What are you playing right now?

> 3d world 100%
The last level is pretty brutal, don't underestimate it.

> New SMB
The WiiU release with Luigi's expansion is really cool, highly recommend that game! Never fully explored the first two titles though.

I emulated the Wii U version half a year ago and finished the main game only. I did a few endgame levels and even the first one was already a considerable step up in difficulty compared to the main game, so I don't expect it to be easy at all, especially when trying to find all stamps and green stars.

I only started replaying the Switch version because I played Bowser's Fury lol, but I might prefer the Switch version's increased movement speed over the Wii U version.

U Deluxe is the Switch port of the Wii U game, and it includes the Luigi expansion.

Wish I could get more time to play NEO: World Ends with You.

Absurdly deep game with really brainy solutions to challenges game presents to you.

I saw some footage which looked fantastic and immediately sold me on the game. From what I could tell, each attack button is assigned to a different party member right?

The main reason I held back from starting it is because I consider getting a DS and playing the original TWEWY on it first.

GN1 wrote:I saw some footage which looked fantastic and immediately sold me on the game. From what I could tell, each attack button is assigned to a different party member right?

The main reason I held back from starting it is because I consider getting a DS and playing the original TWEWY on it first.

Indeed, each button is a separate party member.

Also I will say that NEO is indeed a sequel to original TWEWY on the DS, but was meant to be easy for newcomers to get in considering that around 14 years has passed. You follow new cast while fan-favorites show up and you get to observe what they are doing as an outsider.

I didn't play TWEWY but heard that the story is much simpler there.

>heard mixed things about the NSMB games
Same here. I'm not the best judge, since I've played them while I was much younger, and only once each. But the main complaint is that they "play it too safe".

I played NSMB DS and Wii. Liked them at the time, but again, that was probably a decade and a half ago.

>the old games
Not sure how rough it would be for someone who hasn't played them, but hope they at least don't waste your time.

Oh yeah, before I forget, I saw this earlier today. Found it pretty interesting. It's basically a ringout in a Mega Man game. I'm not much of a fan of every boss being weak to just one out of your 9 weapons (buster included), so this was a very pleasant surprise to see (even if you must take damage for it to work). Also, the title is amusing.

Is taking hits always bad thing, even if they're calculated? It seems like interesting layer of strategy to me that I don't see discussed too often.Only arcades at large played with this concept of health as resource, beat'em ups especially.

>Health as resource
Metroid Prime 2 immediately comes to mind, kinda, but that was more about you having to take DoT in the dark world for most of the game. And even then they kinda negate it by giving you these safety pools to recharge your health in.

>beat'em ups especially
Yagawa shmups do this (Battle Garegga, Ibara, Armed Police Batrider etc.), where you periodically need to take a hit in order to lower the game's dynamic difficulty.

>Metroid Prime 2's DoT
How does it work? I missed out on Metroid, since Nintendo consoles were black magic in my country.

>Yagawa shmups
I had the rank system of Battle Garegga in mind, but me and shmups don't vibe all that well hah, so despite sounding interesitng, I really didn't try it.

>Metroid Prime 2 DoT

So the game has a light world and a dark world, kinda like Zelda: A Link to the Past, though a bit more linear. You often switch between Light Aether and Dark Aether to progress, which are broken mirrors of each other, but in Dark Aether, the atmosphere is toxic to Samus and does damage just by being there.

When you start, you're very weak, with the atmosphere doing tons of damage to you, and you having to rely on these kind of "oxygen bubbles" that you run between to recharge your health before moving on.

Then eventually you get the Dark Suit, which has heavy darkness resistance. You're still taking damage in Dark Aether, but it's now at a slow-enough pace that you're just managing it with occasional health pick-ups and moving briskly during bosses and such. So it's always there, but way more manageable.

And it isn't until late in the game when you finally get the Light Suit, which negates damage from Dark Aether completely.

Ah, so it's swimming section without swimming. I would say it's more of a pressure mechanic, because you're not the one deciding to spend your life bar for trade-off/benefits. You're actively trying to minimize loses.

>deciding to spend your life bar for trade-off/benefits
Ah well if you're thinking of that, Metroid Prime 3 is sort of an example: You engage hyper mode (super you), which turns one of your energy tanks into the ammo/meter for it. And making it more interesting, you have to actively make sure you spend it all in a short enough time, because eventually you'll enter corrupted hyper mode, which causes your hypermode meter to actually INCREASE, and it becomes hard to empty. If it fills, you get a game over.

It's all super interesting, but kinda undercut by how easy the game is compared to the first two. Maybe on hypermode difficulty it's different, but I've not played that yet.

>hyper mode
Interesting. So there are no advantages of entering corrupted mode - from practical view, since the game is easy - but it's also mechanically discouraged? Concept of overpowering yourself to overcame enemies and if you indulge too much, you will die is really interesting.

Yeah like, you can let yourself enter corrupted hypermode (and i often did) because of the increased firepower for longer. But the longer you're in it, the harder it is to empty your energy, so you gotta be careful that you start "mashing out" (shooting) quickly enough so that the corruption gain doesn't start to outpace your ability to hit buttons.

I should note that I haven't played the game in ten years, so my memory of how it works may be inaccurate, but I'm fairly certain I'm remembering right here.

> MP2 dark world
It was a great idea, I'm still a bit mixed on it. Sometimes I love that game more by the hour, other times the dark world irks me. I think it's because of the re-used assets and that it is more just 'the light world, but purple and with tentacles'. The purple hue really makes it feel less unique. I am pretty impressed by how opressive they made it, especially by having regular enemies be really dangerous in that world especially at the start when a regular Ing is a seirous threat.

I think the game faltered by giving you the Dark Suit so early, or by making it so powerful. In the Varia Suit (starting suit) you are dealt 10 damage per second in the dark world. It drains you *fast*. With the Dark Suit, gained after beating the first area, this is reduced to 1 damage per second. Feel that was a bit overdone.

> MP3 hypermode
Always felt that was a bit broken. If you just let yourself become 'corrupted' you could in essence gain 2-3 energytanks worth of hypermode out of the ordeal before the auto-disable was activated. At first it's a neat mechanic that rewards your knowledge, but after a while you can feel this wasn't the intent as you will basically maul anything that comes in your path.

With how frequent health pickups were, and how many tanks you have near the end, you'll basically be in Hyper Mode 100% of the time in combat scenarios, while the idea was that it was this 'oh shit' mode you needed to use in a pickle with risks attached to it.

Been alternating between Tactics Ogre, Dragon's Dogma and Okami.

Started NEO TWEWY. Will put some serious time into it over my two week Christmas holiday.

Tried Persona Tactics on Gamepass and didn't like it very much.

I finished Zelda Link's Awakening (Switch version), though I never played the original, I saw comparisons and it's a very faithful remake. Great game, I enjoyed the dungeons, general exploration and also the music and visuals.

It's the first Zelda game I finished although I also played some of Wind Waker before it, and one thing in favor of this game is the grappling hook. In Wind Waker, I could only use it on specific wooden poles, and it didn't seem to do anything when I tried to hit enemies with it. In Link's Awakening however, on top of being able to hook to more types of objects, it also worked on enemies freezing them for a few seconds, and it can even be used to take the mask off of one enemy type which is neat.

Right now I'm playing the Super Mario RPG remake, another very faithful remake by Nintendo, I'm close to the end and it's also great. While I don't play turn based games (at least not yet), I enjoy the combat here due to the interactivity of it - It's easy to tell this was the foundation that the Paper Mario games were built upon. It caught me off guard that the game lets Mario be an asshole with some of the answers you can choose lol.

100%'ed Mario Wonder and it's very good overall. The later levels and the Special World are pretty great. The true last level especially is brutal for a Mario game. Did it all with Mario but somehow missed the fucking flagpole at the end, so I quickly did it again with Nabbit (which is unvulnerable) just to get it over with. Probably won't revisit it but it was great regardless.

Finished Magenta Horizon demo, it's dam good.

It's best descriptor is chaos control simulator, and recommended for anyone who likes very well designed movelist and also great, very aggressive enemy roster to utilize that movelist. That's on top of great movement as well, enemies serve as walls or hazards in ground or air, but also can be used as tools to win more airtime.

https://maddison-baek.itch.io/magenta-horizon

It is heavily in my backlog since the creator is on this site and so is his #1 fan (who gifted me a copy). I heard it's super super good yeah.

>Magenta Horizon
Still unsure if I should wait for the full release or not, but the game does sure seem interesting, especially since it's from a solo dev and a member of our sphere.

I`m playing Dying light 2

It is ubi-style open world. Same old fomular : Go new area, Climb up to a tower, Do side activities while you can do main quests.

But, It is enjoyable because of its mobility. I loved Assassin Creed 2`s "dungeon" levels, special challenge for pakour. And this game is built around all about it. This is what Mirror`s Edge wanted to be. You will slide, You will do wall-run, You will paraglide and use grapler hooks like spiderman. All buildings are well designed, and since pakour system is solid so the "tower" part is actually enjoyable. Even some of them are very challenging.

Main quests are linear, but you don`t have to hurry about main quest. There are "main quest areas" where you can not get out, but usually you can just hang around. Side quests are good to check. It doesn`t make your approach different, but they always have some twists or intersting lores.

Also, Day-Night cycle is quiet good. When the sun is up, you are just doing musou. Hacking & Slashing mindless zombies, with some parrying and dodgeing. But when night comes, there are enemies that you can not beat so you have to run. But there are activities only can be done at night, and the reward is huge if you survive.

I will not play this game again and again, even there is multiple choices and RPG elements. That multiple choices & RPG elements are a bit shallow, imo. But this "ubi-style open world but not tedious" is so refreshing.

Malcar wrote:>Magenta Horizon
Still unsure if I should wait for the full release or not, but the game does sure seem interesting, especially since it's from a solo dev and a member of our sphere.

You can wait ofc. I think the dev is a very nice person and needs his game to be spread, very underdiscussed.

Started Lightning Returns. Positives so far:
-High degree of customability, with different abilities, garbs and equipment.
-Just inputs and just guard increase the execution barrier a bit.
-While stagger is a bit limiting, it works almost like counterattacks in God Hand, so attacking while the enemy is attacking will stagger more, making for a nice risk-reward mechanic.
-Some enemies have severable parts which change their moveset and weakspots, encouraging positioning.
-Recovery items are limited per battle and you don't recover automatically recover health.
-You have to balance your EP points (which are essentially Mana) for usage in battle and outside of battle (for stopping time, since the game runs on a time limit).
-Changing Schemata (equipment sets) during battle is very fluid and can lead to some cool stuff, like starting a combo with one set and finishing it with another. Have to see if you can do cancels with this (I think you can),

The only thing that I don't like is that Lightning's default speed in battle is very slow (making strategic positioning less appealing than it would otherwise be) and that the basic elemental spells are just pallette swaps and are only used for elemental weaknesses. Was hoping that they worked like the spells in VIIR.

Been using the FFVII garb and sword until now but I switched since it was a tad bit too powerful, even though the game remained challenging even with it (haven't used any other DLC equipment). It's rare to have an action game (much less so an ARPG) have a decent challenge in the early game on a first playthrough. Definitely a bonus.

I played The finals, and I recommend it. For foreigners, It is not so suprising that this game, which is made by former battle field team, is good or Okay at least. But to koreans it is very rare experience. A well-made non-p2w game? Published by Nexon?

This game is a very chaotic arcade-y FPS game, and of course includes big destructions. Nothing is specialized, Guns are not that various like arena shooters, Damages are not that heavy like tactical shoooters, Classes have their characters but not that extreme. But that makes the combat experience chaotic. All materials are there, so you will switch your tactics and attitudes toward situations, which means that making split-second decisions again and again.

Its level design is so solid and fun to move around, and the feeling of arena shooters are reserved even though characters do not move like that quick.

just finished resident evil 2 remake as leon 1st run and then Claire 2nd run (both the runs done on hardcore mode).. gotta say the 2nd run is same as 1st run but with different pathways/routes (disapponting if you ask me)

claire definitely has better weapons than leon does

overall my only nitpick for this game are the bosses are straight up mediocre at its best (except for super tyrant because its the only boss that isnt recycled like g1,g2,g3 and g4 and g5)

other than its an 8.5/10 game. i loved it, i can definitely see myself replaying in future

RE2make is an excellent game imo that just loses more and more charm the more you play it, once you get into routing, notice the extreme minor differences and general absence of a lot of OG-RE2 content and bossdesign, it keeps on becoming worse and worse. Mister-X also wasn't done justice imo mechanically.

Just my 5 cents, if you plan on replaying it a lot you might find yourself enjoying it less than you do now.

> topic title
Currently playing YakuzaGaiden, really fun side-game to start playing games again now that I'm a dad. Can only play an hour a day or so, but almost done I think. Very fun game!

>The finals' destructions
How well is this aspect realized in the game? How much of a role does it play in maintaing control of space or how much advantage do you gain from certains destructions?

> destructios aspect

First of all. This is not that crazy like battlefield. Heavy class can choose the breaking through wall ability and RPG. And there are many explosive barells in the map, so other classes use it to destruct.

In this game, You have to grab "cash box"(=flag) and get it into "Cash out"(=base) for getting scores. The interesting part is this : "Cash out" is usually in a building, and it takes quiet time to actually get scores. and Other teams can steal it by hold interact key infront of "Cash out".

So you usually make barricades or something like that, But when destructive projectiles come to the building, all things go nuts. And There are usually 2~3 "cash out"s, so if other team already grabed "cash box", then you could crush a buidling nearby where "cash out" is, make them difficult to access it or assault on them.

And light class has grappler hook, and other classes has a jump pad to throw, So you can just use spaces quiet vertically in any case.

Royta/Raeng wrote:RE2make is an excellent game imo that just loses more and more charm the more you play it, once you get into routing, notice the extreme minor differences and general absence of a lot of OG-RE2 content and bossdesign, it keeps on becoming worse and worse. Mister-X also wasn't done justice imo mechanically.

Just my 5 cents, if you plan on replaying it a lot you might find yourself enjoying it less than you do now.

> topic title
Currently playing YakuzaGaiden, really fun side-game to start playing games again now that I'm a dad. Can only play an hour a day or so, but almost done I think. Very fun game!

>Mr.x
yeah i am not a huge fan of mr.x being an invincible stalker enemy, especially when you're being cornered by lickers while at the same time being hunted down by mr.x at the R.P.D section. it made me wanna use the "X no more" mod forcefully lol

>replaying re2make
now that you mention it i did found 2nd run to be less enjoyable but still satisfying to play and finish whenever i used key items to unlock doors and puzzle and stuff till the end but yeah you're right


>back to topic
and now I'm playing halo reach (mcc version on PC) on legendary difficulty (made it halfway through so far), and so far its 9/10. great soundtrack and audio design, great gritty artstyle that still holds up to this day and age. only problem is that enemies on legendary difficulty have 6th sense or photographic memory that they (the enemies in halo reach) keep making unnecessary flips and dodges whenever I try to aim and shoot that its just ridiculous and unfair

@royta15 do you have any experience with halo games before?

>destruction aspect
That sounds interesting, so there is degree of specialization with heavy classes focused on demolition and light classes on moblility. From what I get the main way of scoring in the game is holding objective (cash box), but it's physical object as well, meaning it can change position due to destructions. I've seen that it also has destructible floors and cellings - nice aspect of vertical play there.

> Halo Games
Big, BIG fan of the series. Fell into the trap that they are 'dudebro games' with no mechanical depth, but once I gave them a shot on Heroic difficulty (the sweetspot imo) I fell in love. Such mechanical complexity and uses so many things smartly, like the 2-weapon limit is actually designed well and intentional.

My personal favourite is Halo 2, it's unfinished and bonkers but it has so much heart and soul and wacky shit with dual-weapon wielding (dual needler is insane). Halo:CE is probably the best 'balanced' as it has a very tight weapon-sandbox, while later entries tend to swamp it a bit with more versions of the same weapon (i.e. a sniper, a laser sniper, an energy sniper; that all do the same thing mostly).

Legendary Difficulty is generally designed around co-op, you can do them solo but honestly it never felt good to me. Especially Halo 2's Legendary difficulty is just absolutely insane.

> dodging a lot
This is best in Halo CE and 2 imo, enemies have clear tells and interactions with specific setups that you do. For example Jackals will dodge-roll when you grenade, which is great as it opens them up for a headshot (since they drop their shield).

Seriously cannot praise the series enough. Great multiplayer too. Lots of fun.

> holding object

Yes. You can just throw "cash box". "Cash out" is immovable, but you can do this...
(go to 4:17 and the match itself was boring because everybody does not know rules, and other guy, after the match, told me that he thought that I was a troll because of the first wrong jump pad lol)

Royta/Raeng wrote:> Halo Games
Big, BIG fan of the series. Fell into the trap that they are 'dudebro games' with no mechanical depth, but once I gave them a shot on Heroic difficulty (the sweetspot imo) I fell in love. Such mechanical complexity and uses so many things smartly, like the 2-weapon limit is actually designed well and intentional.

My personal favourite is Halo 2, it's unfinished and bonkers but it has so much heart and soul and wacky shit with dual-weapon wielding (dual needler is insane). Halo:CE is probably the best 'balanced' as it has a very tight weapon-sandbox, while later entries tend to swamp it a bit with more versions of the same weapon (i.e. a sniper, a laser sniper, an energy sniper; that all do the same thing mostly).

Legendary Difficulty is generally designed around co-op, you can do them solo but honestly it never felt good to me. Especially Halo 2's Legendary difficulty is just absolutely insane.

> dodging a lot
This is best in Halo CE and 2 imo, enemies have clear tells and interactions with specific setups that you do. For example Jackals will dodge-roll when you grenade, which is great as it opens them up for a headshot (since they drop their shield).

Seriously cannot praise the series enough. Great multiplayer too. Lots of fun.

>halo 2
its unfinished? its the first time hearing that (coming from you), the development gap between CE and 2 is like 3 years apart, also i will play halo 2 once im done with reach and then ce (in that particular order)

>legendary difficulty
heard that you get one shot Killed when you are playing on halo 2, i also heard that its the hardest halo game as well

Yeah Halo2 was in quite the development hell and a victim of wanting to do too much. Game is grand though, so many fantastic setpieces that are also insane technical achievements. By far the hardest Halo too as you noted. Legendary is absolutely insane, but in a not-fun way imo. Ranged OHKOs from enemies you can't see is a bit much. In general I feel Halo hits the sweetspot with Heroic Difficulty. It's hard enough that you have to use the mechanics like charged plasma shots, but doable enough that you don't need to play the lame game.

-> Halo
Halo 2 was my least favorite as a wee lad and after replaying the series last year I have to say; it's still dead last place for me. At least campaign wise, multiplayer still rules!!


HEEEEEELLLLLPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone here play Street Fighter II and feel like giving a scrub some tips? I've been trying for a couple years to play fighting games more consistently and have always bounced off them. Right now SFII is the one that's starting to click a little so some tips from an experienced player would be helpful.

I don't really play SF2, but I have spent time with it in the past, and I'm certainly experienced in Street Fighter and fighting games, so I could probably answer some of your questions.

I was playing Okami recently, I ended up stopping because I just wasn't having that much fun. I was enjoying it at the beginning more because I assumed it started off very simplistic and would get more fun and interesting as it went on... but then I realized I played for like 10 hours and just wasn't really liking it so I haven't played for a while. For some reason, this whole "adventure game" genre (whatever Zelda is) is just something where I don't get what's supposed to be fun about it. I hope one day I end up liking this kind of game though.

Where did you get up to?

I just beat the pig boss in the armor, where you have to beat him up and then use wind to blow out the flames.

Don't know what to tell you.

I consider it one of the most fun games in existence.

Maybe you need to progress and get more abilities and test them in combat.

Would you say the adventure game elements are enjoyable as well? Or just combat? Because that's where I have issues with the game, but it's difficult for me to explain why.

I've been playing Grim Fandango, lately. It's one of my first adventure games, so I expect I won't be able to figure out many puzzles on my own. At least, I will need to see hints to complete the game, lol, but since it's often considered one of the best games ever, I figured I would check it out, and now is the time for that. As of now, I can already say it has interesting characters and a cool atmosphere, and the plot looks promising.

I'm with Birdman, Okami's combat is super fun and rewarding once you get familiar with all the hidden tech and reactions the game has (which is honestly mind boggling).

That said, unskippable cutscenes, forced minigames, and other stuff may get in the way. NG+ gets rid of the former IIRC, and I guess from there it would depend on how tolerant you are to non-core aspects. This said, the game is definitely not that offensive on this front.

I don't have an issue with the combat, it's just something about this kind of game is just not fun for me. Ive tried a lot of 3D Zelda games in the past and just didn't like them. I kinda assumed Okami would be the game that could convince me that this type of gameplay was good but it didn't really work. I still kinda liked the game enough to play it for 10 hours but I can't help but feel like there's something I'm missing.

Zelda?

I don't like Zelda games but I love Okami more than anything. Why are you comparing to them?

I assumed they were kinda meant to be similar. Ive always heard people say "Okami is the best Zelda game" and that kinda thing. I guess I must have gone into the game with the wrong expectations.