Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 548

Looking at continuing my samurai platinum journey with the excellent Ghosts Of Tsushima. With some Bloodstained chucked in there too. Happy Gaming All.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: It is a very interesting change of pace and satisfyingly curious wrinkle to play as Zelda for a change. Every move must be carefully calculated (unless you want to go into Hero Mode) but you have such a variety of options it's still great fun.

There's a surprising amount of content on offer for a top-down Zelda game (especially when compared to Link's Awakening) and some truly gorgeous visuals with clever (if not particularly taxing) dungeon design.

Zelda, it's about time you got your dues, and it's proving to be a blast.

Been trying to get into E football and attempting to give this years FC25 a miss

This weekend I'm playing the Metaphor demo. I loved Persona 5 so I'm definetly interested.
Other than that I might do some sidequesting in Zelda TotK.

Recently finished: I honestly finished this game and got the plat a long time ago but the other day I unlocked the last outfits in Stellar Blade. It's my GOTY for sure with its excellent combat, boss fights and soundtrack. Oh, and the game has been completely bug free since launch day. A high quality game indeed that I highly recommend if you like action games.

So after finishing off the 100% run on Rage last weekend, I now have around 4 missions left on my Nightmare run for the plat.

Difficulty in games is such an interesting thing. For instance, I always play on the Normal/standard difficulty unless a harder playthrough is required for a platinum. More often than not I then find the harder playthrough actually improves the game as the player needs to understand the mechanics to a greater degree and execute at a higher level. Then, when I play the next game on the schedule and a harder play through isn’t required, I’ll just select Normal again for some reason 🤷‍♂️. Just lazy I guess.

@Member_the_game Master League. Why won't they make it?! It's crazy. I'm still playing the 2021 update. No way I can play that FIFA rubbish.

Having been up in Scotland for the week I am going to have another play through of Still Wakes The Deep, great game and atmosphere. Then back to Outlaws, just got to the 2nd planet and upgrading my speeder to go on water, loving it.

@Zuljaras I loved Blood Dragon, batsh*t crazy but in a good way, Rex Colt, what a guy!

Happy gaming folks

Im playing Broken Sword Reforged a timeless classic and one of my favourite Ps1 games

Today nothing as I'm in a nature reserve with my bird of prey obsessed son but tomorrow I'll get on Epic Mikey maybe start last of us part 1 New game plus

@riceNpea

It's madness isn't it... the game play is so good but basically just a bare bones game.

I don't mind FIFA to be honest, I think it's better than people give it credit for but this year I've just refused pay £70 for a reskin

Metaphor ReFantazio Prologue Demo, which is a pleasant surprise to me. Will start Zelda Echoes of Wisdom once I'm done with it.

I finished the story of the truly fantastic Astrobot so I will continue to search for the rest of those bots.I have 226 so far..
I have no jrpgs on the go after finishing TOCS 3 a little while ago so have been eagerly awaiting the release of Metaphor Refantazio and after playing the demo that wait is even harder!

On the Switch I am still playing Ace Attorney trilogy and I'm STILL on the first game..

Broken Sword Reforged.

I've been looking forward to this for such a long time. I was really reluctant to pay 30 for it, but I already know I love the game, and maybe if it's successful, they'll do The Smoking Mirror, too.

I'm going to go and grab some snacks, close the blinds and settle in. See you on the other side.

I will be trying the Metaphor prologue, working towards the Astrobot platinum and some Space Marine 2 for good measure. Have a great weekend everyone.

Since last week

Star Wars Outlaws - finished and platinumed, really enjoyed this game. Sure, it has its flaws but on the whole I found it to be a great game. The Star Wars feeling is top notch. Would love a sequel but that’s not likely to happen sadly.

Stellar Blade - Did a new game + playthrough for the platinum, focusing only on the main missions. What an awesome game this is, love it!

Astro Bot - just finished the third world, or galaxy, or whatever, taking my sweet time and enjoying every second of it. Such an amazing game, my all time favorite 3d platformer and I haven’t even finished it yet 😊

Road 96 - Wanted to try this given the Life is Strange vibes I got from it, and even if its imo far from LiS level good so far the game has that something that’s got me wanting more.

Bloomtown: A Different Story and Vacation Simulator.

Tomb raider remastered and rise of the ronin on the 5. Half life alyx on the personal computer.

After deciding to pre-order a pro this week I've been diving into some serious Balatro and Vampire survivors.

I want them to do a pro patch for both just for giggles!

@Member_the_game @riceNpea A few more modes, specifically Master League (!) would be good, but I actually like that it's relatively slim compared to Fifa. I played EA 24 and it's so bloated, I barely had any idea what I was doing through menus on top of menus on top of menus. Nobody could ever complain it doesn't have enough content. I did actually find myself really enjoying the card building challenge things. Anyway, yes, as long as eFootball has been at it, you'd think it'd be more straightened out by now. Konami always were a mess, though, back when it was PES, and even further back when it was ISS. Thankfully the gameplay is on point! At least when there's no suspect lag, or you're playing some loser who quits out. Maybe I'll see you on the pitch!

Still working my way through Metroid Prime this weekend. I could wax lyrical for hours on what a fantastic game it is: the world design, the lore, the visuals, the soundtrack, all the little graphical touches that bring everything to life, the brilliant way in which the visor is used to make your feel immersed... Just wonderful. Once I'm finished with it, I have the urge to return to the equally magical Shadow of the Colossus remake for yet another playthrough, then I'll be launching into Metroid Prime 2.

I’m still running around Horizon Forbidden west and I’m enjoying it more this time around. I’m going for the Plat, so it may take me a little while (ahhh the map is so big). Apart from that I bought Ace Attorney Investigations collection to round up my favourite courtroom family.

Red Dead Redemption 2

I've just put 12 rounds from double Schofields into Micah Bell's face. Immense satisfaction.

I will be playing one of the best rpgs ever made in the excellent assasin creed odysey gold edition.im playing as alexios.hes a excellent protagonist.the combat.the gameplay.the graphics.the story.the soundtract.and the boss fights is .phenomenal.i will also be playing one of the best underated rpgs ever in the incredible greedfall with all the dlcs.im playing the as a male technical.the gameplay is so fun as the technical class.its the best way to play greedfall.the boss fights is incredible.the art style graphics.the soundtrack.and i will be playing the amazing underated concrete genie.ash is a cool protagonist.and the artsyle graphics is incredible.the gameplay.the story.the soundtrack.the boss fights is amazing.i will be watching my Pittsburgh Steelers💛🖤 play.and i will be watching legendary sitcoms tv 📺 comedy shows in good times.sanford and sons.family matters.and saved by the bell.word up son

Playing:

• Street Fighter 6
  I unlocked Pao Pao Cafe stage (it has a cool theme) and tried Terry (he is pretty fun) with drive tickets. I also tried new feature V-Rival which I personally quite like it. But the AI feels kinda easy despite they at Master rank, so i think the feature aim for people who doesn't want to play sweaty ranked match but wants to taste advanced players playing style and got tips to improve their game.
• Metaphor prologue demo
  Played the demo for 5+ hours until Hulkenburg join my party. I really enjoyed it but it feels as if i played a Persona game but with different skin and not a complete new IP. It has Persona or in this game called Archetype with the awakening style very similar to Persona, it has time limits to finish the dungeon / main quest, it has social link, doing some activities move forward the day, and many elements from Persona series. I'm a bit dissapointed because i expect it can offer a very different gameplay experiences compare to Persona series. Oh well...
• Star Ocean: First Departure R
  I'm quite enjoying this game but it doesn't age that well and feels like a low effort remaster compare to Star Ocean: Second Story R.
• Valkyria Chronicles 4
  I lost my save so i'm playing this game again from the beginning. Right now i'm at chapter 2 part 5, liberating Reine.

Have a good week everyone 🙏

I will be continuing with my playthrough of Broken sword reforged. Got Zelda echoes but i will be selling it today as its really not my bag at all. Too far from the origional formula and far too much menu swapping for my liking.

TLoU pt1. Still amazing. Have a good weekend all!

@ApostateMage It even felt good reading that. Rockstar did a phenomenal job creating such a loathsome character. Just this week I finished RDR immediately after RDR2. I'm going to dive back into RDR2, for lots of exploring, side missions, plant and animal studying, and collecting. 6 years old and still the finest RPG and realised world there is. Roll on RDR3. (Please?)

Playing SEKIRO. It’s really kicking my butt. Still enjoying it though. I think I actually love it. Might try and get some more trophies in Vampire Survivors and MLB The Show 24, too. I’m not a baseball fan, but I’ve recently started getting caught up in the Ohtani hype

@Bentleyma Yeah. It's been far too long since I was able to fully enjoy the developers art, uninterrupted, from start to finish. I cleared my schedule for this beauty!

@Wazeddie22 I was thinking of getting into the Ace Attorney games for Japanese study! How do you like it?

LOZ Echoes Of Wisdom (Switch)
Astro Bot (PS5)
Epic Mickey Re-Brushed (PS5)
Modern Warfare 3 (PS5)

Was thinking of downloading the demo of phantom. Decided not to, the damn demo would be on my gameslist for ever.
Polishing off Episode Aegis on P3R. Complete waste of money imo

@Member_the_game FIFA still isn't as good as the 2021 update, and it's woeful offline. Career Mode has been broken since forever. I dont play footy online so FIFA will never appeal to me unless Pro Evo is as bad as it was in the PS3 era.

I picked up both avatar and stellar blade, after trading in some games.

So will be avatar this weekend as going to wait for the nier update for SB

I’m about to finish Chapter 7 in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I definitely did not expect Yuffie to be the most fun character play as. Her combat mechanics are great!

I’ve also gotten back into Marvel Snap.

I don’t have much to say other than I’m feeling accomplished for wrapping up Ys IX: Monstrum Nox and getting the platinum trophy. I can’t wait for Ys X to release next month.

I’ve now started The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and it’s great. I’m not that far, but I have completed one main dungeon (yay, proper dungeons are back!), a handful of optional dungeons and side quests that are incredibly rewarding, and just reached the Zora region.

It’s what you expect from a Nintendo game—abysmal framerate rounded out by charm, creativity, fun gameplay, impeccable sound design, and a gorgeous Hyrule that beckons to be explored. The best thing about the game so far is how it blends old school LoZ design with its modern counterparts, allowing for a fantastic adventure ripe with creative puzzle solving, making you, the player feel intelligent when you solve a problem. Not many games can provide that sense of satisfaction, but this game does it in effortlessly.

@XscapingReality, nah prefer OG

@Kraven, Zelda games are just sublime.

I've just finished Star Wars Outlaws on Xbox and Under The Waves on PS5 now trying to decide what to play next. I'm seriously thinking about buying Stellar Blade or Dragon's Dogma 2 but i should really try and clear some of my backlog.

@Malaise I've just downloaded Red Dead Redemption myself. Time for Marston to hunt down the rest of the bad eggs from the Van Der Linde gang.

Defeated Lady Butterfly second time in my I'd say 2nd run of Sekiro after meeting Sword Saint and my data getting corrupted. Plus Divinity OS2.

@PuppetMaster Yeah Metaphor felt all too familiar to Persona, I was hoping for a more open world and freedom.

I finished the main campaign of "horizon forbidden west. I haven't touched the burning shores yet. Great game! Just the ending felt a little cheap.

Then I started Harold Halibut. I haven't finished it yet so maybe I will change my opinion. Certainly the art style is fantastic, also the music and sound design. In general it creates a superb atmosphere in my book. In contrast to push square's review I actually like the dialogues and presumably appreciate the story more. Since I haven't finished it I have no opinion on its impact, but there is certainly some food for thoughts here and there. There is not much of a game. It is more like a slow paced anime of which the player controls the progression speed to some extent. Anyway so far I really liking it ... very much, actually.

@Mikey856 Yeah I’m gonna go for HZD remaster as well. I blame Astro Bot for my return to HFW, the music got to me 😂.

Playing the excellent space marine 2. What a throwback to the PS3 Xbox charm of the bro shooter. It’s Gears of War all over again.

Also workin on Black Myth Wukong.

If time allows I’d like to revisit Rise of the Ronin or start Blacklight.

About to start my first ever journey into The Last Of Us with Part 1. So that’s probably my entire weekend sorted! (In between killing myself during small bouts of Pistol Whip)

Have fun everyone!

@ApostateMage Nice! Enjoy it! It's clearly showing its age in some ways, but it's still an exceptional game, particularly for its age. And it plays beautifully and is incredibly smooth.

If/when they make RDR3, I personally hope they go even further back. To the early days of the Wild West, and feature set pieces and locales inspired by true events. Maybe play as a young Hosea, or Dutch himself.

I know a lot of people would like to play as Jack Marston, but not only did his revenge tale end with Red Dead Redemption, so did the age of outlaws and the frontier. Shortly after that, World War 1 happened. Either way, I trust in Rockstar, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little nervous since the departure of Dan Houser. I believe Sam Houser is still there.

@Mikey856 thats sounds promising, your wife seems to have good taste in games 🙂

Welp can you guess what I'm playing?

Yeah, more Unicorn Overlord if/when i get some time this weekend. Been a rough one as co workers are on Holiday.

Have a good one folks!

Star Wars Outlaws

@gaston The Burning Shores ending is better. Thst dlc is really great 😃

My PlayStation feels a little neglected. I don't think it's been turned on in 10 days or so.

About to head up to the venue where my brother is getting married to help set up. After that, I'll run my son home and try to knock out a trip to the grocery and auto parts stores. My lawn mower needs a full on carb rebuild and valve adjustment, so I'll knock that out if I have some time before the wedding tonight.

Maybe tomorrow evening after the football game, I'll spin up the Metaphor demo. We'll see.

@KyushuTrail
Hey, I’m looking for good games for Japanese study too. It’s annoying that many Japanese games don’t have Japanese voice and text. Any good recommendations you’ve come across? Any emulated games with rewind would be ideal I think, so I can hear the audio over.

I was going to play, Lies of P but if its enhanced for Pro ill hang fire. Im catching up with Blasphemous (excellent metroidvania). Have a great weekend folks!

@thefourfoldroot1 I liked the Famicom detective games on my switch for studying. There’s a conversation log where you can repeat voiced dialog. 13 Sentinels was good for that too, but the Japanese was a little more difficult. Games where you can’t repeat cutscenes or other dialog I broadcast privately on YouTube and review the game footage later for study. That way any game can be used for study. I would recommend games that aren’t sci-fi or fantasy to get more useful Japanese. Something like the Crayon-shin chan summer vacation game

@Michael2008ish Oh I’ll definitely go back to Cloud after Chapter 7.

@NieR_Dark I envy you. I wish I could experience that game for the first time again.

Haven't played any Astro Bot for a week or so, i'd better play some of that.

Then there's the matter of seeing how Ireland would handle the running of north Africa in the middle ages on CK3. Not sure I'm playing the tutorial "right" but I'm enjoying it haha.

Training with Terry in SF6 and trying to squeeze every bit of content out of the Metaphor ReFantazio prologue: it’s a really generous offering.

PS5/PS4- Marvel vs Capcom Collection, Lollipop Chainsaw Repop, and Dragon Dogma 2. Maybe Stellar Blade.

Series X- Street Fighter 6

Switch- Ace Attorney Investigation Collection, and TMNT Reshelled.

So far I've been loving the Metaphor Demo!

Haven't had a lot of time to game so other than that it's been just a few runs of Slay the Spire.

Currently a split between Darkest Dungeon 2 and the endless torture of a good run being scuppered by an encounter from hell, and the Metaphor demo. The goalposts of "okay, time's almost up" are finally there, but I've been genuinely impressed by the scope of it; the runtime is easily two or three times what I'd expected, and each time I thought it surely had to be coming to an end... nope, it just kept going.

I might finish the prologue for Metaphor. Tbh it's pretty interesting so far but it's not clicking for me the way persona and smt do. It feels and looks a lot worse than either of the 2. But it's only the prologue I'm super curious to see where this game goes

And I think I might finally try Death Stranding. I'm hoping it lives up to the hype of that sequel trailer! And the memes 😂

@XscapingReality I missed out on PS3 and PS4 dabbling with other consoles, so jumping to PS5 has given me this whole world of exclusives I’ve missed out on over the years, which has been a lot of fun 😀

Just finished replaying Days Gone I don't really want to start anything else that's too long at the moment since Sparking Zero's release is so close

Maybe some Broken Sword Reforged, Sonic Frontiers and UFO 50 this weekend. I may also start the new Zelda game at some point. Enjoy the weekend everyone.

@Judal27 so interesting! I think it's better than SMT in literally every way and I put it on the same tier so far as Persona, and 5 is one of my favorite games of all time.

I'm having a blast and the only aspect where I think it's not quite up to Persona's standards is the music, which is still quite good! The battle theme is a little...bizarre

Sorry that you're not connecting with it as much as you would have liked.

Splitting my time between the new DLC for the absolutely EXCELLENT Remnant 2 (which has become one of my top 10 favorite video game series of all time) and the very good but overly long Red Dead Redemption 2 which is starting to become a bit of a grind TBH.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Vita) - Chase and I are reunited for a brief bit..

Microsoft Wordament (Android) - Dailies and Adventure mode.

Free Slots Fun Factory (Windows Phone) - I can't seem to get this running. I'll watch some YT vids on it and then delete it from the list of games remaining on the Windows Phone...

Likely continue my adventure in Dark Souls Remastered.

My wife took the kids for a sleepover at my sister in law’s house, so I’ve been taking some relaxation time for myself and doing some heavy gaming. Mostly I’ve been playing Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, I expected to enjoy it, I didn’t expect to love it as much as I do. I don’t think it’ll beat out Astro as my GotY, but it’ll be a close second. I also jumped into a few rounds of Space Marine 2 with a couple of friends, my very rare multiplayer gaming time. I’m almost exclusive a single player kind of guy, but every now and then the right game comes along.