What are you playing?

[Jinsai]

RDR2, Witcher 3, and TLoU are three games that everyone praises, are obviously brilliant, they have to be, but I just can’t get into them. I know eventually I’ll try again and eventually play through all of them

I liked Red Dead Redemption 1 enough to at least finish it

[artdeco]

Been jamming out on Balatro for my Switch. Lots of fun. I'm moving away from big campaign games as I get older and am enjoying quick pick up and play jams.

[Kodiak33]

RDR2, Witcher 3, and TLoU are three games that everyone praises, are obviously brilliant, they have to be, but I just can’t get into them. I know eventually I’ll try again and eventually play through all of them

I liked Red Dead Redemption 1 enough to at least finish it

The others I loved, but I also had trouble getting into the Witcher too...not sure why.

[NIN64]

I just picked up CoD:ME3 and bumped into someone with the gamertag NULLNINJ4. Which one of you is it?

[Jinsai]

Playing through Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. This may fly under the radar for most people, but I’ve been waiting for this game for years (it was Kickstarted in July 2020). It’s the spiritual successor to Suikoden 2. The creator left Konami before Suikoden 3 came out, which changed the graphic style to 3D and from there the series went in a completely different direction. Anyway, Suikoden 2 is widely regarded as maybe the best JRPG ever made; alongside Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI/VII, Dragon Quest V. It may not be as well known, but it has a really hardcore fan base, and I’d consider myself a pretty huge fan.

The release hasn’t landed well for Eiyuden Chronicle though… the creator recently passed away, and the metacritic score hovers below 80%. Had higher hopes there…

But I kinda get it. I’m a little under 10 hours in, and it really is old school. I’d have a hard time recommending it to anyone who isn’t already a big fan of the first two Suikoden games. I’m enjoying it enough though, even if the plot is really doing a Force Awakens thing with the general plot points of Suikoden 2.

There also feels like there’s just something off with the polish… I know it’s a small thing, but in combat, after you deal the finishing blow to the enemy, there’s this like 3 second pause before it shows their death animation. I’m sure that complaint sounds sorta neurotic, but it’s just incredibly unsatisfying, and that goes a long way with a game that has grindy turn-based combat.

But so far, I really like the art style, character design, and the music is great… but yeah, on the character thing, it’s immediately off-putting that the main character has dialogue and voice acting… but whatever. I’m enjoying myself

Now, if there would just be an update about the HD remake of Suikoden 1 and 2 that was supposed to come out a year ago…

[Jinsai]

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, the remake. This is awesome if you ever played the original Wizardry game, which came out in 1981 and basically invented the dungeon crawler RPG genre. They’ve gone through and meticulously remade the game with modern graphics, but you can still overlay the original Apple 2e wireframe graphics on top. They’ve also retained the insane difficulty.

Awesome time capsule

[Kodiak33]

Almost done with Jedi Survivor, great game and story (technical issues are very bad but)...ready for another round of Elden Ring after this.

[leftshoe18]

I recently started Jedi Survivor and I'm trying to find the opportunity to jump back in. I've had a lot of fun with it so far.

[thelastdisciple]

Has anyone been playing Selaco or Fallen Aces? (both in Early Access)

I'm in the midst of Selaco and it's great, I'll probably give Fallen Aces a go next.

[leftshoe18]

I'm playing through Blackthorne, a game I love but have never beaten, and am back at the final boss. The ramp up in combat maneuvering compared to the rest of the game is just ridiculous. I freaking love the bulk of this game but that boss is just bullshit.

Edit: HOLY SHIT I ACTUALLY BEAT THE GAME!!! After playing through most of the game several times over the past 25 years, I finally beat the game. This feels great.

[Jinsai]

Astro Bot is awesome. Honestly makes me feel like a kid again, in the best way. It’s straight up magic. It reminds me of what it was like to go to Disneyland as an 8 year old.

[kdrcraig]

Satisfactory 1.0 released on Tuesday...goodbye life

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

UFO 50 is finally out, and it's a lot of fun. The modern day Action 52, but each game is very fleshed out, and worth a try for the most part. Will definitely keep me busy for awhile!

The new Karate Kid beat em up came out as well. While the pixel art is pretty good, the rest is very by the numbers, and the cutscene art is so bad, it looks almost AI generated. Cannot believe it has a $40 price tag.

The rest of this year will be beat em up extravaganza.

Karate Kid
GI Joe
Toxic Crusaders
Power Rangers
The Phantom

Seems many just follow the Shredders Revenge formula, but I do love a decent beat em up.

[Jinsai]

Just finished Astro Bot w/ 100% of the trophies, and that’s gotta be the best game of 2024. Every second of that was awesome. When you get to the final secret challenge map, it’s like the scene in the Karate Kid where “wax on, wax off” actually clicks. The rest of the game is so relaxing and enjoyable, you don’t realize you’re slowly learning this really reflexive platforming timing… and then it throws this huge challenge at you at the end, almost like a test.

I wouldn’t change anything about it. Platforming games don’t get much better than this.

[allegate]

that honestly sounds like the last challenge levels in Mario Wonder. Like, the game is simple af because of course, it's Mario, but if you get a hang of the different powerups and stuff you can do some really crazy stuff. The star levels break them up into divisions but then the very last star level is all of those things at the same time. it was pretty satisfying to 100% the game.




you know, this is actually the thing that might sway me to finally join the current generation of gamers. My wife and I loved playing these games on the Dreamcast / PS2. Heck, I backed the Kickstarter for the prequel. I just hope it sells well enough that we get the Blood Omen and Defiance games.

edit: I almost posted this in the PS thread but then I saw it's coming to all platforms and now I'm probably going to get the Switch version depending on how well it runs. I mean, $60 vs. $560?

[ImpendingDoomguy]

I’ve been playing Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, and really enjoying it.

I played the first Mario+Rabbids game (Kingdom Battle) because Rob Sheridan tweeted about it. It was a lot of fun.

So, I got the second. It’s even better than the first!

[Jinsai]

I randomly picked up this game called Beyond Galaxyland on PSN. I hadn’t heard of it, but it looked interesting, and for 17 bucks or whatever, I figured I’d give it a shot, and so far I’m loving it.

The graphic art style is reminiscent of the later-era Lucasarts point-and-click games, like The Dig. The main world traversing and map is sort of like a Metroidvania. The combat is pretty much standard turn-based JRPG fare, which ticks a box for me. So far it’s ticking all the boxes. The atmosphere feels like a mashup of 80s sci fi / fantasy tropes, and it’s great. There’s Flight of the Navigator in here somewhere, along with some Star Wars, maybe some Krull…

Really hoping it doesn’t drop off in some major way for me, because this feels like a game specifically engineered to make me happy. I’m surprised the critic reviews are so average… Hopefully it’ll be like that time I randomly picked up this game called 198X, and I loved everything about it… then when I checked the Metacritic average it had 65%. That was one of the few times I really got that “simple games can be art” feeling, and I think the critics were evaluating it more as a game.

I’ve digressed. So far, Beyond Galaxyland is awesome.