Clair Obscur had a story I really enjoyed, and a fun RPG system that got kind of boring towards the end. Seriously though, I really liked the cinematics and writing, and I highly recommend it for that. But it’s best experienced unspoiled, so there’s not much more I can write about it. Oh, and the music is fantastic.
3 Likes
Vampire Survivors is a very silly game made entirely of dopamine and I am in a lot of trouble.
7 Likes
This is a tremendously silly game that I have played for several 30-min sessions now.
This was the calmest the screen got towards the end.
5 Likes
I shouldn’t mention that Vampire Survivor has spawned a whole subgenre of addictive games? Right? I shouldn’t?
(My favorite is Soulstone Survivors)
4 Likes
Oh no…
(Okay then)
2 Likes
I like Deep Rock Galactic Survivors the most.
The Deep Rock world and gameplay idea is well suited for a survivors game.
6 Likes
I love that one but it never quite reaches Vampire Survivors level of bonkersness, so I miss that.
3 Likes
Old school d&d game The Temple of Elemental Evil is re-released on Steam today, so I’m back on that.
3 Likes
10 years after release, Nuclear Throne got a significant update and 4-player co-op, so I picked it up. Turns out it’s more fun than the competition, and I already reached the throne, once. I’ll be playing a lot more of this, I think.
1 Like
Waiting for the update to my GoG version of it to finally play it 
1 Like
I have been playing “a lot” of Persona 3 (about 40 hours in the last four weeks), and it’s pretty good. Not great, like Persona 5, but pretty good.
I’m curious to dive into Persona 4 afterwards, which I don’t think I played previously. I am looking forward to trying it during my “holidays” (two weeks that the boss is shutting down the office). After that I think I have WH40K Battlesector and… something else I got super cheap… on deck. Something open-world-adjacent, I think… oh! The next game in the Metro (post apocalyptic Russian subway) series. I played the original when it released and enjoyed it, looking forward to trying the new one!
2 Likes
I liked P4 a lot, and it was my introduction to the Persona series. I didn’t get through 3 as I just didn’t like it as much. 5 was great though!
2 Likes
I bought Blue Prince on sale. I’m having a great time with it and now have a notebook filled with information of varying usefulness. I’ve managed to reach Room 46 and I think I’ve got at least six other things that I want to do now. Having my wife as co-pilot has definitely helped with some of the puzzle solving!
I guess I should probably pick up The Witness and/or Lorelei and the Laser Eyes…
3 Likes
The Witness is also very good. Haven’t heard of the other one.
3 Likes
With that name, I can’t help but think the creator is a Stephen Lynch fan.
Lorelei lyrics
Lorelei
Lorelei had a lazy eye
Straight ahead she would stare
And still see s**t over there
With her lazy eye
2 Likes
I was underwhelmed, but probably just due to the hype. There was a lot that was well done. Discovering a “rule” was great, 95% of the time, with a few that felt poorly executed. But then solving 150 puzzles using that rule turned into a real grind.
Some of the efforts to put meaning into the game were interesting, but for as much as I got out of them not worth the squeeze.
Yeah… probably a good game just over sold that didn’t meet the high bar of expectations. But I also preferred Limbo to Braid, back when those were being compared, so maybe I just don’t resonate quite as deeply with whatever points the Braid/Witness guy is trying to make.
2 Likes
I tried to do 007: Everything or Nothing on my Odin. It’s fine. I’ll probably go back. But I stopped playing for two reasons, I think: First, I’ve lost some psychic distance and just shooting that many people started to feel wrong. 20 years ago that thought never came, it was just bytes and mechanics and goals and getting from A to B. Which is fine, I don’t have a moral imperative here. Just that now the experience feels more like shooting dozens of people and that created a mental splinter.
I think the bigger thing, though, was the whole trial and error memorize the level thing. Which also used to be normal. But, like I now know that there’s a guard around this corner and I can kill him without even looking around it, and I know to crouch on the left because at the top of this elevator there are three guys with machine guns around the corner. But BOND doesn’t know that. So… ? Another (frankly) odd disconnect after years of not playing video games. The old process of mapping a level and checking the boxes wasn’t as fulfilling, I think I wanted more immersion? Which likely dovetails into the perspective shift on part A above?
Anyway, now I’m replaying Twilight Princess instead. Played that on Wii in 2009, which I remember because I was engaged at the time and planning a wedding is stressful, so TP was a frequent escape. Also as a result I remember nearly nothing about it, just bits and glimpses from odd places around Hyrule. Which also got me thinking about ranking the Zeldas I’ve played, which got me thinking about how there also I’ve got some disconnects with the zeitgeist.
From lowest to highest:
Link to the Past: ok, ok! It’s still good! I haven’t played a bad Zelda! But this one feels like a real grind. The dungeons are excellent (except for you, Moldorm at the top of the tower), maybe the pinnacle of 2D dungeon crawling. But I don’t like the art style. The world feels small - the new scrolling panels are each four “screens” large, but they’ve always got a clear center and path through, and then corners with literally nothing in them. A lot of wasted real estate, so the raw pixel size of the map belies how small it feels - in terms of destinations and points of interest. And I think there’s something like 14 dungeons with a very linear quest of checking each box one after another. Oh, and the items feel very narrow - like get the item and do these prescriptive things with it.
Wind Waker: Yes, they’re all good! Wind Waker is still good despite being so low here. The art is stunning. The story may be the best told - characters, set up, conflict, resolution. The sunken kingdom. But it was clearly unfinished - see the cancelled dungeon. The inability to do a close reach in your boat requiring near-constant wind shifts. And here the world is too big and too open. I remember exploring way too much of it too early and not having the right items. And then having to do it all again later… a few gates are a good thing.
Also the combat was a grind. Instead of having technique or timing weaknesses, most enemies had an item weakness. So combat was mostly about pause-assign item-use item, next enemy pause-go get that other item again… Sure they could have designed it around only needing three items at a time so you don’t need to swap, but that creates a different repetitive problem.
Shame with the strong story and graphic design, but this one was rough. Would likely perform better on a second play as I could stick to the storyline and not get lost in the sidequests.
Zelda 2: Adventure of Link Better than Wind Waker? Maybe not. This may be a reactionary placement. But I think it’s better than people say. On the one hand, I remember playing it at every friend’s house when it came out and what a revelation it was. And I remember finally beating it on an emulator with save states. Are parts of it too hard? Yes (see: save states). And I think I needed a strategy guide to really unlock the game, fully understanding the rpg progression system and maxing it out by grinding at the right times and getting the exp bags at the right times and such. But once I knew how the game wanted me to engage with it, what a thrill.
The world feels so alive, with the towns and storylines. Little mini-quests that are just interesting enough. The items are thrilling - getting that hammer (finally!) or the down thrust. Without a strategy guide and save states this was too hard and frustrating, even back then. And with them it’s probably still too frustrating for modern sensibilities. But I will say I enjoyed this more than Link to the Past, at least.
Legend of Zelda: The OG is still better than all those above sequels. The world feels HUGE, with each screen having it’s own paths and character. All the little culdesacs that leave you with things to discover. Just stepping into a green forest after a bunch of brown, and you’ve found this grove. Dungeon 6 is too hard but Dungeon 9 is just right - Iove that I can beat this without modern conveniences (but I still have to work for it). This one is magic. I could play it every year or two.
Majora’s Mask: Only four dungeons. A frustrating save system that requires you to lose a day’s progress (or play through full days at a time) - even longer when you need to finish a dungeon in one sitting so as not to reset it. But they were four GOOD dungeons. Amazing masks that give you special abilities. A world that was deeply alive. Side-quests that were too complex but with a journal system that made it manageable. Definitely going to circle back to this one soon.
Twilight Princess: Yes, I just said how little I remember about this one. But Midna >>> Navi. Wolf/Twilight >>> LTTP Dark realm. I remember how brilliant these big rooms in the dungeons were. This game does commit the cardinal sin of villain swap, where you spend the whole game hating one guy only to have him disappear and you fight some other dude you’ve never heard of? That’s not a reveal, that’s an anticlimax. See the beauty of Sephiroth, Ganondorf, etc. Let me stomp the guy you’ve made me hate, right?
Ocarina: This one has it all. Forest Temple may be the best dungeon I’ve ever played. Perfecting combat against the wolves and then a stalphos. A great story with a twist and a climax. A world that’s full enough, with characters and communities. Sidequests. Not without problems, but nothing is. I’ve played this one over and over while stopping Link to the Past halfway through several times.
Now, I’ve essentially missed anything from the handheld systems (and the new Switch ones). Any must plays on that side of things?
3 Likes
I was ALSO underwhelmed! A few of my coworkers were raving about how good it was a year or so ago, and I just… couldn’t care less? I played a few puzzles, they were neat, but at some point I could go left and do a bunch of iterative, boring puzzles, or I could go right and do completely different iterative, boring puzzles… and I just stopped.
It was fine. But I still don’t quite get the fervor around it. I have been holding off on Blue Prince for the same reason… maybe I’m just not a puzzle guy (although I loved the Professor Laytons and Phoenix Wrights and most adventure puzzle games… so that’s probably not it).
2 Likes
Did you play The Return of the Obra Dinn? Or the Roottrees are dead?
Though both are more detective games than classic puzzlers.
3 Likes
Obra Dinn, yes, but I bounced off it. I found a few of the puzzles too frustrating, although I couldn’t tell you specifically why… I think I remember finding a few things out and being like “Obviously X did Y” but the game wouldn’t let me do that because I hadn’t found something about Y yet? Either way, I liked it but didn’t love it. I think it’s fair to say I would wholeheartedly recommend it, but I wasn’t the right audience for it.
Oh, and there was a door that I obviously had to get through but the game kept saying “Ye cannot get ye flask” and I hate that as a mechanic.
Roottrees are Dead I haven’t tried.
2 Likes