Definitely expect to see it on Switch eventually

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

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.

What a ship load of improvements and a great way to start with far better motivations than just selling fruit to get by. This is wonderful.

This is the collection that came out a year or so ago that has both the PS1 games in it. We have a thread for the Wii remake, which I'd completely forgotten about, but that seems to be an actual remake and didn't include the sequel. There's also a PS2 port, which I've played, and we'll get to in a bit, and I think that may have been a remake too. First off, I've played through the first game, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, it's pretty good, and it looks alright all things considered. You couldn't tell looking at it that it was a PS1 game originally. The cutscenes are slow as fuck, there's an option to skip or fast forward them, but a bit of editing wouldn't have been the worst choice, so I've no idea what the plot is because I'm not sitting through all that. The game plays fine, for the most part, the design is pretty simple, early 3d platformer in that it's polygons that you traverse in 2d. You grab enemies and throw them at other enemies and items. Later this is so you can solve puzzles to progress, and these can get tricky, but also use them to double jump. Again, easy enough at first, you're just climbing up to higher platforms, but gets much tougher later. There's a few rough edges, some old fashioned elements with how hit and miss contact can be with enemies, particularly in the background, and it's tougher than something like Kirby which it's most similar too. The bit where it does show it's age is the movement. There's a very digital, block by block feel to how the game handles. There's no overstep to edges, grabs, or the game being generous enough to extend your jump so you make it when you maybe shouldn't quite. It's most noticeable in the more difficult platforming, if you're not precise then it's not happening, but as the world moves in the same stiff pattern as you do it can be a bit maddening. It's where that PS2 version I mentioned comes in. That's the version I've played the most, and I swear the movement is smoother than here. It's that era of Japanese exclusive remakes like the Sega Ages line, so I think it's a full remake of the game, and as such controls a little more fluid. It wouldn't amaze me if that's what the Wii version was based off. Maybe I'm imagining it, but while this is a pretty good version, I'd probably rather play that one

Wow, no thread for this? I'm surprised. Been dipping and diving into lots of different PC games and struggling to find something that really grabs me. This is it, I think. I'm only about 90 minutes in, so far it's an adventure set in a dilapidated world that feels marked by communism, or on the verge of some sort of ugly class upheaval. You're a very hungover detective who doesn't really know what's happening but there's a case you got to investigate. But maybe the real thing you got to investigate is who you are and what has happened to you. Sound familiar? I really like it so far. It's basically just a game about reading lots of text so far and passing/failing speech checks. I don't really get all the systems yet, but it's like PS:T through the lens of Jack Kerouac or William S Burroughs. Absolutely fucked up and manky but very beautifully written heaps of text everywhere. The screen where they show you all your perks/specialities is so aggressively wordy. I don't know if there is actually any combat in the game because every perk seems to be based around some personality trait

Finished this a few days ago, rather enjoyed it so I thought I'd give it a bit more exposure. From what I can tell it's based on one of those internet properties, as in someone is drawing little comics with the characters and selling merchandise and such. Interesting idea to translate this into a full videogame, but the end result speaks for itself. This follows the template of a very classic JRPG with exploration, puzzles and turn-based combat. You play a new character in this specific universe that gets thrown into a little time-travelling storyline, where you need to visit certain areas and time periods to destroy core nodes of an evil plant that wants to destroy humanity and restore earth to its primordial origins. In that sense it's not subtle with its environmental themes and it kind of makes the antagonist sympathetic in a way, like you sometimes root (pun intended) for Poison Ivy in a Batman comic. Though in this case the enemy isn't some attractive model but rather a weird amalgamation of vines and thorns that can possess other living beings. While you're time-jumping around you're controlling a party of four and dispatching said mutated enemies in turn-based combat. It's a relatively basic, straightforward combat system with four different attack types and therefore four different potential weaknesses on both your end and enemies. A timeline in the upper right corner shows the turn order and it's here where it adds a tiny bit of unique depth to systems, as you can alter that timeline by spending some energy and, for example, move one of your teammates in front of an enemy to maybe get some healing done before they can hit you. I doesn't go much further than that and stays very simple as a result though. There's only two or three bosses where I had to go out of my way to incorporate a proper tactic, like forcing one half of a boss duo to duel on of my characters (by moving their turn to coincide with one of mine) so that they couldn't use their devastating team-combo. But otherwise this doesn't go beyond what your usual Mario RPG would do – which was fine for me, but might be a bit too limited for other people. One thing I enjoyed is that how much it crammed into its relatively short length (16 hours). You visit a ton of different locales – farms, schools, Paris by night –, the storyline does tackle quite a few different subjects and gives every party member breathing room, resulting in a game that feels significantly larger than its playtime suggests. It also doesn't shy away from more dark moments, but portrays them in a very digestible manner through some rather well-written dialogue. While you time-hop around you cross paths with one NPC at different stages of her life, which gives it a very human anchor to mould the storyline around. I do love how very French it feels, too. A lot of games are either very Asian or very American these days, so it's always nice to see something like this pop up and have a French farmer girl make fun of the Parisian high society, or people using Euro as their currency, or just every atom of its design channel classic French/European comic artwork. For a small game it's also very polished, with rather beautiful visuals, nice UI work, really good character portraits, a genuinely great soundtrack. Some of the puzzle designs can seem a bit badly signposted but I ended up getting through without too much trouble. Twice I had a character die in battle but remain at 1HP so I couldn't revive them, which was a bit annoying the second time as it was a boss battle so I kind of had to let them kill myself to retry. But ultimately this is a very accomplished effort all around. I played the Switch version on Switch 2 and it's mostly 60fps, but when I checked its performance on Switch 1 earlier this year it looked kind of rough, so Switch 2 or PC is the way to go here I'd say. (Also, Nintendo has to do something about screenshots on Switch 2. There's no reason for them to get saved in such awful quality.)

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.

The actual title doesn't contain Shin Megami Tensei in it, which is probably because it's already stupidly long, but it'd do wonders for brand recognition. Anyway, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army was a PS2 Devil Summoner game, and this is a remaster / remake of it, somewhere in between because it's definitely upscaled cutscenes and quite possibly game world but they've adjusted the combat and gameplay. Apparently, I've never played the original. The combat is more active than a usual jrpg, kind of like Ni No Kuni. In battles you're locked in the combat area and you, as Raidou, can use light and heavy attacks, shoot enemies to stop them dodging about, and increasingly lob some slowly recharging magic. What makes Raidou unique as a Devil Summoner is that he can summon 2 demons to help him rather than 1. These demons generally act on their own, although you can tell them to cast specific things, and you can tell them to not use magic if you're low on mp The MP system works differently too. Your team all share one bar, and your demons will constantly be using magic ideally, so you really need to recover MP constantly. Fortunately, using your light attack gets you MP back, although it doesn't do as much damage, so you want to alternate between lots of light attacks and a heavy to mix recovery with actual damage. There's a few other moves too, specials that can be triggered at points, and the ability to hide your demons when really powerful attacks are coming Outside of combat the story has been pretty interesting so far. A girl who asked us to kill her then got kidnapped by demons, so we're sorting that out. From what I understand each chapter is it's own thing. You use your demons out of battle too, occasionally to help with the investigation, sometimes just to recover items So far I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty easy, although I suppose how many fights you get in to determines that. You can avoid a lot, but it's probably not a great idea early on while the combat feels fresh, just so you don't end up having to grind for a boss

Anyone else picked this up at some point? It came out first two years ago but it came out just after Nuclear Throne which is a very similar game so I passed on it back then, but it was on sale on Switch recently so I picked it up as I'm struggling in a gaming rut and for some reason, I felt like playing this. So the game itself. It's a twin-stick shooter and rogue-like, or rogue-lite if you like. You are tasked with getting to the bottom of the "Gungeon"; a dungeon that is very gun-themed. Bullseyes hang from the walls like sigils, revolver-like mechanisms teleport you around the area and other gun-themed devices litter the medieval style Gungeon. You make your way through shooting enemies (a strange bunch; walking bullets and shells with corresponding guns, knights, ghosts, a mini-gun wielding crow. These are the more normal agitators). To help you through these oddballs you have a diving roll with generous invincibility frames and one of the most varied arsenals of guns but in a video game (citation needed). You have four characters to chose from who start with different weapons, consumable skills and passive skills. Even more of both kinds of skills can also be found in the Gungeon along with the weapons. The Pilot, for example, gets a lockpick which means he has a chance of opening chests without needing a key, but if it fails the lock is broken and the chest is sealed shut. The Space Marine starts with a piece of armour giving him an extra hit point. I'm actually having quite a hard time with it. I can sometimes get to the fourth floor but I'm not sure if that is good or not. I did rescue a guy one run where he says he can let me skip floors but I don't know how far down I have to go before he lets me use the shortcut. I bet it's the fifth floor. And while I mostly do okay in the Gungeon itself the bosses can be a bit of a bullet hell nightmare and its here I usually mess up, even on the first boss on particularly bad runs. But it does have that "one more go" factor which is important in games like this. It's just fun to play, rolling through bullets, flipping a table for cover and shooting a switch that makes a chandelier fall on a bunch of idiots. And seeing what guns come up is kinda fun too, in an "I recognise that!" kind of way. Some guns are your usual, Uzis, AK47s, etc; and you also have wackier ones like t-shirt cannons, giant shells that fire shotguns, a barrel that fires fish, etc; and also references! A taste of what I've come across is Barret's from FFVII's arm cannon, Judge Dread's gun and the Proton Pack. And many more! Definitely one for the rogue-like likers out there.

I did look for an old thread but it looks like one doesn't exist. I got it the other night on the Switch since it's the version with the free style switching. It's a cool idea that's in later DMC games and I thought it may be fun in this game. In the original you picked a style at the start of a mission. Basically the styles are Sword Master, Gunslinger, Trickster and Royal Guard. They all give you different abilities. The first two are fairly self explanatory while trickster is mostly about dodging and royal guard is a parry system. I do have a bit of a problem with it. It's just the way it levels. In later games you upgrade the styles with red orbs (which give you more moves), the same way as everything else, but here I think it upgrades by how much you use it. So I'm not getting the freedom I'd like without spending a lot of time in the Bloody Palace with the main goal of using a particular style a lot. So that's kinda disappointing since I forgot how it worked. I've forgotten a lot of stuff to be honest. I was having a hoot at first. I sunk in four hours in one session, going along quite well which surprised me as going back to Bayonetta kicked my arse. DMC3 is easier than I remember but then I got to a succubus type lady boss, which I think you get the guitar weapon from but I just can't seem to beat her. I don't seem to be doing any damage but she wrecks you with some of her attacks. I call bullshit, I think she's busted. But I'm sure I did beat her back in the day as I remember messing around with that guitar weapon. How I did it, I have no idea.

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

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.]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.