What are you playing?

#1403

Not mentioned so far:

Pawnbarian is an easily-overlooked little cracker of a puzzle-battle game. It leans a little heavily on increasing difficulty by simply chucking more enemies onto the board at once, but if you liked Hoplite (and who didn’t, back in the Pocket Tactics days?), you’ll like this.

Satisfactory is splendid stuff if a first-person Factoriolike is what you wanted. I sank several days of playtime into an earlier iteration (early access update 3; currently at 5), but will probably wait until slightly more features are in before giving it another go-round.

Endless Space 2 is in there; I’m coming to the conclusion that I just don’t get on that well with Amplitude’s 4Xs (I bounced off Humankind, though I might give it another go now that it’s had time for some rounds of polishing), but it’s definitely in SP’s wheelhouse.

Expeditions: Vikings, perhaps? I remember playing a small bit of Expeditions: Conquistador several years (er… nearly a decade. Blimey) ago and not being enthused, but I’m considering giving this a shot.

3 Likes
#1404

Still Elden Ring.

I’m level 55, mainly dexterity running a spear. I hate it but it is by far my best weapon. I haven’t even beat Stormveil Castle yet. I’ve gotten through l lot of it and got to the point where you can open the front gate but there is a staircase with ranged enemies that is giving me fits.

I absolutely love exploring the wild in this game. As I mentioned ruined to @js619, I don’t really enjoy open world games that much but this world it awfully compelling and there is constantly something new to see.

I’m comfortable in Limgrave and have killed all the mini bosses that I know of and have cleared all the dungeons I can find. It’s nice to play a Soulsborne game where I actually feel comfortable in some areas.

The game lives up to the hype for me.

3 Likes
#1405

Patrick’s Parabox, on Steam. Recursive puzzle game that starts simple, just moving boxes around, and then introduces the idea that you can put boxes inside each other, or recursively enter/exit boxes … it’s very, very cool.

Does a great job of introducing new mechanics and, like all good puzzle games, makes you feel like a genius when you solve a tough level.

2 Likes
#1406

Finally gave up waiting for Disco Elysium to reach a reasonable price on Switch and picked it up on Steam.

phc
phc516×502 67.6 KB

This game is perfect. It could have been written specifically for me, as if I, for a lark, became a police officer and an alcoholic in the same week. No notes.

5 Likes
#1407

Practically a requirement to get the second once you have the first.

4 Likes
#1408

I wonder if Harry Du Bois isn’t just the hero we need to look at and see ourselves in…

#1409

Not that I am actually playing this, but I am so sad they released a Puzzle Quest 3. The first was stellar and created an entire subgenre, Galactrix was fun, PQ2 a bit of a grind yet still enjoyable, but they went so far down the freemium hole that I really hoped they would either come back to the light side with a proper PQ 3 one day or just let the main series lie fallow while they milked whales with their various IP-linked efforts like Marvel and Magic, both of which I tried a bit but bounced off of years ago. Yet they couldn’t leave any cash source untapped, and apparently made a sequel that is everything the previous ones weren’t. Sadness.

4 Likes
#1410

it’s not so bad.
i’m level 15 now (Berserker Dwarf) and had some fun getting there.
haven’t spent any money and will not do so.
you can easily play on for 1-2 hours before the timers for opening collected chests are closing in.
no problem for me to quit then. wouldn’t want to play longer anyway.
coming back the next day for another session.

i have tried Assassin, Paladin and the Berserker. lots of different character builds possible because many spells of all colors can be wielded by any character.

#1411

No offense, but nothing you said did anything but reinforce my revulsion.

1 Like
#1412

I agree with Jamma. It’s not the shit show that the marvel and magic versions were. I think they’ve finally figured out how to make a free to play match 3 game that isn’t absolutely awful.

But it’s not a successor to pq 1, 2, or galactrix. It’s a completely different game that’s evolved out of free to play games, not the puzzle quests we know and loved.

I enjoyed it for what it was. A free to play match 3 blitz game.

#1413

agreed on all points.
and from level 15 onwards it starts to feel repetitive.

#1414

Just finished Guardians of the Galaxy on the Xbox. It’s good, but in the “parts of it are great and parts are pretty janky or not my thing at all” sort of way. Which seems like what “uneven” ought to mean, but people usually take “uneven” to have a low enough average that it’s not really worth playing unless you’re really into it, and I think this is a cut above that. The dialogue in combat, for example, is horrifically repetitive and often badly scripted such that it occurs at inappropriate times, the cutscenes vary widely, and some of the scripted non-combat dialogue is incredible, and would instantly jump into the ranks of the highly quotable among my family if the rest of it hadn’t been so annoying to listen to that anyone else in the family who might have been watching when they said it hadn’t already been driven out of the room. The combat is fairly interesting, nicely putting your focus on the team despite giving you primary control of only one character, but it’s also kind of hard to control. And there’s still the love of quicktime events, which I continue to hate.

Mostly, though, it was interesting to see a very different take on most of these characters (Groot’s pretty much the same), which is apparently more faithful to the comics than the movies have been. I’ve been satisfied with the movies, but Mantis especially comes out of this a much more interesting character, Gamora seems a bit more messy and in need of a team in a way that makes her struggles seem more human-level, Star-Lord I think gets simultaneously more and less interesting; just, overall, a recognizable but different set of people and interactions. Very much worth a look if you have Game Pass.

3 Likes
#1415

Elden Ring. Like everyone else.

Level 47 astrologer and I still manage to get killed a lot.

I’ve been ruined by Diablo gameplay. Must stop going toe to toe with things.

1 Like
#1416

Also playing Elden Ring as an Astrologer. Level 75 way too early and I still die to most bosses the first time, but I usually manage to pick up my lost runes and beat them the second time when I know the right time to dodge. I’ve pumped so much into INT and MIND that I can clear out most dungeons with just Glintstone Pebble and Phallanx but probably should get a weapon besides Rogier’s Rapier at some point, I just really like the super cheap Glintstone Phallanx it provides.

(Got most of the way to 75 by using the sleeping dragon exploit in Caelid over and over.)

1 Like
#1417

I’m level 55 Warrior, going mainly Dex. I hate my spear but it is by far my strongest weapon. I just finished my first legacy dungeon and the final boss was surprisingly easy. I had a harder time with Margit.

1 Like
#1418

If I finally get competent enough with dodging I might respec to one of the moonveil Samurai builds as those look pretty fun. Still need to beat the Academy first though as I’ve only just made it into Liurnia Of The Lakes.

The thing that killed me the most in Stormveil was that stupid Banished Knight in the pitch black room because I’m an absolute glass cannon. If I can summon my spirit wolves or ping it from range with Glintstone Pebbles it’s easy mode.

1 Like
#1419

It has been a long, dragged out experience on my Switch, but I finally beat Tales of Vesperia. And by beat I mean I got to the end credits and deleted it from my Switch so no, I didn’t go through the bonus dungeon or all of the Necropolis; I’m just too burned out.

I remember many years ago in college I had a roommate plying through Suikoden II. He had a 3-Ring binder filled with a walkthrough and a checklist of everything to do in order to get (read: not miss) every character. Tales of Vesperia reminded me very much of this. Want a bonus post-game dungeon? Well you better make sure you travel halfway across the world out of your way to talk to a nondescript NPC at exactly the right time. Want a certain ability? Make sure you rest at this specific in after this specific event with this specific title equipped… and so on.

I liked the characters for the most part, knowing they fit stereotypical JRPG tropes. The story was nonsensical gibberish even for a JRPG. The graphics were fantastic, especially considering the age of the game. Combat wasn’t exactly my cup of tea as I prefer turn-based, but it was passable. But holy cow, the tedium. I feel like I revisited every location about 20 times, characters kept entering and leaving the party, and the number of missables is ridiculous. Oh, and dialogue doesn’t auto-advance, which is just annoying.

I don’t regret playing it and any JRPG fans should probably give it a go, but it is a tedious game. I also happened to feel the same about the most recent Dragon Quest, which I finished a couple of years ago.

And now that I don’t have to divide my time anymore, it’s back to Elden Ring. Oh, what’s that? I haven’t finished Fire Emblem Three Houses yet? Sigh. My time remains divided.

6 Likes
#1420

HAhaha the amount of times I died to that guy….

#1421

Wait wait wait. The dragon exploit works more than once???

1 Like
#1422

Yup. If you dash back to the nearby site of grace (fort something) on torrent and rest at it immediately once you see it flinch into it’s death animation you get the runes and it’s still there when you leave the site of grace again.

I just hit while mounted on torrent the entire time. The 3 hit combo on the horse doesn’t really take any longer to stack the bleed than doing the 4-5 hit combos while standing.

Genuinely surprised they haven’t patched that one yet since all you really need to do it is to get any bleed stacking weapon and have the horse. Though there’s even more broken/fast ways to get runes once you’ve killed Radahn, that one’s just super easy to pull off right at the start of the game, especially if you’re a Samurai since your starting weapon stacks bleed.