What have you been playing recently?

[mr_chun]

Holy crap I had no idea about the Sonic Origins collection. I've been dying to play through Sonic 3 again for years, will definitely have to pick that one up.

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Picked up the Sonic Origins Collection for PS5. It features Sonic, Sonic 2, 3 and Knuckles, and Sonic CD, complete with all the original music, and widescreen support. You can select classic 4:3 if you prefer, but the visuals looked lovely blown up on my tv, and I don’t feel I’m missing out by picking the newer look.

Games are as fun as ever. Whenever I revisit these classics, I always feel a little sad at what a meme the franchise is these days. The early Mega Drive stuff really was incredibly special.

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This also marked the first time ever I knocked this particular achievement off my bucket list. Never managed it as a kid, but was pretty simple here.

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This also marked the first time I got to experience the true Sonic 3 and Knuckles saga. 3 was one we didn’t have when I was a kid, and I don’t think it was as prevalent on later collections/virtual consoles as 1 and 2 were. So it was my first time seeing a lot of those levels, and also my first time going through the “and Knuckles” stages with Tails as my partner. I do think this is definitely the best of the bunch. Soundtrack and presentation are just that little bit better, and the levels do the best job of balancing the need to go fast with the need to explore. Some epic payoffs towards the end too!

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Blasted through this entire collection, and got the Platinum trophy in just under a day. Crazy how much more gigantic these games felt as a kid, lol. Nevertheless, these games are still an a ton of fun!

I also picked it up around the same time, really well done collection.

No idea how you got the platinum so fast lol, I'm struggling with the Chaos Emerald levels just like I did as a kid lmao

 

[Kamurocho_Freak]

Crow Country is another indie survival horror throwback, and an excellent one at that. It follows a young woman’s exploration of an abandoned amusement park, filled with secrets and deadly monsters.

The visuals are immediately striking. The FF VII look is not something I’d automatically associate with horror, but it works remarkably well. The stylised nature of the visuals adds a ton of personality to the various animatronics and attractions you encounter, while also doing a good job of giving an uncomfortable air of mystery to the various misshapen creatures you can encounter.

Combat is very reminiscent of classic RE. Hit R1 to raise weapon and enter a battle stance, then shoot. The laser sight gives you far more precision than in those older games however, so you can still adjust your aim to score a well placed headshot. Weapon variety is small, but sticks with the classics of handgun, shotgun, magnum with a flamethrower added for good measure.

Save rooms are also a welcome feature. Limited inventory is not present here, but it’s still satisfying to discover a new one. The safe theme here is perfect, providing a sense of sanctuary whilst still hinting at the danger once you leave.

Exploration is really well done here. The park is pretty small, but has a ton of secrets to uncover. It’s also incredibly memorable, with areas including a Fairy Forest, Pirates Cove, and Haunted House. I never got lost despite plenty of need for backtracking, which is testament to the excellent map design here.

Puzzles are also rather brilliant, pulling a number of neat tricks. Only a few were true head scratchers, but all were smartly implemented, and satisfying to solve.

Crow Country took me a little over 7 hours on my first run. I can tell from looking at the trophies that I missed a number of secrets though, so will definitely do another run for those. It also seems like one that will be fun to speed run, and I can definitely see it being added into my seasonal rotation come Halloween.

 

[deuce985]

Trying Demonschool out in Steam's Next Fest alongside Kill Knight


Demonschool reminds me a bit of the earliest Persona/Shin Megami Tensei games and Kill Knight feels similar in ways to Nex Machina to me which I loved as twin stick shooter.

 

[Camelsruler]

Beat Lost in Random. This game has modern cult classic written all over it. Part American McGee's Alice, part Psychonauts with a healthy dosage of old school Tim Burton and you have a unique adventure game with a nice aesthetic and it even has good gameplay!

Lost in Random is a 3D adventure game with 3D beat-em up/shooter physics and card deck building mechanics. You traverse the (wait for it) six different landscapes with your trusty dice friend battling foes and trying to learn the mystery in the land of Random whilst searching for your kidnapped sister.

The game is actually very unique like I said reminded me heavily of American McGee's Alice (also by EA) and Psychonauts sort of mixed together. Lots of interesting NPCs along the way with a treasure trove of side quests to keep you entertained or if you are like me sort of bypassing some of the unnecessary ones to continue on with the story mode.

This game is not without its faults however a lot of this game feels like it needs some technical work to make it more smooth and it feels a little like it was taken out of the oven early. Also some side quests become monotonous fetch quests that will leave you wondering why you began them in the first place. The pacing is pretty bad because of this parts dragging on longer than they should and you wanting to get back to the game.

Overall I will say it was a very unique game with amazing gameplay. The beat-em up sections with the customizable card decks was always a blast to play and to customize your decks was a lot of fun. I enjoyed exploring this obscure landscape and some of the NPCs were very memorable.

I was brought back to the first time I played through Psychonauts which has always been one of my favorite gaming memories. I wish this game could bake a little longer in the oven and perhaps some pacing issues could be addressed as well but will look out for a sequel or spiritual successor to this game.

 

[mr_chun]

Trying Demonschool out in Steam's Next Fest alongside Kill Knight


Demonschool reminds me a bit of the earliest Persona/Shin Megami Tensei games and Kill Knight feels similar in ways to Nex Machina to me which I loved as twin stick shooter.

Necrosoft Game makes good stuff, I've had my eye on this one.

 

[deuce985]

Necrosoft Game makes good stuff, I've had my eye on this one.

I don't know about their other games but I played some of the demo, enjoyed it, and wishlisted the game. It's heavily inspired by Persona and doesn't hide it.

The demo is like 10% of the game so I didn't want to get too far into it I saw what I needed to.

 

[deuce985]

Also, I played Hollowbody and that game went straight to my wishlist too. Despite the setting, etc. I actually feel it has similarities to several horror classics like Silent Hill.


I've realized playing that demo - typically I get reminded of this in horror games that try to retain classic elements - but I like memos/player speaking their thoughts. I really like it when a horror game lets you observe the environment and you can see the thoughts of the protagonist. Like "I'm not touching that toilet" or something like that. The memos/thoughts add so many little small stories to the world.

 

[Kamurocho_Freak]

Also, I played Hollowbody and that game went straight to my wishlist too. Despite the setting, etc. I actually feel it has similarities to several horror classics like Silent Hill.


I've realized playing that demo - typically I get reminded of this in horror games that try to retain classic elements - but I like memos/player speaking their thoughts. I really like it when a horror game lets you observe the environment and you can see the thoughts of the protagonist. Like "I'm not touching that toilet" or something like that. The memos/thoughts add so many little small stories to the world.

I agree completely. They add so much subtle personality and world building, and always served as incentive to press action on literally everything in every room.

 

[deuce985]

I agree completely. They add so much subtle personality and world building, and always served as incentive to press action on literally everything in every room.

I do this all the time lol. I did that in the Hollowbody demo I just clicked everything I could in the environment. I think it's a really underrated way to add atmosphere and world building to a horror game.


Not really a horror game but you know which one did "memos" really good? The Last of Us. The first game. They made memos extremely organic in that game because they would comment on what you read and go into conversations about it. Another underrated way to do it I don't see many do.


I always found it odd in Resident Evil you'd find memos saying Wesker was a piece to Umbrella yet Jill/Chris never address it or even recognize it when they confront others like they were completely oblivious to it lol.

 

[Auron99]

Agreed on being able to see the protagonists thoughts when interacting with the environment. That was a huge part of what I loved about Parasite Eve II, some of Aya's snark was great. Like she'd check out some dirty toilets and say "I think I need a shower" or something. It definitely helped me feel more immersed in whatever game I was playing as well.

Anyway, just finished up Sonic3 and am headed to S&K. Still got CD to go through as I saved that one for last. I gotta say I did missions for each of the games and from what I played of that so far I'm wondering if CD might surpass Sonic 3 as my favorite Sonic game. We'll see when I get to finally play it and I loved going through Sonic 3 again, but man did the last three stages having different music kill a big part of what I was looking forward to. I loved all three of those stages in the original and the new stuff just didn't do it for me at all (aside from the act 2 music in Launch Base being very well done). If I do play through the game again I'm going to turn on Spotify and run the remixed tracks I have that Alex Yeti did cause it would help improve the experience quite a bit.

 

[SenexBeast]

The Callisto Protocol

 

[deuce985]

Agreed on being able to see the protagonists thoughts when interacting with the environment. That was a huge part of what I loved about Parasite Eve II, some of Aya's snark was great. Like she'd check out some dirty toilets and say "I think I need a shower" or something. It definitely helped me feel more immersed in whatever game I was playing as well.

Anyway, just finished up Sonic3 and am headed to S&K. Still got CD to go through as I saved that one for last. I gotta say I did missions for each of the games and from what I played of that so far I'm wondering if CD might surpass Sonic 3 as my favorite Sonic game. We'll see when I get to finally play it and I loved going through Sonic 3 again, but man did the last three stages having different music kill a big part of what I was looking forward to. I loved all three of those stages in the original and the new stuff just didn't do it for me at all (aside from the act 2 music in Launch Base being very well done). If I do play through the game again I'm going to turn on Spotify and run the remixed tracks I have that Alex Yeti did cause it would help improve the experience quite a bit.

Man I'd kill for another proper Parasite Eve. I don't even care if it's like 3rd Birthday just give another one. I know people hated PE2 because it was an "RE clone". I disagree. I really liked it. Sure, it wasn't as good as the first game but I still loved every minute of it. I dled PE1 and PE2 on emulator last year to play them again. Really underrated IP especially the first game.


I'd love for this IP to get either a remaster or full blown remake. I know people don't like turn-based but I can't think of many horror games that had a combat system like that. Maybe it's immersion breaking for the horror aspect but I still thought it was cool. If they did a remake that had combat like REmakes I think it could work. if you haven't seen the Japanese movie you should check that out. It's basically a direct prequel to the games and it's quite good.

 

[Kamurocho_Freak]

I have never read the manga, and all I’ve seen of the anime is that hilarious 4Kids rap opening. So it’s probably fair to say that I am not the target audience for One Piece: Odyssey. I do enjoy a classic turn based rpg though, and this game absolutely nails that.

Odyssey follows Luffy and crew as they find themselves stranded on a weird island, depowered, and forced to take out powerful colossi in order to get their full strength back. For the most part the game was easy enough to follow with no prior knowledge. The game alternates between chapters set on the island, and those in Memoria, a place of memory visited after each colossus fight, where the crew must revisit and overcomes pivotal moments from their history, only now with new twists thrown in. What those twists were is lost on me since I didn’t experience these adventures the first time, but even here, with a story so clearly appealing to callbacks and nostalgia, it was still easy enough to follow along, and remain invested in the many adventures.

The world itself is quite beautiful, with varied landscapes and stylised anime visuals. Creature and enemy designs are all really cool as well, though what is original to the game and what was lifted from the source material I couldn’t say.

Combat is turn based, but with a few unique twists. For starters you have a weapon triangle similar to fire emblem, with characters being specialised in either power, speed or technique. Elemental match ups also play a role, and can sometimes get you out of a pinch if your base match up isn’t in your favour.

The battle arenas are also unique, being split into a 2x2 grid. A character can use ranged attacks to target anywhere in the grid, but can only use close combat skills on an enemy in their grid. They also can’t move freely if any enemies remain in their grid. There is no limit to how many characters or enemies can occupy one grid, and this system lends itself to a lot of the strategy at play here. Nothing too challenging, but it definitely helps spice up the turn based combat, and gives the battles a unique feel I really appreciated.

Took a little over 70 hours for me to hit the credits, and I really enjoyed the bulk of the game. That a licensed game could be this enjoyable despite me knowing nothing about the source material definitely speaks to its quality.

 

[mr_chun]

Helldivers 2 has had me by the throat for a while, but I've tried to take some breaks and play other stuff.

The Vampire Survivors x Contra DLC is great. Also enjoying a little of the new Minecraft update.

 

[deuce985]

Sword of Convallaria. This game is a nice little gem that is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics. Has some of their devs like the composer. More I play it more it reminds me of that game. Music, gameplay, art style, story, etc.


The gameplay has a surprising amount of tactical depth to it.




I like this game a lot. Can't wait for the global launch later in July.

 

[RPG]

GTA 3 on switch

 

[OneBigClam]

Curious Expedition 2

 

[Redfield64]

Final Fantasy XIV's new expansion, Dawntrail, went into early access last Friday and released officially today. I went full goblin mode and no-lifed it all weekend until my butt went numb so I have some first impressions.

Following on from Endwalkers massive apocalyptic finale, Dawntrail dials everything back and gives us a sort of fun summer vacation episode, where we travel to the warm South Americas-inspired continent of Tural and go on a quest to help a big furry lion lady succeed her father's throne as ruler, and find some sort of mythical Golden City. It sounds very Road to El Dorado.

There are two new jobs in this expansion, Viper: a dual-wielding sword class that's loosely inspired by FFIX's Zidane, and Pictomancer: a magical caster that uses a paintbrush to create objects and creatures to attack with and is heavily inspired by FFVI's Relm.
I haven't tried Viper yet, but Pictomancer is loads of fun, fairly accessible and easy to play with lots of cool magic effects.

There's also a new playable character race in the form of Female Hrothgar (the afformentioned big furry lion lady, inspired by FFX's Ronso tribe ). I turned one of my alt characters into one and I like her a lot, but they definitely don't seem to be that popular yet. FFXIV's playerbase seems to lean more towards the cute waifu girls instead of the big muscle ladies.

When playing Dawntrail I'm constantly reminded of FFX and X-2. The region of Tural has a lot in common with locations like Besaid Island and Kilika, and the game's light hearted tone is a lot like X-2, minus the J-Pop girl bands.
The pacing on the game's low-stakes story so far seems to be very... relaxed, and judging from comments I've read online, that's not to everyone's taste, but I'm keen to see where the story goes when I get further in.

This here is Krile. She's a precious potato and if anything happens to her, I'll kill everyone in Tural then kill myself.

 

[deuce985]

@Redfield64 I'm seeing a lot mixed opinions on Dawntrail. Doesn't seem like FF fans are too happy with it. I kinda knew it would run into a wall after Endwalker so those mixed reviews don't really shock me. Still interested in it.

 

[Redfield64]

@Redfield64 I'm seeing a lot mixed opinions on Dawntrail. Doesn't seem like FF fans are too happy with it. I kinda knew it would run into a wall after Endwalker so those mixed reviews don't really shock me. Still interested in it.

The gameplay, dungeons, bosses, new jobs and environments are all being very well received. It's the story that people dislike.

Natsuko Ishikawa is considered the best XIV writer by far, she was the Chief Writer for Shadowbringers and Endwalker as well as the Dark Knight job quests, so she's responsible for most of modern FF's best storytelling.

For Dawntrail, she's taken a step back in a more supervisory role while she works on something else and a new writing team has taken over, and they don't really seem to be anywhere near her level.
Dawntrail's main story is getting compared a lot to A Realm Reborn, where it feels a like a slow paced slog full of busy work and chores. It's also completely dominated by the new Hrothgar character, Wuk Lamat, and she's proving to be a very polarising character.

I'm not even half way through yet, so I can't comment much myself, but I think the worldbuilding is excellent, even if the main story is indeed dragging a bit for me. Apparently it really picks up in the final third.

 

[Kamurocho_Freak]

Tomb Raider Legend DS

Lara’s first DS outing, this game tries really hard to capture the essence of the console game in handheld format, and mostly suffers for doing so.

Visually I find this one to be pretty ugly. Rather than going for an aesthetic that plays to the strengths of the DS, it instead feels like they just compressed the visuals of the home console game until they fit on a DS cart. Blurry shapes abound, though at least some of the environments look pretty. Underwater sections generally look nice, and I do enjoy how these are some of the only sections to make smart use of the second screen.

Aside from the menu that most games on this system used the second screen for, it also comes into play in combat. Lara will navigate the world on the top screen, but when she locks in to a foe, they appear on the bottom screen so you can tap them to death. There is very little skill here, nor do I care for how blocky the zoomed in character models are. You’re also locked in place when in combat, so Lara’s acrobatics can’t be used to dodge attacks and spice things up.

The only other DS specific feature worth mentioning is that now you can no longer just pick up a secret…you have to blow on the microphone to dust it off first. It’s been a while since I last booted up this console, and being reminded of the era of tacked on gimmicks just made me laugh out loud first time I had to do this.

All in all, this wasn’t too great, and a massive disappointment coming off the surprisingly enjoyable Gameboy Colour game. Legend was recently added to PS5, so I’ll probably try the console experience soon and enjoy the many upgrades.

 

[deuce985]

The gameplay, dungeons, bosses, new jobs and environments are all being very well received. It's the story that people dislike.

Natsuko Ishikawa is considered the best XIV writer by far, she was the Chief Writer for Shadowbringers and Endwalker as well as the Dark Knight job quests, so she's responsible for most of modern FF's best storytelling.

For Dawntrail, she's taken a step back in a more supervisory role while she works on something else and a new writing team has taken over, and they don't really seem to be anywhere near her level.
Dawntrail's main story is getting compared a lot to A Realm Reborn, where it feels a like a slow paced slog full of busy work and chores. It's also completely dominated by the new Hrothgar character, Wuk Lamat, and she's proving to be a very polarising character.

I'm not even half way through yet, so I can't comment much myself, but I think the worldbuilding is excellent, even if the main story is indeed dragging a bit for me. Apparently it really picks up in the final third.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of comments about the story. Not a good move by them. Everyone - including myself - hated A Realm Reborn. I almost quit the game because of ARR and it wasn't just because of the story but also how they structured dungeons. They were slow and slog too. I'm sure they'll fix it moving forward with story content.


I know a lot of people disliked Stormblood too but I liked that expansion. I think the bigger problem with that one was it was coming off the best expansion so people had high expectations. May be the same here with Dawntrail. At least it sounds like the gameplay aspect was nailed which is more than can be said about ARR.

 

[Redfield64]

I think Dawntrail is going to end up being the new Stormblood.
A weak story, but really strong gameplay and great content.

The upcoming 24 man raid series is going to be a tie-in to Final Fantasy 11, so that's exciting.

 

[Auron99]

Finished up Sonic Origins a few minutes ago and got the platinum. Awesome experience from front to back, and I gotta say Sonic CD was everything I remembered and more. It actually edged Sonic 3 for me which I didn't expect, and while there is some jank in Sonic CD (namely the emerald stages being held down by the game suffering from the hiccups that most early 3D games dealt with and a weirdly unfair fight right before the final boss) the game's incredibly deep soundtrack, overall sense of speed and incredible ending nailed it for me.

Big ups to Kamu for bringing this collection to my attention cause it was an awesome trip down memory lane for me.

 

[Kamurocho_Freak]

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. I never got around to playing this on the Switch, and I’m glad I waited, since the PS5 version includes new demons, side quests, and a whole new story path to playthrough.

Right at the start of the game you are presented with a choice that places you on either the Path of Creation (Original Storyline) or Vengeance (the new storyline). The way I play these games is to just always pick what feels right, and here that landed me on the Path of Vengeance. This adds an extra character to the games canon, that causes events to play out very, very differently. I’m honestly really glad I played through the new story first, because the new character was easily the best in the game, while most of the original characters were the worst kind of insufferable high school stereotypes that I couldn’t wait to try and betray, lol.

Gameplay is classic SMT, with the press turn battle system rewarding exploitation of enemy weaknesses as usual. Exploration however I feel is a massive downgrade compared to previous games. Gone are the well designed dungeons and environmental puzzles of SMT 3 and 4, replaced with 90% of exploration taking place in an open world city ruin. This was hugely disappointing, and even the few dungeons that do turn up feel very uninspired.

Despite this, and a good chunk of the supporting cast being very annoying, the overall story and battle system still compelled me to finish the game.

The demons and angels you’ll meet are as cool and complex as ever, and the more nuanced paths you can end up on feel much more compelling than the “good”, “evil” and “neutral” routes found in other games.

Despite a few flaws, I do still recommend checking this one out to anybody craving more old school rpg mechanics and battles.