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Yakuza is undoubtedly one of my favourite gaming franchises. It’s been consistently excellent for many years now. Yakuza Zero is one of my favourite games of all time. So,I’m always up for more. This entry has shifted from the usual over the top action, to an RPG style. Quite the difference. The reviews have said that it’s paid off, for the most part. Though there are some massive difficulty spikes near the end, that require some hefty grinding. Anyway, I’m a couple of hours in. There hasn’t been much gameplay yet, it’s almost entirely cutscenes thus far. Yakuza games always start slowly, this entry apparently takes about 10 hours to get properly started. Another new addition is a brand new character, Ichiban. He seems decent enough, though it’s too early to say how he compares to Kiryu. We will see how it plays out.

Ok, so I was burned out on the Assassins Creed series. The yearly sequels got me feeling pretty tired of the series. By the time 3 came out, I was pretty much done. I tried a few other games in the series after that point, but never really committed to them. Odyssey got me back into it, and what an outstanding game that was. So I was naturally excited for this. I’m playing this on my day one PS4. Naturally it will perform better on next gen. But having said that, I’m not disappointed with the way this looks at all. The game is absolutely stunning, and apart from the initial long load time, it runs pretty smoothly. I’ve seen video reviews of some hilarious bugs/glitches, but haven’t encountered any myself yet. The combat is a bit basic at the moment. Reviews have pointed out that it takes a few hours to unlock different moves and abilities. So I’m looking forward to that. It’s nice that you can respec your character at any time, so if you fancy a different approach that’s always an option. Wandering around the main settlement, I’ve found three mini games. One which involves out-drinking your opponent, one where you use poetry in a battle of wits, and a dice game which I lost horribly on my first attempt. There’s a micro transaction store (because of course there is), but thankfully it’s totally ignorable. You have to search for it yourself (no obnoxious daily deal prompts bombard you). And the vast majority of the items are cosmetic only. There’s no “pay to unlock XP faster” as there was in Odyssey. So although it’s there, it isn’t an issue. Usually in Ubisoft games, I like going to the Ubistore to unlock various exclusive bits. There’s very little to unlock in Valhalla’s Ubistore page. But again, not much of a complaint really. Definitely looking forward to sinking many hours into this.

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.

Played the demo of this on Friday and thought I’d give my thoughts on it. Played around 40 minutes to an hour and I definitely would’ve liked longer with it which is a good sign. Graphically it’s very colourful, it reminded me quite a bit of the game Rime mixed with a more cartoony AC Odyssey with a sprinkling of Zelda. To play it’s immediately reminiscent of AC Odyssey. The way the combat system works with all the special abilities is very familiar, but it is definitely more flamboyant and less grounded, it feels like the system has been jazzed up and some of the moves you can pull off are a little closer to DMC than the weight of AC:OD. The way all the landmarks and points of interest are pinned to the top is very similar to AC:OD as well but then a lot of games use that system nowadays. The most interesting aspect to me was the puzzle aspect. I only came across one in my short time with the game but it was a nice surprise, reminded me a bit of some of the puzzles you’d come across in BOTW and was satisfying to complete. The way Fenyx moves is very familiar to BOTW too, there’s a stamina bar that depletes as you run and climb. She sprouts wings when you Glide which looks and feels very similar to Link’s glider in BOTW. It has a playful sense of humour to it as well. The way the demo plays out is that Zeus and Prometheus are narrating a story but keep getting it wrong, so things change on the fly for Fenyx as they adapt their stories in an attempt to get things right. The two have a lot of character and are nowhere near as stoic or uptight as some of their other interpretations in games over the years. Overall I was impressed with it but needed more time real to nail down a recommendation. It’s a lot of fun though and I think it will be a great world to get lost in but I can’t shake the feeling that it might be a little bit unoriginal and not doing a lot of new things per se. Saying that, I’ll definitely keep my pre-order after playing the demo, I love new IP and want to play some more after this brief taste.

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 it's star wars, and you fly around in various star was vehicles such as xwings and tie fighters, and you shoot bad guys (or good guys i guess). I'm a big fan of the old school tie fighter game (and xwing etc.) and this takes a lot of things from that - like the engine/lasers/shield power balancing thing, which i like, it adds a sort of mini management thing, you can divert power to any of these 3, choose engines to help evade missiles and charge a boost meter. lasers charges your lasers, and overcharges them added benefits which i'm not totally sure about (either you get to fire for longer or the laser is more powerful, not sure?). switching to shields charges your shields and can overcharge them. it sounds quite simple but i think it really adds to the game as you have to constantly switch between them depending on what's going on - i'm still getting used to it and the controls. there's more settings you can adjust shield power forwards/backwards and other stuff - that's too advanced for me at the moment. i've done 5 missions so far, 2 prologue ones and 3 missions, i'm still getting bits of tutorial, and still getting used to the controls and what all the lights and stuff on the dashboard mean. Ienjoying it so far but I'm not sure if i'm enjoying it because it's good, or because flying around in a xwing/tie fighter in VR is really cool, or maybe it's a bit of both. have only played in VR so far, there are some problems with it, maybe due to my old vr headset, but the graphics aren't great, except for the cockpit which looks great, but stuff like the other ships look pretty blocky and a bit blury. but it is super cool being there, being able to look around for other ships and flying through explosions (which also don't look great) and stuff. The targeting seems to work well too, and there are a lot of options i haven't got the hang of yet like targeting ships that are attacking you. but the default of cycling through current objectives works well - i played a bit of ace combat and had problems with the targeting, it seems to work much better here. you can also issue simple commands to team mates and stuff. multiplayer seems to be a big part of it but i'm not sure i'll play that mode or not. So yeah seems like it's pretty good so far, and even more recommended for VR.

I started playing this and beat the first boss. It's mostly like Crash 1 I think but with lots of new tricks and gimmicks. So far I'm not loving it but not hating it either. I just find it very frustrating as it is extremely punishing of pixel perfect miscalculations. Depth perception is also a thing I struggle with on it, even more than other Crash games. They put in this shadow circle under Crash so they seem to at least be aware of it but it doesn't always fix the problem. I don't know if it's the level of detail in the stages or something else but I am dying a lot particularly with all the new mask juggling mechanics It's really good looking but I'm looking forward to next gen ray tracing as the screen space reflections here have lots of artifacts. I've just noticed it a lot more in games recently that use that technique. Other than that it's very early Pixar looking in a good way. This happens way too often It's more of the same with some decent ideas so I doubt it will win over any new fans or necessarily alienate any old ones. Unless you really don't like the difficulty in Crash 1 which is the camp I sort of fall into. It's the same ultra linear tightly constrained design but now that they have lots of graphics budget on PS4 they don't need to do the thing where they hide the rest of the level behind obstacles like the ND games so that's a cool difference Pretty cool first boss

I enjoyed the original Destroy All Humans back in the day. So when this Remaster was announced, I was all for it. Unfortunately, this is one of those examples where a game isn’t quite what you remembered. For one thing, the difficulty is absolutely all over the place. Most of the missions aren’t too bad. But then you get one thrown at you, that will punish you severely. From awful stealth sections that a chore to play. To enemies that rip through your health in a matter of sections. If you haven’t upgraded specific abilities, then you’re pretty much screwed. Graphically it looks nice enough. And they’ve added some improvements over the original, such as the ability to skate quickly around the map. But other improvements just appear to have been forgotten about. It’s extremely annoying that when you’re in the flying saucer, your shields don’t regenerate, the only way to do so, is absorb enemy vehicles. Might not sound too bad. But when you’re getting blitzed on all sides in hectic battles, it’s a ballache. And ultimately, the final boss difficulty spike just did me in. A saucer only battle. Very few enemies to regenerate your shields. The boss bombards you with rockets if you move too far away from it. And best of all, 3 massive health bars to drain, with absolutely no checkpoints during the fight at all. And each health bar takes aaaaaaages to drain. 3 times the bastard killed me. On my 4th attempt I reached his final health bar. But at that point, I was getting battered with lasers and rockets, and despite my best efforts, I died again. And that’s me done with this game, because fuck going through all that again.

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.

I got this on steam, I don't know I'm thinking it could be trash. It doesn't make a bad first impression. Kamala is an alright protagonist although she keeps talking to herself. The bits of campaign I did were very on-rails cinematic setting stuff up so I got a bit bored of that and tried the 'war chest' thing or whatever it's called. These MP missions they send you on are just a clusterfuck of shit and rockets flying off screen at you while you constantly get interrupted. You just seem to sponge up a bunch of hits and fire off cooldowns and spam light/heavy. I don't know, maybe there's more here but it really seems like there isn't. It's not helped by the fact that this runs very poorly, I dropped to 1080 on my card but it constantly runs all over the place. Not sure why. But the campaign might be good? I can't say for sure cause it's still very hand holdey. But right now it does feel an awful lot like they wanted to make a single player game and were forced to make a rubbish multiplayer one on top. It's a very strange beast and is full of graphical glitches like rain freezing, kamala falling through the earth and a guard with a hat that floats around their legs to name but a few I witnessed. It's a shame cause I actually kind of like how it plays. The hit feedback is terrible and you really really have to turn screen shake off as soon as you can cause it will make you sick. But with Tony Stark I was flying around and switching into hover and pot-shotting fuckers and then using melee as a distance closer to build up meter for more Iron Man shit. It has that kind of thing that makes the synpases fire off when you link up actions like that even if it isn't particularly deep. But the actual encounter design just seems like you might not as well think about any of that shit and the hordes of bullshit they throw at you makes sure you wont But who knows maybe what needs to happen is I got to git gud. Or the game does. Buy Tony Hawk instead That is Kamala, she is Inhuman. Which means she has big hands and can stretch BTW the way the MP works is sort of like you are on the Avengers version of the Normandy. You can roam around talking to people, do combos in a practice room. The MP takes place postgame and spoils the story apparently, what it reminds me of a bit is chapter 2 in MGSV. A bunch of non-descript missions where you are sort of mopping up the after effects of whatever happens to happen in this main campaign. So I don't know what the long term thinking is there, do they develop story expansion beyond the postgame like a sort of MMO.

I bought this off the Epic store (hiss, booo) while I should have been working. Put about 20 minutes into the demo and got a 300000 high score but the Nvidia capture failed to record (honestly no really). Anyway it seems pretty great but I can't put my finger on it but the physics are weightier than I remember. But this is 15 years ago so it's possible I just forget how it feels and have gotten bad from being older all the time. Or more likely this is base stats Tony Hawk I'm playing Anyway I'm excite. I actually never played THPS2 beyond just renting it once so that will be fun. edit forget it, 300000 points isn't even that good apparently. This guy did 100 million in a single combo

I'm guessing at the tags because I assume it's on everything. It's more 8bit Castlevania style action, and it's very good. It's a lot longer than the original, and they seemed to have listened and altered the characters a little. Zangatsu has returned but he's altered a little, in the first game it amazed me how useless he was considering he was the main character, here he's immediately more useful with that really getting doubled down on later on. Dominique is back too, she has a better jump and attack reach than Zangatsu. She has a bounce move that let's you access certain areas if you're good with it, I'm not. Her spells are probably better kept as support. She can heal people with the right item, and if you can find the rare pick up she can also resurrect your party members. The two new characters are Robert, a sniper with a terrible jump and a weak, but occasionally very useful long distance attack. He can co prone and bounce off walls, again useful for shortcuts. He also has a really powerful special attack but it's restricted in range. If his health was better he'd be really useful. The most useful character is probably Haichi, who I'll describe as a mech. He's got the most health, can hover, destroys spikes when he stands on them and isn't affected by ice. His basic attack is pretty hefty and his only special is that he can go invincible, so you can sit him in front of bosses and beat the fuck out of them for as long as your magic lasts Curse of the Moon 2 seems to me a lot easier than the first game, maybe I'm wrong and I'm just more practiced at this sort of game again but I don't think I lost a life until stage 3. It's a lot longer, which is no bad thing, more inventive. My understanding is that there's a false ending which sounds a bit of a twat, but having not seen it I can't really judge it Really enjoying it though, I was playing it at release but put it down, glad to be back playing it

I’ve been interested in Ghost of a Tale since it first appeared on Indiegogo in 2013. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ghost-of-a-tale#/ The developer had a background in animated movies and I liked the fact that the game was inspired by books like Redwall. It was eventually released in 2018 on PC and 2019 on consoles, and is apparently coming to Switch too. The game has come a long way since that original Indiegogo pitch. When I first played it I was surprised that it was predominantly a stealth game, although I suppose it’s not that surprising considering you play as a little mouse. Fortunately the stealth is not that punishing, it’s pretty easy to escape from the rat guards if they do see you. I know later in the game there are enemies like spiders (yay) who I assume will be faster, so that might be more difficult. It’s a surprisingly meaty game, I’m guessing closer to 20 hours than 10. There are plenty of things to collect and secrets to find. Exploration is fun and a little bit reminiscent of Dark Souls. The world and graphics are definitely the strongest elements of the game. These screenshots are taken from the dark opening area, but there are bright areas in the game too, and it has a day night cycle. All in all, fairly impressive for a 3D adventure game developed on a modest budget.

I'm playing Thronebreaker: Witcher Tales. It's okay, wander around, isometric view, gathering resources, making the side quest choice, and having occasional Gwent battles. It's Gwent that is the central focus, albeit disappointingly it's slightly tweaked from the W3 version - you start off with a compressed deck, and don't really seem to gain new cards in the same way as you did (by winning them). Instead there's a camp option, and you spend resources on them. Added too are puzzles, where you have a single hand one turn to complete different objectives - these are real head scratchers, in terms of understanding card mechanics. For now its just not really as enjoyable, as Gwent was in W3. Perhaps it'll open up later, but the limited deck is frustrating (and THB, I don't even recognise the cards from those previous played with in W3).

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.

This game is set in the early days of the internet (1999, to be exact, although in a slightly made up alternative reality) where you play as a kind of internet policeman, ensuring the rules of “Hypnospace” are being followed. It’s made by Jay Tholen who also made the point and click game Dropsy. I love it. It’s a sensory assault of colours, sounds and random fonts. The music alone is worth the price of entry, it’s fantastic. The writing is excellent too, and completely believable.

Seems alright from the 10-15 minutes of the beta I got to play as capt, hulk, Iron Man and thor before it kept repeating the redhead‘s (black widow?) cut scene over and over on the bridge. Would like to have known what the game was like properly after the tutorial but I’m not doing it over again to find out.

I’m about three hours into this. It’s the second game by Sam Barlow who made Her Story, and it’s the same style as Her Story but with more characters/actors. I’m enjoying it. The story isn’t super fascinating but it’s engaging enough. The music is atmospheric and very well done (I don’t remember music at all in Her Story) and there are some other nice touches that add to the atmosphere of the game. And unlike The Red Strings Club, Telling Lies isn’t stingy with achievements. One achievement in particular made me smile. Achievement spoiler not a story spoiler:

Well. This isn’t very good at all. I’m old enough to have played the original Doom back in the day, and loved Duke Nukem 3D. Both of which are still really fun today. This? Not so much. It’s a prequel to 3D Realms’ Bombshell, which as it was PC only, I never played that. It’s based on the Build engine, and I’ve seen one review that claimed this is “one of the best Build games ever” and “one of the best first person shooters in recent memory”. I would present a counter argument: “It’s neither of those, and is boring as fuck”. The plot? Pretty much non existent. Apparently someone spilled the main characters drink, which pissed her off to the extent that she seeks revenge. Is there a cutscene that explains that? No. I only found out later that there’s a single screen of expositional text, buried in the options screen. The weapons? Your typical bog-standard pistol/shotgun/SMG. Maybe you unlock more creative weapons later on. I wouldn’t know, as I couldn’t be arsed to play past Level 3. The enemies? Generic trench coat dudes, mixed with annoying spiders that rip through your health bar like it’s not even there. I’ve seen some claims that “it’s funny”. Three levels in, and I’ve seen no attempts at humour whatsoever. Sure, there’s plenty of secrets. But actual humour, such as the type seen in Duke 3D, and Shadow Warrior? Non existent. I reached level 3, repeatedly died to some cheap sections, and found myself thinking the immortal question, “Why am I bothering with this?”. So I fucked it off. Modern audiences will find it dated and boring. People with experience in the genre will find it boring in comparison to much better titles. It’s just not very good.

Sank a fair bit of time into this now. From what I understand, it began as an early-access expansion to the awesome Superhot, until it’s reached the stage it’s at now. If you haven’t played Superhot (and you really should, because it’s bloody amazing), for the most part I’d recommend this. Enemies move when you do, so each level plays out like a puzzle, with you figuring out the best way to clear a room of enemies. Melee enemies aren’t too much of a problem, but enemies with guns can quickly ruin your day. Luckily you can chuck something at an enemy, which will make them throw their gun in the air. Enabling you to steal it, and kill them with it. Fun times So, what does MCD add to the mix? Quite a bit really. You gradually unlock extra abilities, such as having more health, more ammo, being able to bounce bullets off walls, or sending another bullet flying out of an enemy if you kill them with a headshot. Catch is, you have to choose what ability you want to start with. Prior to each run (generally about 6 arenas), you can choose from one of the perks you’ve managed to unlock. Then after every couple of arenas, you get to choose another perk. Get to the end of that run, and you’ll unlock another ability. Die, and you have to start the run all over again. The difficulty can be a bit all over the place. The arenas in each run are randomly generated, and where you start in that arena is also random. You might end up in a tough situation right from the start. And as you unlock more perks, there’s an increased chance the one you want may not show up, as that’s also randomly chosen for each run. About halfway through the game, new enemy types get added. Some can only be killed by hitting a specific part of their body. Some carry weapons that you can’t steal. Some explode when killed and send lethal shrapnel out, meaning melee kills are to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately towards the end, some Boss type characters are added, and they are total bastards. For one thing, they’re indestructible. All you can do is dodge them, and try to finish the arena by killing all the other enemies as fast as possible. Might sound simple. But when you’re getting shot at from multiple enemies, these bosses are a real pain. Usually, rushing around is a good way to lose health. With a boss in the mix, rushing is your only option. The bosses also appear totally at random for each run, and may not show up at all. The later runs can consist of 7/8 arenas, increasing in difficulty. So it’s a massive ballache to be doing well on a run, only for a boss to randomly show up and send the run flying out the window. Its tough at times. But it’s definitely got that “one more go” factor. Oh, and apparently one of the trophies required for the Platinum, is to get to the end of the game, perform an update, and leave that running for 7 actual hours. Haha haha fuck off.

Honestly, surprised there's no thread for this yet. I've put a few hours into this since Friday, and you know what? It's fucking fantastic. It's a metroidvania in every way, maybe a little bit more linear than normal, but it subverts the traditional hero storyline by making you the bad guy. And it's so fucking refreshing. You play as this weird... Form thingy. Movement feels really smooth, if a little cumbersome at first, but there's no jumping, there's no unreachable ledges, you just slide through each screen, and once you get the hang of it it feels so satisfying. You slowly accumulate more and more powers, your size grows as you play through the game, and it brings lots of little elements in that are plenty of fun. The art style is incredible too. The sci-fi side reminds me of Alien 3 on SNES, the animation and artwork of the enemies (so the good guys in this case) is very much like Another World, the world created is just so impressive. It's one of the few games I've played recently where my mind has just hit that point of 'i need to fucking play this'. It's an outstanding idea, and as someone who doesn't normally like Devolver games, it's an absolute credit to their portfolio.

So this looks like a top down rpg with snes style graphics, bit like a 2D zelda game but with twin stick shooter combat, and also with punching and blocking. and it's also a fake mmo game. it's sort of great, i really like the puzzles in the dungeons, and environmental puzzles in the towns and other areas, although they can be a bit convoluted sometimes. the puzzles are a lot of firing stuff that bounces off walls, moving blocks, switches, elemental powers, jumping, lots of jumping, stuff like that, they're very well done, although the dungeons go on a bit too long. the puzzles sometimes require really tight timings too which can be frustrating but there's a slider to make it easier and give yourself more time. it looks and sounds good too. there are problems though, the layout of some of the areas/towns are super complicated, which makes for interesting puzzles for how to get some pickups etc, but for example last night i just wanted to get to somewhere to start the next part of the main quest and i'd been there before and was told where to go but it still took maybe 20 mins of randomly wandering around to find, and handing in quests in certain towns, even though you usually get a description of the area, can take ages to find whoever gave you the quest. the map is not great. you can fast travel mind but only to certain places. and the combat is a bit of a mixed bag for me, it can be fun sometimes but can be pretty hard and annoying too, there are assists to make it easier - which i maxed out and still found the second level boss really hard. so not sure i'll be able to finish it if it keeps getting much harder. also you don't have to grind much to level up enough if you fight pretty much every enemy you see (although maybe i should to make the combat easier) - i didn't do this at the start and kept being asked are you sure you want to do this, you need to prepare more. i think it's been out for a few years on pc, and been on pc gamepass for a while, but it's recent console release, and that it's supposed to be good, got me to give it a go - i'm playing on pc gamepass. thought it would be reasonably short and i'd be able to finish it before origami mario but i was wrong, apparently it's 40 to 80 hours if you do optional stuff. i'm about 18 hours in. still enjoying it so i'll try and stick at it and finish it if it doesn't get too difficult. there's a news thread with some videos here: https://www.mfgamers.net/index.php?/topic/42274-crosscode/ edit - forgot another problem - the graphics make working out what level you're on and if you can jump to somewhere or not quite difficult which can lead to a lot of trial and error.

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is an absolutely delightful RPG inspired by Paper Mario. It's an indie title developed by Moonsprout Games (who I have never heard of) and has been on Steam since November last year, and has just come to Switch, PS4, and Xbone. I've put around 5 and a half hours into and am really enjoying myself. I'll write more later, but I'm struggling to type right now.