Nothing significant this week, afraid my mindset just isn't ideal for gaming right now.
But I've been re-playing a bit Etrian Odyssey III, had forgotten how great this game is. Unlikely to play it through to the end, but it's been a good time sink to help deal with stress/anxiety.
I'd also like to mention that I absolutely love the new super-smug portrait they added for the Princess/Sovereign class in the Switch version.
I got about45 minutes into Persona 5 Royal (so almost through the intro!), but I don't think I'll be going much further with that one. I'm still playing Platinum otherwise, and debating a Fire Emblem run soon, just because it's been a little while.
I don't feel like I played it enough to give it a full or fair assessment, so this is just "at first glance":
The biggest issue I had with it was getting a firehose of gameplay tutorials only to be provided very little opportunity for gameplay. I felt like I was frequently darting from cut scene to cut scene, and while I love story this was so start and stop as to be frustrating. The pacing was just...off.
I also admittedly didn't care for the brief glimpses of characterization that I got, especially the "every adult character is a completely miserable human being" which was just draining. The protagonist not getting much characterization is less an issue because player characters are often blank slate. It really was overwhelmingly the side cast, and most were NPCs.
It is possible that I will pick this game up again at some point and completely fall in love with it. The art style is beautiful and there is a quality to it of playing through an anime. Maybe if I liked the story more or any of the characters had grabbed me I'd be more excited. Sometimes it's just about timing, you know?
Playing video games? I'm over here playing with my pets.
Image description: screenshot from the 3DS game Nintendogs + Cats. The image features a Yorkshire Terrier puppy, a grey tabby kitten, and a calico kitten. The dog is standing on its hind legs, front paws at the camera, wearing a blue collar with a white pattern. The two cats are a little further back, gracefully walking on the wooden floor. There are some furniture items in the background, with sunlight streaming in from a window.
Thanks! I played a few minutes of Odyssey and was definitely intrigued — I’ll give that a go next. I have a good PC and steam deck, so I’m back with Nintendo for the experiences only they can provide. I’m not much of a platform gamer, but I have started to appreciate the higher fidelity variations. I should also add that I enjoyed BOTW and Golf Story.
I just finished playing Tunic, by way of booking up on the internet some of the last puzzles because my head was starting to hurt. Now it's all a matter about what to start next: I have to choose between Pentiment on my PC or Ori and the Will of Wisps on the Switch.
It was really fun and up until the endgame it stroke that perfect balance between difficulty and reward. There's a definitive "oh shit!" moment when you start to see what it's really all about and I hadn't had One of those in a while
Strong as ever, a lot of bots in casual servers which is very sad but I play on uncletopia servers because they are like casual but without bots and random crits
I ended up playing Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons. I finished the game in one sitting, so it's not too long. I owed @[email protected] a short review of this game from a few months ago!
Last time I played this game I had recently been playing Streets of Rage 4 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, I think I was expecting it to be like those games, but it's a different thing. I did enjoy it much more this time around. I was also playing solo, whereas last time it was co-op.
They really went for replayability with this one. The order in which you play the initial 4 stages affects the whole run, since stages will be different depending on the order you play them, which is interesting. Now that I finished the game in a certain order, I do feel like doing another run in a different order. The upgrades at the end of each stage do help, making it easier to face harder stages as you advance.
The different characters are also essential to the gameplay, as is the case in many Beat 'em ups. My playthrough was with Billy and Jimmy, and to me, Billy sucks compared to other characters. I mostly used him while recovering Jimmy's energy in the background. I already started a new run with Jimmy and Uncle Martin, who is amazing and super strong. You can unlock new characters as you collect tokens when you finish the game. I've unlocked Abobo, which should be fun to play! The tagging system adds some fun with the energy management between your two characters, and can also affect the gameplay more depending on the upgrades you choose.
The big defect I still find is how sometimes you get unlucky, and you've been doing great all stage and with one trap or succession of enemies you get your entire life bar taken out. It's like a loop of bad things happening to your character you can't stop (or maybe I haven't learned how to break this). But this happened maybe twice or three times.
Overall, a fun beat 'em up, I'm definitely going to play some more and unlock more characters, and it's a fun one for co-op too.
Still playing Paper Mario. I am at chapter 7 now. The way story is divided, I guess there would be total of 8 or 9 chapters.
Also played Mario vs Donkey Kong demo and really liked it. I was planning to get it day 1, but want to finish Paper Mario before switching to another game. So maybe in a week or two.
Nes Pinball on my RP4P thanks to another user somewhere on here, also still just been setting it up and will most likely put some more time into ocarina of time, never beat that one as a kid