So I picked up Ni No Kuni (the first one) on sale recently and have been quite enjoying my time with it so far (I’m like 15 hours in).
It seems kind of a blend of Pokemon meets Final Fantasy via the ‘Tales’ series. A little grindy and a little hand-holdy at times and I’m not a massive fan of the combat system, but on the whole, yeah it’s pretty good.
And lots of nice little attention to detail to things that make it stand out (I love the effort they put into the Wizard’s Companion - puts bestiaries and item lists from other games to shame!) The Studio Ghibli produced cutscenes are great and the music has stood out too. Would totally recommend if you have any interest in JRPG’s (especially with the big sales it’s been on recently, and presumably will again)
And I also picked up Lair of the Clockwork God, the latest offering from Size Five games (of The Swindle [which I enjoyed] and more relevantly - Ben There, Dan That and Time Gentlemen, Please! fame) It definitely feels part of that series, and is full of the same kind of humor that featured in BTDT and TGP.
I do think I’d have prefered if it had remained a purely point and click affair, rather than leaning into the platforming component. Though to be fair, the whole platforming element seems a bit of a tongue in cheek joke about conventions in game design. The humor jives with me and if you fancied BTDT and TGP, I’d say give it a look.
Bought Slipways on Steam, because it had been in a “top 10 relaxing games” list. It’s… quite tense!
Spend precious time and money uncovering planets and linking them, trying to fulfill their input and output needs without expanding too quickly and losing money. It’s very addictive, and I guess since the in-game time doesn’t progress until you take an action you COULD see it as relaxing, but you’re constantly chasing unmet needs and the nearby planets don’t have what you want! So you’re going to have to leave this one unhappy in order to satisfy those instead, and take a leap that you can plug the gap if you expand out this way to ones you haven’t seen yet? Aargh!
Remarkably difficult for a simple idea, but yes, also deceptively addictive.
I’m surprised at how unforgiving it is. And that you can just be frozen out of any good solution if there aren’t the right planets nearby. It definitely scratches the “make a perfect trade route!” itch, though.
I suppose I didn’t find it unforgiving, I just constantly beat myself up about how much more optimized it could have been. Like, I’m sure I could always “win” a default scenario, but I felt too much pressure to get to 5 stars+. So, maybe self-inflicted stress.
Been dipping into my Xbox Game pass games to try to decide what to play first, and it’s difficult because a lot are flipping great. Favourites so far that I will definitely return to are Monster Train (like Slay the Spire reimagined by Monty Haul, **Mass Effect: Andromeda ** (not even slightly as bad as it’s reputation), Mount and Blade: Warband (I can’t decide if I enjoy it despite or because of the shonkiness), Gears of War: Tictacs (very gravelly extremely hirsute man-bricks and surprisingly fun gameplay), Destroy all humans (really didn’t expect to enjoy this but I fancied some atomic horror nonsense and it’s actually genuinely great fun).
Now to give No Man’s Sky a try! Still playing through Cuphead with my 7-year old and still enjoying lots, even though we’re struggling to make much progress now. He’s also weirdly obsessed with the really not good at all Five Nights at Freddys - thanks, YouTube.
I do love it, although I never played it on console, but PC. And considering my laptop is 8 years old and still makes it work, I can pass by the graphics, easily. I recommend the Viking Invasion mod… oh wait, can you have mods on Xbox?
An Mass Effect: Andromeda, besides the conversations on the vehicle (park to the side and listen, some bumps can stop the whole convo) I think it is better than what many say as well. Very slick combat, probably my favourite of the 4 games on that side of things.
Neither have I. I actually got pretty good back in the day, but used to play with my brother who just peaked at a higher level than I ever managed. Once he got to that stage he was pretty much unbeatable
At last I decided to upgrade and buy a new laptop (beware TTS players) and I am enjoying two games: Disco Elysium and Rome: Total War Remastered.
Disco Elysium is great, but I must admit after more or less one day in the story, I am stuck because of dice rolls not letting me move forward. Namely to lower the hanged body or to retrieve my coat from the ledge. I like the dice rolling on the game at some points, it makes it very RPG-like, but it sort of sucks when you are stuck wandering around making time to be able to make a re-roll.
Rome is what I expected. Apart from the fact that you can only can start with one of the 3 Roman factions (I always loved using the Seleucid Empire) I am impressed with how much better the diplomacy is working. The old game was great, but at some point you were always stuck with nobody accepting peace, now enemies even offer you money to stop conquering them. Plus I like the merchant system from Medieval 2 being included here.
Re: disco Elysium. It’s not just levelling up a skill that lets you retake a check. Talking to people can do it too. In particular, don’t get hung up on those two checks. The jump is one I think it’s better to delay until you know you want to get into union territory, and I suspect the corpse is deliberately hard to get down for narrative reasons.
Been playing some Nioh because it was free. My first Souls-like since Dark Souls itself. I’m finding the fast-paced combat quite stressful, and my reflexes don’t seem up to it. The intro level was awful. The first real level was a delight. The second level was dull, and now I’m totally stuck on the boss. Still, seems worth persevering with, hopefully I’ll crack it eventually.
(I never needed to kill time as you describe, except once much later in the game. There’s enough to do that just waiting around is mostly unnecessary.)
After I got my new laptop I started up Surviving Mars… OMG I don’t know how to play anymore. I will always know how to play even a new version of Civ. But those survival games are something else. I will have to play the tutorial again or watch a couple of videos to even know how to start my colony. I really want to there’s been new content since I played last. I know the same will hold true for Oxygen not Included. So for now I am playing Civilization as Ethiopia this time in hopes of getting a Religious Victory for once (I default to Diplomacy victory usually).
