Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

Last year I picked up Fire Emblem Awakening during the slow period of the gaming release calendar. I got about 30ish hours into it, but then new releases came out, so I never finished it. I remember it getting really hard in the back half of the game too, so that helped motivate me to not go back. I couldn’t be bothered to start it all over again, so I picked up the special edition of Fates which includes the three routes.

After the first 20 chapters or so of Birthright were super easy, the difficulty spike since has been truly astronomical. I seem to run into the same problem in all Fire Emblem games where you eventually get to a point where enemies are so strong, trying to introduce and level new units basically becomes non viable and it's basically the same three Units you’ve levelled since early game that now solo entire maps for you. I got my very first gameover screen during Chapter 22 for this very reason, bringing my B-Team for the hope of some new promotions and getting utterly wrecked.

On a side note, it is weird cause Awakening is an older game but that lets you play in Japanese. This for some reason, does not. This would be fine if the dub was even serviceable but it's so bad it actually made me laugh out loud at times. It feels like a parody dub. There's an option to turn off the voice acting I'm not sure I've ever seen before, it's certainly the first time I've used it, that is for sure. I still have to listen to their post battle voices however and every time it sounds like a meme someone has edited in for a YouTube skit.

As such, I sorta have no feelings on the story at all. I suppose all Fire Emblem games have to be built around the permadeath modes, so that means they have to be constantly introducing new characters for you to repopulate anyone you lose along the way. But it feels like Fates absolutely barrels through locations, characters, story beats at such a pace that I just feel absolutely nothing for this story, or world, or cast. Possibly part of that is because I am playing with no voice acting, but I also think the writing is just kinda terrible in general, or maybe it is just the translation.

That being said, while all of that is true, there is something about these games is just so playable and weirdly addictive to me. Missions don't take very long, and you're constantly progressing something so it just makes it a real one more battle kind of hunger. The presentation for the battle animations still remains top notch, even if the overall visuals aren’t great being a ten year old DS game.

I also love all the weird classes they come up with, and while it seemed convoluted to begin with, using Heart Seals to go into different class branches to send characters in new directions became really fun during the later game when I really wanted to test the upper limits of my strongest units.

I dunno, this isn't necessarily a good game, but nothing else scratches the Fire Emblem itch quite like a Fire Emblem game. There are many imitators, and they may even out class FE in some areas, but that core FE gameplay is just unmatched for me.

Bought a new PC. Installed a bunch of games wanting to showcase my new hardware, but I haven't been able to play any of them, because I am hopelessly addicted to Marvel Rivals!

I have never really been an online PVP sorta fellow, but something about those early days of Overwatch really caught me. It is like a pocket of my life I look back on really fondly. My friends and I racing home from work or uni to sit down in front of the PS4 and spend our entire evening on Overwatch. These moments have become increasingly rarer as I've gotten older and schedules become harder and harder to line up. Overwatch was just in the perfect place for where my friends and I were all on our life journeys at that time, to fill a shared space between us all.

Rivals is the first time since those early years of Overwatch for a game to recapture that feeling for me, and my friends, and I am just loving it. A game so fun, my friends have to drop their other plans, and just jump on a Discord call and play a few rounds.

Marvel Rivals is extremely unbalanced and sloppy, but it is also mostly unserious too, even in Comp. There has been efforts to make every hero viable here, but there definitely seems to be a focus on first bringing these heroes to life properly first, and then doing whatever they can to bring it all into some semblance of balance. We can talk and argue forever about the benefits of what Overwatch eventually grew into, but it went into a direction that lost me as a player, and this is the first game of this nature to find me again.

Started playing Project Gotham Racing 2 on Xbox 360. The emulation on 360 is not good. The screen turns black when choosing cars, so I can't really choose which car I want. There's so much screen tearing during races and the sound cuts off when there are too many cars on the track at once.

As for the game itself, I'm enjoying it way more than the first one. Progression through career mode is better than in the first game. There are more difficulty options and considering this is an old game, the game is quite challenging so I'm glad I can play it on the easiest difficulty.

I'm unsure if I'll play through the career mode in its entirety as there have been moments where I just wanted to give up. But the races are so short and I'm progressing rather fast, so that's been motivating me to keep playing.

Tried Marvel Rivals yesterday for the first time on the Xbox. I only played for a little bit because of time but dang it’s so fun and I’d say it’s way more fun than Overwatch despite how much I’ve played that. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had with a hero shooter in a while.

I really like how the characters play and control, and one thing I appreciate the most was how all the heroes have a difficulty rating that shows how easy or hard they play, something Overwatch doesn’t do. So far I’ve played two matches and won both, even got MVP on my first match! Used Squirrel Girl for both of them and the way she plays is so fun. I love how bouncy and jumpy she is, and the fact she’s super easy to master too. When I play it a bit more, I’ll try to give some of the other heroes a try.

I've played about 12 hours of Avowed since the EA went live the other day. It makes a really strong first impression. I dunno if they can keep it up for the long haul, but its been a really long time since a game grabbed me this fast. It's like a delicious blend of old school BioWare cinematic RPGs, a classic Larian RPG and the Dying Light games. My monkey brain grins at the parkour challenge ahead of me, that I know leads to some loot. The monkey brain grins at the crunchy, tactile, first person combat and how impactful all the magic and abilities all feel. And the nerd in me grins at just how much agency appear present in how you resolve questlines. It may all be smoke and mirrors, but the greatest smoke and mirror is one that disguises a smoke and mirror from feeling like one, and they've near mastered that here. Oh and I have a big piece of wood growing out my face and everyone talks ***** about it who meets me.

A couple games into Civ VII and yeah it’s good. I would say it’s slightly more tiring than other games, less pick up and play, but there’s a lot of depth there. I do like the new system of switching Civs and it’s totally opened up the game. Definitely a lot of places to go once we start getting expansions.

Couldn't sleep, so I've been playing Resident Evil 2 on my PS one for the last couple of hours. I've just grabbed the cog and heading to the clock tower. It's weird going back to it after playing the remake, but it's still really enjoyable. I kept meaning to stop playing, but I couldn't pull myself away from it.

I'm continuing to play PS one games.

It plays pretty well. You can change it to a control scheme that isn't far off from modern controls.

Started playing WipEout Pulse on Vita. Still in a mood for racing games after having played through Project Gotham Racing 2 and 3. This is actually my first WipEout game that I'm playing through. I'm a bit unaccustomed to the floaty driving but other than that, I'm really enjoying this game. I like the campaign where there are different race events like single races, speed laps, zones etc., which is similar in structure to the campaigns in PGR 2 and 3 actually.

Decided to spend my Friday just trying out different games, while still grinding out ZZZ.

First up was Beastieball. A new early access Pokemonlike with battles that are based around volleyball (but still turn based). Makes a really solid first impression, but since its EA, I dunno how long it will be good for.

Tried out Path of Exile 2. Absurdly difficult. Felt like I hit a difficulty wall almost immediately and turned it off basically straight away.

Tried out Stalker 2. Made it further than I did with POE2, but still only about half an hour. Seems like an absolute slog. Not for me.

Stalker 2 did, however, inspire me to reinstall Singularity. The opening hour or two of that game still absolutely bangs, holds up way better than I expected it too. Pretty sure its only like 10 hours long, so might focus on getting a replay done of this this weekend. BioShock is my favourite game, and for some reason they don't really make many games like that, especially nowadays, so Singularity is like the next best thing outside of just replaying BioShock.

I also picked up Megaton Musashi W Wired, not had a chance to play this yet, but I loved Gundam Breaker 4 last year, and this seems like a very similar concept.

Gotta be hyped for Judas, eh?

@Pizzamorg Yeah Singularity is a banger and a under appreciated hidden gem.

Tried out Megaton this morning. It is mechanically very similar to Gundam Breakers which is what I expected and wanted. What I wasn't ready for is just how dark and twisty the story is, right out of the gate. Gundam Breaker is just about awkward teens playing an MMO together, this is certainly not... that. Not a negative at all, it just really caught me off guard, especially with the art style and general art direction it has.

Incredibly so! Rumours even suggest it could come out this year. I'm not sure it is ever going to feel quite real until it is in my hands.

I wonder if anyone has made a "Bioshocklikes" list anywhere, as I wouldn't mind playing through all of them. Feel like a lot of them just sorta got lost to time.

@Pizzamorg Have you played Atomic Heart? I've heard it's very inspired by BioShock. Haven't played it myself yet.

@Pizzamorg The ones that spring to mind are System Shock and Prey. Not played the former game yet, but Prey is awesome.

I've tried, and bounced off of it, a few times actually. Looks great, feels great, but I really hated that weird semi-open world design where you were endlessly attacked as you tried to move around from place to place. I have no idea if that ever got retuned, if it had, I'd probably give it another go.

I actually played System Shock OG when I was a lot younger, feel like it would probably be too hard for me now 😂 Also I really wish I liked Prey, cause it ticks a lot of boxes for me, but I dunnno what it is, I play for a few hours, finish up one night and somehow never end up coming back to it. Must have done half a dozen fresh starts and never got more than like six hours in.

I thought Pirate Yakuza was just meant to be some silly spin off, but it might be the most I've ever enjoyed a Yakuza game out of the gate? Like I'd kind of accepted that every Yakuza game has a drawn out, 10 / 15 hour, borderline slog, of an opening you just have to push through to get to the good parts, but this basically skips over that entirely and the positive impact this has is immeasurable.

The ground combat is still messy like in all of these games with the real time combat. I feel like the brawler combat still felt tighter in the Judgement games, but fun seems to be the name of the game here, rather than having super refined feel. I remember being surprised that, especially in some of the older Yakuza games, but even Gaiden, were actually quite hard and demanding in context to how sloppy the mechanics felt, and I always thought that was kind of at odds. PY feels substantially easier, and just clearly wants you to enjoy the combat, and so it makes how janky everything feel not feel like something that just exists to punish the player.

Mad Dog is your traditional Majima fighting style only now with air combos, and is a lot of fun. Sea Dog is the style Majima adopts as he tries to live out his pirate fantasies. Mad Dog feels really fun out of the gate, whereas Sea Dog... doesn't. I played the demo that had a lot more of this fighting style online, so I know it's gonna end up in a super fun place, but right now I'm just swapping back to Mad Dog every chance I get and enjoying utterly dominating my foes.

There's also some pretty basic ship combat now which is kinda whatever (and of course managing your crew is basically an entire extra RPG within the game, that could be its own game if it wanted, like so many Yakuza sub-games before it), but the massive brawls that kick off when you board the enemy ships are so fun. You can also use Heat Moves now that combo you with your crew, and some are spectacular.

The tone might be polarising for some, the framing device with Majima telling his own story allows them to get really weird with It, even by Yakuza standards. And at least in these early chapters, while it does function somewhat as a sequel to Infinite Wealth, it has largely moved away from the Yakuza melocrimedrama into its own isolated side story about Majima climbing the ranks of some kind of pirate tournament. I personally think it is all a lot of fun and who knows, maybe it will end up back squarely in the Yakuza world in the end. I kind of feel like it must have to, if this is the game that is going to bridge Infinite Wealth to whatever the next mainline game is.

There is also that fine line with RGG games with how much of their assets they reuse (they couldn't pump the games out at this pace without it, though) and so some might mark the game down for putting us back into the Honolulu map from Infinite Wealth. However, while it may just be a cost saving measure, I do think there is this strange comfort and even nostalgia about space in a Yakuza game, cause the games take place in the same areas over and over again and I did feel that with this one too, reminiscing about stuff I experienced in Infinite Wealth as I got to Hawaii and started seeing memory jogging landmarks.