I had the same thoughts about Monument Valley. Cool Escheresque aesthetic but not very challenging. I had more fun with Manifold Garden on Apple Arcade and other platforms. Very strong Escheresque vibe with much more challenging puzzles and a unique gravity shifting mechanic. The only negative was some screen tearing and other visual artifacts in certain areas. It wasn’t too bad, but if my fairly new iPad pro was having some issues a lower spec device might be a lot worse.
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I love this idea; take out the time specification (“of the month”) and it would probably work just fine.
Love it. I tried a few years back to do a personal backlog challenge but got hung up on some games that sucked. I’d be willing to bet that all of us have quite a few games we’ve bought but have never really gotten around to.
I just replayed Monument Valley about a month ago, but with my son (who is 5). I showed him how it worked, and then he played it, and when he got stuck, I helped. Watching how good he was at it made me think that either the game was easier than I remembered or he was a savant. I was really hoping it was the later!
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I think you can, but with, like, a 5 hour commitment. That’s it. Play for 5 hours. Report back to the group!
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@kennfusion and @Mirefox
So I assume you don’t have (performance) experience with PC versions of FF 13-2 and FF Lightning Returns then?
In regards to FF13 itself: I am around 25 hours in (start of chapter 8…so halfway mark I guess).
I am begrudgingly marching on. I don’t mind the linearity as much. I never understood that overnight “linear” became an evil word and everything has to be open world now. Granted I LIKE quite a few of them, but because of the setting and story and characters not necessarily because of the open world-ness.
But boy oh boy do I hate the gameplay. Paradigm Shift my hairy ass…I am not a fan of modern FF games (10 and up) but at least I liked FF 10’s turn-based gameplay more than FF13’s system. I cannot help myself and resort to button mashing in FF 13 like an idiot just because it stresses me out. I am curious how FF15 will treat me somewhere in the far far future since a real Action Adventure gameplay mechanic may be more up my valley.
Anyone else try out Research & Destroy? I found it delightful. It’s on Game Pass, and it’s basically a much more approachable, lighthearted XCOM with an innovative turn structure. Basically, you control a team of three units you control like in a third-person shooter, each of whom has eight seconds to act per turn, but time moves only when they move (like Superhot) or aim down the sights. It has some little annoyances (the handling of collisions irritated me, and balance seems to aim for a Cosmic Encounter set of values, such that weird and interesting is more important than fair), but I felt like it was perfectly pitched for a mid-budget, mid-duration indie game. While I give much credit to Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle for bringing the XCOMalike genre to a different audience, it still seems to me like there’s room for more innovation in that direction, and I was pleased to see it happen with this one (which I’ve not seen heralded anywhere).
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This is a great idea. If you could limit it to games that are expected to take less than 20 hours to complete and then ask each participant to play 3-5 hours per week, it would be fun to play through something as a group.
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Like a book club, but for video games? It’s an interesting idea
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I’m a short ways into Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins and so far I am having a really good time.
I’ll start with the negatives off the bat: The story means nothing, but then again the story in FF1 meant nothing. Graphics on my PS5 are good but not great; combat is fluid but some of the cutscenes in particular are nothing to write home about. The characters are generic at best, annoying at worst, and the lead character is rather terrible. He’s soulless, humorless, and often speaks in grunts rather than words. Ah well, it isn’t as if the original FF1 characters had any character. And then finally the blood…there are fountains of it and it definitely seems out of place in a Final Fantasy title. There is an option to turn of the blood splatter effects all over your character, but this is still a violent game and doesn’t necessarily fit the spirit of Final Fantasy.
All of that is forgiven, though, because of the combat. This game is an action RPG where you go on mission, clear out dungeons, and gather that sweet, sweet loot. The loot drops frequently and even though much of it on any given run is very similar, you get so much of it (and rarity is color-coded) that it reaches Diablo levels of fun. You control one main character, though you can ask your two companions to focus their attacks on a given target. Combat is all real-time and it is fluid and fun. Each weapon has different abilities, combos, and patterns and you can swap between two jobs on the fly to combo them in to each other.
Speaking of jobs, in this game you don’t level up, but you can find loot of higher and higher levels and your jobs can gain in level. Gaining a job level gives you points to invest in a tech tree for each job and filling a path on that tech tree gives you the ability to unlock new jobs. For example, you start out with a Mage job but by filling out your tech tree you can unlock Black Mage, Red Mage, and White Mage.
I normally prefer my JRPGs to be turn-based but Stranger of Paradise scratches a very different itch. It won’t be a classic Final Fantasy but it is quite a fun action RPG with some good Final Fantasy nostalgia.
What dungeon crawls on iOS come closest to the Gloomhaven experience (knowing that none actually come close)? Warhammer Quest? I wish Gloomhaven made it over to iOS but I’m looking for the best alternative.
The old Warhammer Quest was great; the new one brought shiny graphics and a whole ton of f2p shenanigans. Can’t recommend the Perchang version in any way at all.
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anybody for a little Heroes of Might and Magic III nostalgia with Songs of Conquest?
just came out on Steam in early access.
i like it. a bit expensive though (30 €).
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None of these are close at all, but what about:
Demons Rise?
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game?
Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf?
That’s all I can think off. There really is nothing like gloomhaven on ios.
I never got into the HoM&M series but desperately wanted to (my armies got destroyed very early on). This seems like a good re-entry point, though I’d love the price to come down a bit.
I am having the hardest time getting in to Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I’ve been playing on and off since the game released and I am torn between wanting to finish it before I move on to another game and wanting to shelf it for the umpteenth time. I don’t know exactly what the issue is; the game is good. Characters are fun, combat is fun… I think my issue may be the pacing. Just as I am ready to sink my teeth into more battling I find myself having to run around the monastery talking to everyone and agonizing over where to spend my few actions. I don’t even mind that all that much except that I’ve already done it all over and over.
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Yeah, I put Songs of Conquest on my wish list. If it comes down 20-30% for the Steam Summer Sale, I will probably pick it up then.
I have too many games on my wishlist to buy anything at full price except the games that I already am a huge fan of the series, like a Civ or Xcom game.
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I felt the same - only finished it once. Too much fomo at the school!
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Like @Baelnor I also only finished it once. I loved it–at a certain point the plot really shifts into high gear–and I want to play it again, but I also remember thinking way too much about what my between-battle actions were going to be. For me, I didn’t mind the pacing, as I rarely have a big block of time for a game, so doing a battle or a run through the school and then putting it down was how I had to play.
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Lol, that’s how I play, too, but when I put it down for a little bit I have a tendency to pick up a new game…
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