What are you playing this weekend? 2023-08-12
What are you playing this weekend? 2023-08-12
Hello Everyone!
Didn't get to play much this week. And haven't really started anything new.
- Played a few levels of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, not much though, still on the same water world.
- Played Dragon Quest XI for couple of hours, going to continue playing that.
- Reached High Rank in Monster Hunter: World but now I am stuck at Pink Rathian, maybe I need to improve my equipment, or maybe I should cave and fire that SOS flare.
- Playing a bit of Brotato before sleep, if I am not tired. Finally cleared it once, now trying other characters and weapon combinations. A combination of guns has been working out great for me though. All guns, all different type, and focusing on increasing ranged attack.
That's all from me, what about you guys? What have you been playing?
This will be my first clear weekend for a while.
I've been playing a BG3 campaign with my buddy when I got a few spare hours, so we'll probably play that some this weekend.
I've also been playing Thronefall. Great, simple tower defense RTS kinda game.
Also been playing New Star GP. A retro style, arcadey Formula One game in a retro style similar to Virtua Racer from the devs that made Retro Bowl. It's got a fun little career mode.
I'm working through my first playthrough of Stray. Last save I was just about to leave the Slums for what I understand to be the final time. Going for 100% and so far don't think I've missed anything.
Not exactly video games, but I've also been doing puzzles lately - just completed my 4th in like a week. They were 300, 300, 1000, and 1000 pieces - but the last one only had 999 pieces present 🙁 Gonna try to make the missing piece myself before I return them to the library.
After Stray I might start on New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe too. Wanna get through it before Wonder comes out.
Edit: lol just realized this is the Nintendo community and not general gaming. Oh well, at least I fit NSMBUD in there
Finished Trails into Reverie.
Well, that took a while, more than 90h, but I went for full completion - main game, post game dungeon, trials, daydreams, minigames, everything done.
I love the Trails series, it's one of my favorite JRPG series ever, but it has its fair share of problems - they use the same formula for most games so it's easy to get burned out if you play many of them in sequence, there's a lot of cast bloat due it being a series with all games interconnected, an annoying tendency to keep trying to redeem villains, and just being too verbose at times (often because they want to use all members of that huge cast).
Why I'm talking about this? Because while I had a lot of fun with the previous game (Cold Steel 4), it also did showcase all the problems above at full strength, but Reverie does something different and provides a much necessary "break" from the usual Trails experience.
The game is split in three routes, two for protagonists of previous games (Lloyd and Rean) and one for a mysterious new masked character ("C"). This breakdown is a good shift from the usual game dynamic, lessens the issues with cast bloat since they are all spread around, and "C"s route is focused on new cast members making it a much fresher experience.
Another major change is the Reverie Corridor. Most of games in the series are heavy into sidequests, but this time the "main" game barely contains any, only a few optional extra-challenging monsters. Instead, almost all optional content takes place in this dream-like world where time flows differently and memories from the real world as hazy. Here you have access to the full cast of the game (and even some extras!), a randomly generated dungeon you can use to grind freely, a ton of minigames including series classics like Pom and Vantage Masters, and a very nice section called "Daydreams" with a lot of mini-stories showing what's going on around with both the main cast and some familiar NPCs - very similar to the Doors from Sky 3rd.
This keeps the main story very tight and focused while also having a lot of fun optional content, and gives you freedom to decide if and when to focus on each. I don't expect this to become the norm for future games in the series, but I enjoyed this structure a lot and I hope they do use something like this time to time to avoid burnout from the usual formula.
Finally, on the story, this is an epilogue for both Zero+Azure and Cold Steel 1-4, so obviously not a game for someone starting the series. It does a much better job story-wise then CS4 IMO, in particular in the Crossbell section - it's still the weakest of the three routes largely due to it just rethreading old plot lines, but it fixes a lot of the things that bothered in the last two games. Rean's route is a nice epilogue that touches on the impact of the last game's events in Erebonia, and "C"s route is just great fun with a cast of anti-heroes.
And now the wait for the next game begins. Really looking forward to see the Calvard arc.
Started Grisaia Phantom Trigger 5.5 to 08.
Phantom Trigger is the 4th game in the Grisaia series, with the three first games (Fruit, Labyrinth and Eden) being available as a bundle as well on the Switch. This last game was released as a bunch of 2-5h "Episodes", and this is second half of that game.
The original Grisaia games have a very interesting structure. The "Common" route of Fruit is 70% of the story and it's full slice-of-life comedy, but once it splits into the individual routes for each heroine it gets crazy dark as you learn their backstories. Labyrinth shifts into having the main story being dark (it's the MC's backstory) with "lighter" after-stories for each heroine. Finally Eden goes towards a more action-focused story, but I wasn't a big fan of it, and one of the main reasons is that most of the cast was just regular girls, so having they become involved in a spy conspiracy didn't really work for me, it was just too hard to believe.
Phantom Trigger is more action-focused, much like Eden, but it fixes the above problem by stating from the beginning that the cast is part of "school of assassin" of sorts. It takes place in the same universe as the earlier games, but so far has been a completely independent story with a brand-new cast.
The first five episodes were focused on introducing the cast.
- 01: Introduction of the initial cast (Shiori, Haruto, Rena, Tohka, Chris and Murasaki) and premise.
- 02: Rena's backstory, adds Maki.
- 03: Tohka's backstory, adds Gumi.
- 04: Chris' backstory, adds Taiga.
- 05: Murasaki's backstory, adds Yuuki.
I only had time to start 5.5 for now, but it seems to be centered on Shiori, the focus character of the first episode - a new "civilian" teacher that just joined this school. Looks like this chapter will be about how she is adapting to the her new school and students, but I'll talk more about it next week.
As for my overall impression of the story, a redditor once described Phantom Trigger as "pretty cozy comfort food reading", and I think that's an accurate description. It doesn't do anything special or amazing, but it's been consistently fun and entertaining.
I've spent most of my little free time lately doing the daily challenges on Fallout 76. But I recently finally fired up Wolfenstein New Order that I bought like 4 years ago. Lol. I'm really enjoying it. After that, I might finally start Elden Ring which I got for Christmas.
Edit: lol. Just noticed this was the Nintendo lemmy. Thought it was general gaming. For Nintendo, my kid was just saying she wanted to play Bowser's Fury again and maybe some Animal Crossing. ☺ I do find AC very relaxing so I might have to lay on the couch with that one soon. Or if I don't feel like relaxing, I'll fire up Hades again. Lol
Back to Tears of the Kingdom until Fantasy Life i drops. Finally cleared Korok Forest. It was surprisingly easy after the Hyrule Castle fight.
I got bold enough to try facing a Gleeok. I didn't die but I wasted a whole lot of stuff. Seems like my stuff is not up to par yet. Am I supposed to have a bunch of elemental eyes or what?
Been playing through a lot of Oracle of Seasons, I love 2D Zelda so I've been enjoying it a lot. The puzzles require a bit of thinking but are easy to complete. The season changing mechanic is also pretty cool. Currently on the 5th dungeon, Unicorn's Cave. I think that places me around somewhere halfway through the game?
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is always fun to sit down and play for a bit. Love the series, ever since playing Double Dash as a kid.
Also have been thinking about restarting FE: Three Houses lately, loved what I played during my first playthrough, but life happened and eventually began playing less and never got around to completing the game. Honestly would rather start up a new playthrough instead of trying to remember everything that had happened leading up to where I last saved.
I've also begun an obsession with Pikmin. Up until the demo for Pikmin 4 released I had never played any of the games, but it's got me absolutely hooked. Unfortunately can't afford Nintendo's usual $60 at the moment, so I've been making due with 4's demo. Definitely going to be my first purchase once I get things in order.
More sidequesting/shrine hunting in TotK, in Akkala, Faron and near Lurelin Village. Mostly been dealing with the Yiga, including beating up Master Kohga twice in the depths, and at one point went through a cave looking for a shrine and ended up
spoiler
in the lower level of a labyrinth fighting gloom hands (f**k gloom hands) and a Phantom Ganon.
Currently very likely sequence breaking by
spoiler
putting together the body for the Spirit Sage before finishing all four surface temples apparently. Wanted to see what was up with the storm cloud above Faron and stumbled upon the beginning of the quest.
I'm playing Wylde Flowers! It takes a lot of inspiration from Stardew Valley, but it is more focused on story, characters and relationships. It is also has a lot more "mature" themes than Stardew.
Anyway, I am at the beginning of the summer season and am fulfilling quests for the summer festival, while also trying to gather enough materials to upgrade my tools and farm buildings. There is quite a lot to do once you get the hang of the gameplay loop.