Finished Asterigos: Curse of The Stars. It's an ok-ish soulslike. Combat's fine, and has some tweaks on the formula (attacking doesn't drain stamina, only dodging running and a weapon's alternate does. You always have two out five weapons equipped and can switch attacks on the fly) and the art style's pretty appealing in a disney/pixar kind of way. But the level design can be pretty anemic, especially the city areas. And there's just too much writing. So much dialogue with npc:s that should've been cut down.
Also finished Dreams in the Witch House. An adventure game/life sim based on the Lovecraft story with the same name. You arrive in Arkham to study at Miskatonic University, and try to make your meager stipend from you aunts last as you manage studying for exams, staying warm, dry and fed. And the rat with the human face that keeps gnawing through everything you use to board up the hole in the wall, being transported to strange alien geometries as you sleep, and the hag that keeps harassing you.
The light life sim elements is a novel twist for what presents as an adventure game. When the eldritch energies in your apartment burst yet another light bulb, you can't study at home at night for a couple of days until your landlady gets you another. And if you can't study enough to get a good grade on your exam, you won't get any extra allowance. And yeah, you could stay late at the university, but if you walk home at night, you risk the chance of running into muggers. And then you run the risk of getting your ass beat and/or losing all your money. And then how are you going to pay for materials to keep that rat hole boarded up?
I thought this was very neat. There's randomization with weather and puzzle solutions in here already, but I hope these guys keep at it and expand more on that stuff with their next project.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on pc.
Felt like was playing the a Saturday morning cartoon but the movie which had a huge budget. God the game looks so amazing. I never played any of the games in the series before so it was all new to me. Story was a fun wholesome affair. Even if simple, I sorta missed this sort of story. It feels nice. Gameplay was really fun. Lots of crazy weapons. Some we useless though. I played on hard and it was a solid challenge as the basically gave you no health pickups. I did drop it to easy at the end. As I just wanted to beat the arena and the final mission quickly.
I did have a lot of bugs and issues though. A bunch of crashes until I found some settings online that helped a lot. I had one bug that broke some of the puzzle sequences but there's actually an option to skip those sections too. Not a very long game either. I didn't unlock everything but I did do all the side quests.
Highly recommend although waiting for a sale and some patches seems smart.
I rolled credits on the HD remake of Live a Live!
Incredible game just brimming with imagination, but the flip side to that is I found it very uneven. Some of the chapters were better than others, and also the difficulty was all over the place. Most of the time it felt like the enemies would keel over if I breathed on them too hard, but every once in a while there'd be a huge difficulty spike.
The final chapter was the hardest, and it definitely felt like you were expected to do a fair amount of grinding in optional dungeons to prep for the final dungeon. I was ready for the game to be over, though, so I jumped into the final dungeon relatively underleveled. Stumbled onto a pretty cheesy strat that let me chip away at the final boss little by little before finally clutching out a win with three of my four party members dead and my final one just barely able to outheal the boss's damage while still getting some of his own in.
Very glad I played it; you can definitely see the impact it had on other (arguably better, or at least more polished) JRPGs, most notably Chrono Trigger. And the HD remake was amazing, the graphics are gorgeous and the voice acting was incredible.
I played Alba - A Wildlife Adventure this weekend. It's a delightful little exploration game where you play as a 10 year old girl on a Mediterranean (Spanish?) island, exploring the town, taking pictures of wildlife, and helping to clean up trash and repair busted birdhouses. There are lots of birds and other wildlife around, with realistic sounds that can help you find them. It has a charming story about taking care of the environment and helping nature. Only took a few hours to play, so highly recommended if you're looking for something short and charming to relax with on a weekend.
"Alba" is always a sign of quality! 
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is finally done.
A very interesting experience. The first time around, I immensely didn't like the combat and didn't really give a shit about any of the companions.
I tried it again later doing co-op with a friend (who was also better at the game) and enjoyed myself quite a bit more. Enough so that I restarted a third time and played through the whole shebang. I finally understood what they were doing with the combat and began enjoying myself more, although the companions never quite hit the heights of Bioware or even Pillars of Eternity 1/2 (for me, at least).
I'd give it a solid B, and I probably would've been interested in whatever Larian did next, irrespective of it being a sequel to one of my favorite CRPGs ever.
I watched credits roll on Far Cry: Primal. This game had one of the most anticlimactic endings I've seen in a while. I was shocked when the credits rolled. But overall a fun experience, certainly not for everyone though.
Finished Subnautica a week ago
Amazing game, outstanding in so many fronts. A survival game in which you go hungry, thirsty and run out of air if you're not careful, in which you explore a small area in order to gather the resources you need to build a habitat, vehicles and tools that will allow you to better deal with your prime needs, all this while evading the wildlife and searching for clues that will help you find a way back home. You're constantly under the stress of reaching a safe location before running out of air while being pushed to dive deeper and deeper to discover vital resources not available on the shallow waters. It is a stressful experience most of the time.
And yet, while nearing completion I couldn't help a feeling of nostalgia for leaving the crater, I had become comfortable, climatized to it, and felt at ease with my flotilla of subs and my network of habitats.
Powerful games do this, it reminded me of Morrowind somehow, so different and yet so capable of evoking mistery and wonder.
Lake thoughts, after finishing it (thanks to PS+ Extra):
This game is pretty relaxing. There's no time limit, no pressure, nothing. The game is mostly driving around, delivering mail and packages, and talk to the people you meet. There are a few sidequests, none of them complex, and not particularly interesting either. The driving is very simple, you can't kill pedestrians (I've tried), the police won't complain if you drive recklessly (I don't think I ever saw a patrol car), and it's not possible to damage the mail truck (which I've also tried, intentionally and unintentionally).
Some polish (and anti-aliasing) could've helped. For example, if I parked in the middle of the road and got out to deliver a parcel or mail, there might be a few cars behind me waiting. If I leave, they stay. In some cases, I came back ten minutes later, and there were just more cars waiting. Also: Aren't mail trucks supposed to beep if they're going in reverse? This one didn't.
Pet peeves, I know.
Otherwise, it's a nice short experience, and it didn't overstay it's welcome.
I really wanted to enjoy Lake. I remember enjoying the trailer and being happy it was on PS+, but I lasted maybe 20 minutes. It was what I wanted (a slow, chill, character game) but not a very interesting one as well.
I finished it a few weeks ago and had a good time. It was about what I expected, plus a cool song (Witchcraft) I did not! It could have definitely been more polished, but overall it was just a nice, relaxing time. Plus, I enjoyed the different romance options. What end did you get/choose?
I left town on the RV with the video store girl.
I finished it a few weeks ago and had a good time. It was about what I expected, plus a cool song (Witchcraft) I did not! It could have definitely been more polished, but overall it was just a nice, relaxing time. Plus, I enjoyed the different romance options. What end did you get/choose?
Spoiler:I left town on the RV with the video store girl.
Same 
If there's a gay option, I usually pick it :)
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is finally done.
A very interesting experience. The first time around, I immensely didn't like the combat and didn't really give a shit about any of the companions.
I tried it again later doing co-op with a friend (who was also better at the game) and enjoyed myself quite a bit more. Enough so that I restarted a third time and played through the whole shebang. I finally understood what they were doing with the combat and began enjoying myself more, although the companions never quite hit the heights of Bioware or even Pillars of Eternity 1/2 (for me, at least).
I'd give it a solid B, and I probably would've been interested in whatever Larian did next, irrespective of it being a sequel to one of my favorite CRPGs ever.
I Kickstarted D:OS1 for 2 copies, and gave the second one to a friend on the condition we would play the game co-op. I never got far on my own, neither for D:OS2, but boy did we have fun with the combat system together! Don't ask me anything about the story or the characters though
Despite playing the game initially on PSP (of all places), I had never replayed Tomb Raider Anniversary from start to finish on PC... until today!
Despite using the same engine as Tomb Raider Legend, I don't think I've encountered any technical issue. The game ran smoothly, my DualShock 4 controller worked right away, controls behaved as expected. Makes me wish Crystal Dynamics would go back and fix the issues with Legend and make it work better on recent computers.
Overall, I had a great time, although some of the puzzles in the last two sections should be more generous with their time limits (or just get rid of them altogether). This may actually be my favorite of the Tomb Raider series for me. Despite being 16 years old, the game still looks good.
Minor issues:
- T-Rex fight is kinda gimmicky. Well, all boss fights are, really.
- Palace Midas is my favorite level in the original game. Here it's... not that great.
- The sphinx in Sanctuary of the Scion is somehow not as impressive as the original
- I wish I could just hold the triggers to fire continuously rather than having to mash buttons. My 44 year old wrists are not huge fans of button mashing.
Mario_Alba wrote:I finished it a few weeks ago and had a good time. It was about what I expected, plus a cool song (Witchcraft) I did not! It could have definitely been more polished, but overall it was just a nice, relaxing time. Plus, I enjoyed the different romance options. What end did you get/choose?
Spoiler:I left town on the RV with the video store girl.
Same
Spoiler:If there's a gay option, I usually pick it :)
Nice! 
Exo One
Finished this a couple of weeks ago, before it left Game Pass. Well, "finished" might be the wrong word; I got to what I assume was one of the final levels, which required me to do some kind of gravity slingshot move around a planet that proved beyond me, at which point I realized I'd seen enough.
Fun while it lasted. Exo One is a weird, experimental "vibes" game, where the sole mechanic is to pilot a ship across strange alien landscapes. Said ship is fitted with a "gravity drive" - allowing you to increase gravity's effects to hurtle down hills or turn it off completely to sail through the skies. I've not encountered controls quite like that in a game before, and it feels good to get into the zone once you get the hang of it.
There's a story here, too, told in fragments and brief, still images. Something about a doomed mission and alien technology? Doesn't really make a lick of sense, but I think that works in the game's favor, as the inscrutability of the story goes hand in hand with the spartan landscapes and peculiar gameplay.
Definitely unique. Not a game I'd buy, but I'm glad I experienced it.
I finished my second run of Monster Sanctuary. It is a monster collecting metroidvania, that leans heavily into team composition and having monsters work together with a variety of buffs and debuffs and Damage over Time to quickly knock out opponents.
As I mentioned in the tread for games without a thread, it has several challenge modes baked in that you can opt to use, such as a randomizer, a single monster capture per zone (think like a Pokemon nuzlocke run), and permadeath. I just used the single monster run, which was still enough to limit the number of monsters I had access to and forced some creative teambuilding. I loved my debuffers (the starting game Mad Eye is weak by damage standards, but can set every debuff and strip buffs from the enemies and was used in probably over 80% of fights right up to the end of the game), but by the end of the game my most oppressive monster was probably a twin headed snake that couldn't do much damage-wise but could heal and remove debuffs from my own team; it meant that even in the fights against other monster tamers at the end of the game (routinely harder than anything else), nothing could touch my team while I could weaken them and whittle them down.
This is a real cool little game, and fans of JRPGs (or people who wish the Pokemon series had more depth) should check it out sometime. And it routinely goes for pretty cheap.
Just finished an amazing game. An Epic story with a legendary hero. Adventure. Exploration. Finding treasure. Grabbing loot to take on tougher quests. Deadly monsters. Princesses who need rescuing. Saving the kingdom. Mysterious caves. Friends to help you along the way.
Yup, I'm talking about DAVE THE DIVER.
What an unexpected treasure of a game! I love when a title like this comes out of nowhere, lives up to the hype, and just makes you feel better for the time investment.
The game is such a refreshing experience. If I was at a party with my current games, it would sound like this:
"Oh hey WoW, what's going on?"
WoW: "Go collect 40 bantha pelts and I will give you these slightly better boots and we'll like you a little more"
"Uh, no, hey Warhammer, what's-"
Warhammer 40K: "“It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of -"
"Yeah no I'm good. Oh, what's up Overwatch 2? I didn't know you were-"
OW2: "Sorry you have to pay $15 to keep talking with me"
"...no."
"Hi!"
"...hi? Who are-"
"I'm Dave! I'm a Diver! I like to dive underwater and catch fish and find treasure! Would YOU like to dive underwater and catch fish and find treasure with me?"
"...I WOULD like to dive underwater and catch fish and find treasure with you!"
"Cool! And then we can run a sushi restaurant!"
"Did we just become best friends?"
"Yup!"
There's just so many things I loved about this game. The beautiful pixelart visuals. The glorious underwater effects. The way the story is slowly revealed to you over time. The interesting friends and enemies you meet along the way. It's silly without getting too silly, and has some serious ecological tones without ever getting preachy.
But most importantly, it was just...fun.
What I loved in particular about this game were 2 parts. The first is how the game slowly iterates on its complexity. By the end of the game, you are diving in the sea for fish, treasure, materials, ingredients, fighting sharks and other predators, exploring underwater oddities (no spoilers), photographing rare fish, then eventually you are buying upgrades to gear, supporting ecological research, running an amazing sushi shop (including planning the menu, hiring and training staff, serving customers, decorating the shop), caring for your sustainable fish hatchery, running a farm for rice and vegetables, and researching new recipes. The way the game gently introduces all of these tasks, menu commands, quests, and characters is not just easy to digest, but each new activity is tied to the story. The complexity (and I am reluctant to use that word) sneaks up on you so that each activity and action becomes second nature. The game is also very forgiving, with easy restarts should you drown or fail a story quest. I never felt stuck in the game at all.
The other thing I love about this game is, well, Dave. When I first saw the picture of him, I was sold. A short, pudgy, underdressed, goateed, hat wearing, mush of a man who has such an earnest smile and enthusiasm, it was hard not to get sucked in with his optimism, good nature, and eagerness to please everyone. As I continued to play the game, I realized these same positive attitudes are reflected in the gameplay, art style, story, and the development team as well.
In other words, DAVE THE DIVER is that good weekend fishing buddy who loves to hang out with you and you always end up having a good time together.
I loved everything about this game, including the fun end credits scene, and the fact that it lets you continue to play even after the main story (~30-40 hours) is done.
I can't recommend this game enough. It's going on my GOTY list. Buy it full price, it will be money well spent, and only costs about the same as a $20 rainbow roll, which Sushimaster Bancho can grudgingly make for you in 2 minutes anyway.
Up next, well, I'm going through it now...Baldur's Gate 3.
The Baldur's Gate series is my all time favorite games for someone who started with Pong and Zork (I'm old). Even at this early stage with my time in the game, I can safely say it is already one of the greatest games I've ever played, and may even surpass my decades-old love for BG2 when all is said and done. I can't believe it's living up to the hype. It's like watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time. Or if the Star Wars sequel trilogy was better than Empire Strikes Back. Unless something dramatically bad happens as I continue, this is my easiest ever lock for Game of the Year. Maybe even all time.
And I haven't even met Jaheira and Minsc yet.
Finished Viewfinder and Venba recently. Both are very good but for very different reasons. Viewfinder has some of the best first-person puzzles I have played since Portal 2, but the story is meh at best. Venba is one of the most unique stories I have played in a game, but the gameplay is meh. Between the two, the V games are great, and both will probably appear on my eoy list.
I finished Trails of Cold Steel 1, which is my sixth (!) game finished in the Legend of Heroes series. It’s kind of hard to review it since it’s a setup game and so we don’t get any satisfying payoffs, and is in fact the first of a quadrology, so there’s a long way to go with this cast in this setting.
The big picture of the story (students traveling all over a military driven empire in turmoil and being introduced to many of the issues running under the surface) is actually a really good excuse for driving the plot, and the world building and sense of place is good like every other game in the series. I’m also impressed how tense moments got for a setup game in this series, and it felt like things routinely went badly for the crew when they stick their noses in the wrong place and got way in over their heads, which was sort of true with the other games but definitely moreso here.
It does get hampered by a few flaws, notably that the moment to moment writing feels weak, in the vein of a shounen anime, and there is a lot of informed attributes and telling rather than showing going on with the individual characters. I can suspend my disbelief a bit since it’s animesque, but no people even in an anime would talk about themselves the way these characters do. And the protagonist Rean strikes me as too perfect (everyone likes him! Everyone treats him as a leader for no reason! He fixes all the problems in his class!). I do think the other games handled these aspects better, but it’s been awhile since I've played many of them. The characters also felt a little less interesting than the previous series, but then again this is just the setup game and the payoffs come later, so it’s really hard to have an opinion on it.
So is it good? Probably. If you like the Trails games because of the world building and the sense of place, this is still one of those. No other JRPGs do that anywhere as well as these games do, so even if this just feels kind of okay as far as the standards of the series go, it still feels like a good one overall if you are picking up what this series is putting down.
And the music is great, as is/was/will continue to be true for all Falcom games.
Not so much finished, but finished with Deep Rock Galactic.
It reminds me of the first time I went skiing.
When I did it, I was terrible but enjoyed it immensely. At the end of the day, I realized I had a choice. Because of my personality, I was either going to have to commit myself to the slopes, change my life, and disregard everything else, or simply be thankful for the experience, appreciate it for what it is and respect the people who enjoy it, and leave it at that.
I get it. Dwarves. The fun kind. Simple gameplay that can get addictive, especially with the iterations. Humor. I love the voice acting in this, and the story is minimal but actually hits the right buttons. It can run on a decent potato. After a while, I found the gameplay getting a bit repetitive, and because of my crazy work and family life, I am usually stuck with single player games, and co-op is out of the question for a title that was clearly made with that in mind. Solo is fun, but you can feel the limitations to how it could be even better with 3 other friends from under the mountain.
Up next, come on. It's Baldur's Gate 3. If I approach a gate, I have to ask, "It's a nice gate, but is it a BALDUR'S gate?" If not, I want nothing to do with it. I am intentionally going extra sloooow with this title. I just finished Act 1. Heck I waited 20+ years for a sequel to my all time favorite game series - I am not wasting my initial experience by blowing through it ASAP. This is a game I mean to savor.
The other game I'm playing? Dodging Baldur's Gate 3 spoilers. This is becoming increasingly difficult since I find myself surrounded in public enthusiasm and need to memorize some AoE ignore spells.
Some other titles to when I need a break from the Sword Coast, but otherwise that's it.
Shymlark and I stopped playing Deep Rock Galactic for similar reasons. I do have one abiding memory from those sessions though.
We were after a big boss creature and had dug through into it’s home, which was a very small chamber, I fought it and it retreated right into another connected cavern. Shymlark emerged from our tunnel and I told him where it went. He ran right and jumped into the bigger chamber. As I watched him falling endlessly into the void, whose bottom we could barely see, I realised I probably should have given him a better impression of it’s tremendous size.
Finished Star Trek Resurgence over the weekend. It was an amazing Star Trek story (set in the TNG era) in a Tell-tale style game. Game was broken up into "episodes" of about 10-30 minutes, perfect for bite size gaming, but of course it was so good I essentially finished it over the course of 5 sessions. You get to play from two perspectives and the moral choices really add up as you get towards the end. I have some minor gripes about glitches and some rough graphics in a few places, but the story really clicked and it is easily overlooked once you get into it. Definitely recommend if you are a Star Trek fan or like these types of games. Played it on PC through Epic.
Hell yeah, Resurgence was terrific.
Just rolled credits on Return of the Obra Dinn, and that was a delightful puzzler of a mystery!
The way this game captures the sensation of discovery had me howling with excitement when I'd piece something particularly juicy together. Some of that excitement tapered off towards the end when you're getting into the nitty-gritty process-of-elimination solves, but the game's jump-cut to black 'solve' jingle was always a joy & relief.
Took me closer to 11 hours to finish, but a good chunk of that was tossed in over a luxurious pace this evening, in a refined fancy chair befitting of the Chief Inspector.
With that under my belt, it's free play season, we'll see where the winds may lead! Only thing that's certain is that I'm making my partners watch Master & Commander with me tomorrow.
I think I am finished with Norco. If you like Southern Gothic horror, this is some of the best of that in video games, right up there with Kentucky Route Zero. But I kept wishing I would have played this on a computer or an iPad (or even a Switch) instead of a PS5 because 1) I felt the text was too far away and 2) the controller seemed to not be good at doing what the game wanted me to do at times.
I'm closing in on my first full campaign in Jagged Alliance 3.
I've pretty much conquered every town except one with a huge income and cash buffer. There's a Total War style final twist coming but even then I've got the teams who can rush in to decapitate the big boss, so it's just a little bit of battle grinding from here onwards to get the rolling credits. Hope I have the energy to finish this one. Even JA2 I would get pretty much to the end city and run out of energy and patience to finish the game.
Rogue Legacy 2 - finished in around 85 hours & wow this game is special.
One of the best Rogue Lites/Likes ever made. Now I'm onto New Game + with new enemies, bosses & modifiers. I can see me playing RL2 for months to come yet.
Everytime I think I'm getting remotely close to maybe being close to finishing Vampire Survivor, something else unlocks or appears. This game does not end, it has no mercy. It has no soul. Probably more DLC coming though.
House of hours, although with a caveat that I cheated towards the end. First two thirds of the game are good fun. As you explore the library and learn the mechanics. The ui is still purposefully painful but that's not so bad.
The last third of the game is a lot of grind and tedium. As you basically already solved the game. But you have to grind out memories over and over. 45 memories times 50ish skills. You don't need them all but storing the special level up memories is dangerous cause you can lose them permanently. At this point the ui is brutal.
I still recommend the game but only if you can embrace the quirkyness. Taking notes, organizing books efficiently, and other weirdness.
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