What Are You Currently Playing? 6.65: Neighbor of the Beast

[Nel_Annette]

Got my Wooly World bundle this morning. Blue Yarn Yoshi's in the mail, so soon I'll have all three. Liking the game so far. Mainly using the jet black Game & Watch Yoshi and the Sonic Yoshi. Was never the biggest fan of the Yoshi games, but this one's just oozing with charm like Kirby's Epic Yarn before it.

[gunswordfist]

I just beat Metal Slug X for the 2nd time, first time ever online. Ah, it was so worth the purchase. Also, I saw a few new things like you can throw stones and stay fat in between stages. Lastly, that Independence Day ending always throws me off.

[Nel_Annette]

Welp, AC Syndicate is fantastic, I think. It's like all the best parts of Rogue and Unity were carried over and they revamped that terrible cover system (the "sneak mode" is an improvement in every way) and brought back the whistle mechanic. Taking back territory reminds me of Saints Row and I like that. The grappling hook has basically made it so I don't want to climb anything ever again. The two main leads are way more like-able than Arno ever was. I like all the continuity nods and that the map isn't outright swamped in shit to collect like Unity was.

[gunswordfist]

Whistle?  you're giving me good Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow flashbacks.

[Foggle]

English Tomba 2 is apparently coming to PSN this week, and I believe all owners of the Japanese version get it for free.

[gunswordfist]

Yah-tah! Will convince my baby brother to get it.

I've been playing Jack The Reaper. It's been kind of intense, mostly in a good way. Lovin'' it.

[Daxdiv]

Been playing Yo-Kai Watch! It's pretty fun game all things considering. Sure the combat does play itself mostly, but that just for auto-attacks. You do kinda need to configure the Yo-Kai, work on their Soultimate attacks, make sure they're purified, heal them, maybe target a specific Yo-Kai or part of their body and also see if you can recruit the enemy Yo-Kai if applicable. So there is stuff you need to do in combat instead of just letting your 3DS just sit there. The dialogue is pretty snazzy. I don't think I've encountered an internet meme, only a Government bail-out joke for some reason.

Been a little sidetrack with doing side quests, trying to get better ranked Yo-Kai and just enjoying walking around Springdale. Really, my only complaint is how random it feels like to recruit Yo-Kai. It is giving me flashbacks to playing Dragon Quest VIII when I bothered to do the Morrie's Monster Arena side quest and how it would feel sometimes to fight a monster and not have them join my team.

[gunswordfist]

Is it like Pokemon?

Finally beat Mission 5 of Oniken yesterday. Man is this game hard.

[gunswordfist]

I've gotten up to level 4 or so of Mark Of The Ninja..then the license expired. It was a pretty fun game and it's probably the most stealth stealth game I've ever played.

[Nel_Annette]

Been on a few things lately.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate - Beat it. Fantastic game. Kind of a weak story, but characters make up for it. Miles better than Unity in every regard. Probably won't be getting the DLC mission packs. I've had my fill. The murder mysteries are the best part of the game though, and I think that's PS4 exclusive.

Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash - Bland. Bland bland bland. It's not a bad game, but there's nothing really here except a harmless platform. I had a level interrupted because I fed some of the food items I picked up to a talking plane and it went on for five minutes in vivid detail describing it. I mean, what the hell is that. What in the world is happening in this game? Played three levels, put it down. Probably won't pick it up again. I really did just buy it for the Amiibo.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer - Done with this one, I finished building all the town facilities, and then got the end credits. Without that, it's just building houses for the other villagers, which gets old really fast. Love the changes they made to setting furniture around and customization, but this game almost just feels like a demo for the next real AC game.

Sonic Lost World (3DS) - First levels good. The horror stories are true, though; this game falls apart at level two and never recovers. It just gets worse and worse, relying solely on Wisp powers and other one-off gimmicks for the majority of levels and requiring you to deal with those same obstacle courses about five times in a row to complete the level.

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal - Passable. Controls are taking getting used to, and the levels are waaay too big and open for a 2D game, but I can enjoy it in short bursts.

Yoshi's Woolly World - Another game I enjoy in short bursts. Great-looking game. I love the creative ways they implement the yarn gimmicks. I just can't take more than one or two levels at a time. Still on World 2 for crying out loud.

The Legend Of Zelda: TriForce Heroes - Really odd one, with this Hytopia/fashion-focused story. No one I know bought this, so I tried it solo. Bad time. This game is clearly only enjoyable with co-op.

Dragon Quest Heroes - Dropped it completely when AC:S came out. Need to pick it back up. It's a pretty game, but I preferred Hyrule Warriors and almost everything about the game story and gameplay just fizzles out after a while.

The Legend Of Legacy is currently sitting in my 3DS and I'm probably going to try that one when I get a chance.

[gunswordfist]

YAH-TAH!!! I finally beat Oniken. That break from the game helped. I got the last part of the final boss for the first time and whooped it. Then I played the bonus level. It turns the game into a shoot em up, you rescue hostages and get items from them and there's new bosses and enemies in the level. I got pretty far but a suped up ship took my final life. Then I tried Hardcore mode. I'm guess it's supposed to be a one life, no continues mode.

[Kiddington]

Picked up Triforce Heroes; it's....okay, and to be fair I actually like it more than I was initially expecting, but I've just never been a fan of gimmicky Zelda (it's not Phantom Hourglass, but it's up there). The series needs to imitate less of this and more of A Link Between Worlds.

[Nel_Annette]

My friend and I tried a round of AC: amiibo Festival. Boring. Boring boring boring. I need to try out the other game modes but Mario Party this is not. And this is coming from a guy who loves AC.

Events happen on the board, but they're nothing really noteworthy. My friend and I had to keep tapping the amiibo on the one gamepad, which gets annoying quick. It doesn't really seem like there's anything noteworthy to unlock. You have to play a round in whatever month is currently is in order to unlock the freaking Start menu where you can choose the months for boards and game modes.

This and Chibi-Robo really make it seem like Ninty are saying "we'll try to make sure that really bad games come bundled with an amiibo so people will buy them anyway." It's kind of annoying. Especially since Amazon just announced that they're selling the Chibi-Robo amiibo by itself with the traditional packaging after everyone bought the stupid bundle.

Really hoping they make a Disney Infinity-style game that utilizes all these things down the line.

[Kiddington]

I didn't even buy Amiibo Festival for the figures because at this point, I'm done here (well that, and it looks fucking terrible for $60 but whatever). I'm determined to finish off the Smash line, I even snagged Falco today for what it's worth, but nothing short of Waluigi is going to get me to collect any more of these things.

It's not even the availability factor at this point, I'm just burned out. There's too many, and they're pretty expensive considering the overall lack of functionality besides just sitting on my desk looking pretty. My budget right now simply doesn't call for it.

Really hoping they make a Disney Infinity-style game that utilizes all these things down the line.

This, absolutely. I remember when they first announced amiibos, I was hoping something of this nature would be in the not too distant pipeline, because as a guy who's not really into figure collecting that much (though I admit, I did get sucked in pretty good this time) I kinda want more out of my $13-$20 toy than something that just sits around.

[Daxdiv]

My friend and I tried a round of AC: amiibo Festival. Boring. Boring boring boring. I need to try out the other game modes but Mario Party this is not. And this is coming from a guy who loves AC.

Events happen on the board, but they're nothing really noteworthy. My friend and I had to keep tapping the amiibo on the one gamepad, which gets annoying quick. It doesn't really seem like there's anything noteworthy to unlock. You have to play a round in whatever month is currently is in order to unlock the freaking Start menu where you can choose the months for boards and game modes.

Yeah, the only positive I can think of as far as AC:AF is concerned is that the figures and cards it comes with are pretty nice. Other than that, yeah the game play is a little lacking. I do kinda have having to scan the amiibo every time I roll the die since that did annoy me with Mario Party 10 as well.

This and Chibi-Robo really make it seem like Ninty are saying "we'll try to make sure that really bad games come bundled with an amiibo so people will buy them anyway." It's kind of annoying. Especially since Amazon just announced that they're selling the Chibi-Robo amiibo by itself with the traditional packaging after everyone bought the stupid bundle.

Whomever came up with that wheel gimmick deserves to be fired from cannon into space. Shame that this game will probably be the end of Chibi-Robo. Zip-Lash is pretty average platformer to be honest. Doesn't do much to innovate, but doesn't suck that much.

Really hoping they make a Disney Infinity-style game that utilizes all these things down the line.

I'll settle for a Skylanders kinda game myself as well. I will admit that the core game play of Skylanders is pretty well done. Not gonna lie about that in all honesty, it is a fun game. The starter packs do come with everything to get you started and to beat the game. Really, to get the most out of it, you really only need like 1 Skylander of each element and as far as Superchargers is concerned one vehicle of each type (Air, and Water is what you need to get if you bought the Wii U/XBONE/360/PS3/4 versions since they do come with a car, only the Wii and 3DS version come with an Air vehicle in Bowser's plane). The part they make sure to maximize their profits each year are mostly whatever the gimmick of the year is (Giants/The Giants, Swap-Force/The figures you can swap the base and top with, Trap Team/the crystals you use to capture the bad guys Pokémon style, Superchargers/the vehicles and maybe the Supercharged version of the Skylanders to get the best combo of vehicles.) Really, if you just remove the toy gimmick from Skylanders, you actually do end up finding yourself playing a neat little platformer that is not only good for children, but something adults can play as well.

But I can kinda imagine a game where I can have Mario, Fox, Tom Nook and Ganondorf fighting for a common goal in a neat little platformer/RPG. Would include the 3rd party characters, but that would require more effort. Almost even included Pokémon before I realized how shafted they were in amiibo support, Thanks TPC for being that protective of them. Really thinking about it, the closet thing we have to that is Code Name STEAM and their usage of the Fire Emblem cast by having them as guest fighters and I want to say Super Mario Maker since scanning in the Mario and Yoshi variants (Gold/Silver and all the yarns) do lead to different results.