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

[Mustang]

Ghost of Tsushima
I'm not far in and I'm still trying to get used to the controls, but I love this game. Jin Sakai is a very rugged looking guy, but he's straight samurai through and through and I love it. The combat is nothing spectacular but it's very satisfying. I was very worried at how Sucker Punch was going to handle the kind of combat you'd see in samurai movies, but from what I've seen of it so far they nailed it. If you're looking for something along the lines of Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, temper your expectation. You will be killing people within 3 strikes and the same can be said about you. And then there's the most important thing of all. The clothes. Some of these kimonos that I'm seeing in this game is fire, especially in some of Jin's flashbacks. I saw a guy dressed in all black and I'm like "I need to get Jin some clothes like that". I haven't seen any foxes yet but I followed my first bird. Good stuff.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I started playing it but immediately took a break to play the Nioh 2 DLC. Despite my complaints about playing it safe, this core gameplay is so much fun that it's easy to jump back in and have fun with this game. I really need to experiment with the new weapon type.

I'll be getting back to GoT by next weekend.

[Avaitor]

I finally finished Link's Awakening. It's not a long game, but I only ever get to play it for an hour or two at a time spaced out. You could easily beat it in a week with a little more effort.

It's a good game! Not as amazing as BOTW, but it's a nice return to classic Zelda in a cute package. It makes me want to find the original version, either the first release or DX. I haven't played it in ages, so I've been looking on and off for either. tbh I think it would've been a better deal if the DX version was ported alongside this remake.

Next up, I'm going to play DKC: Tropical Freeze, and also try to get experienced with Mario Kart 8 in between. I do also want to get to Witcher 3, but my Switch's memory can't handle it. I'm going to get a new memory card for my birthday in October, so hopefully then I'll finally get to that and Sundered.

[Mustang]

Ghosts of Tsushima
I guess I'm still on act 1, but I've only seen maybe 3 characters that're gonna help Jin rescue his uncle. I finally got to pet a fox. Despite the violence this game speaks serenity and just good vibes all around. Like when you're not doing any missions and just soaking in the scenery, it can definitely be relaxing.

That being said, as I have unlocked the water stance along with another ghost attribute the combat puts me in the mind of a combination between Assassin's Creed and the Arkham series. Somewhere in-between the 2, but for me that equals satisfying.

I can see why people are criticizing the the sameness. I can see a lot of this stuff getting boring very quick for people. For me, doesn't bother me here because, well, I'm simple-minded. Through samurai/ninja's into the mix and I'm sold.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Split Staff in Nioh 2 is fucking glorious. People weren't over-hyping it by saying it was their new main weapon. It somehow manages to be an amazing spiritual successor to Ninja Gaiden 2's version of the Lunar Staff.

[Mustang]

I saw bit's of that split staff in action and I was amazed at some of the things I was seeing. I think once I get to it I'll probably make it my secondary weapon. Honestly, I feel if I make anything other than the single katana my main weapon I feel out of place or something. It's my safe and go to approach until I get comfortable, especially with this kind of game, not to mention all of these other games start you out with a sword.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The single Katana was my go-to weapon in the first game, but after it got seriously nerfed in patches I switched to the the dual swords which were also a go-to in this game as well. That said, the Switchglaive became my main weapon throughout the campaign due to my character primarily having a magic build, and it was a damn good weapon. However, the DLC added the Split Staff which also scales with magic, but has a much more versatile move-set in terms of fast, moderate, and slow but heavy-hitting combat. The Switchglaive is greatly useful, but outside of wanting to experiment with combos for the sake of looking flashy, a majority of it's most useful moves were in high stance. The Split Staff doesn't have as much raw power, but it can be equally deadly in it's various multi-hit moves that stack tons of damage on most enemy types. My only gripe with it so far is that it doesn't have any good parry moves, but to be fair it also doesn't really need them.

[Avaitor]

I'm two worlds into Tropical Freeze so far, and I'm simply in love. I really enjoyed Returns, but this is the real return to the DKC world that I was really hoping for, and plays delightfully. And I really like how getting the other Kongs helps you out in this. Cranky is my favorite- he reminds me of Scrooge in the DuckTales game.

It's not all that forgiving, though. The boss in the second world and the level right before it were getting on my nerves. Still, I can't wait to pick the game back up.

[Mustang]

I'm all over the place with Ghost of Tsushima. Nothing's feeling like a chore yet, but I definitely wouldn't argue with anyone who has a problem with the repetitiveness. For me my problem lies in the reward for some of these quests just don't feel like they're worth it. I mean everything is geared towards building up Jin. I guess what I'm actually looking for is something a little more, "cheap", but then again I haven't really put much in going the "ghost" route.

Speaking of ghost, I called myself sneaking on a boat and ran into my first glitch. I was getting ready to assassinate this one leader like I'm in Assassin's Creed (jumping from atop) and noticed that Jin went through the damn boat and next thing I know Jin is inside the room on the ship. Took away my feeling of dominance.

I think where I'm at in the game so far (still at the beginning stage) I will admit that I'm a little disappointed in terms of armor and sword upgrades. If you're going to let me customize Jin, then let me customize Jin. I don't want you giving me a specific set of colors for an outfit. I want to put whatever color I want on Jin. I only have this yellow / green color for the samurai clan outfit and then nothing for the travelers outfit.

Obviously more will unlock as I go forward, but I'm not liking some of this stuff. Still, overall the game has been great.

[Foggle]

I'm two worlds into Tropical Freeze so far, and I'm simply in love. I really enjoyed Returns, but this is the real return to the DKC world that I was really hoping for, and plays delightfully. And I really like how getting the other Kongs helps you out in this. Cranky is my favorite- he reminds me of Scrooge in the DuckTales game.

It's not all that forgiving, though. The boss in the second world and the level right before it were getting on my nerves. Still, I can't wait to pick the game back up.

Tropical Freeze is in my top 10 games of all time! Just a perfect, sublime experience.

[Mustang]

I almost checked out hard on Ghosts of Tsushima. I hate game overs when it comes to stealth. I hate them with a passion. Here in this one mission you can't let the guards raise an alarm otherwise that's it. Okay, fine, then let me do stealth all the way and not half ass it. You're letting me climb houses, cool but I can't climb trees or poles. Why? In the end it wasn't nearly as bad, but still, I'd rather be given more options when it comes to stealth.

[Mustang]

Still on the Ghost of Tsushima train. I'm getting better with the stealth. It's not like it was hard to begin with. It's just annoying especially when you're trying to stay on a specific path (I was trying to stay on the path of being a samurai). That being said, I got a hook (completely forgot this thing was in the demo) and felt like everything just opened up in terms of stealth. Chain assassinations feels good. I got motivated to actually play more of this game because I, technically was done with the game (hard quit). Watched a couple of reviews and found out that there were things I wasn't doing that I wasn't aware of.

A nitpick. Climbing. Honestly I blame Breath of the Wild for this. In BotW you can climb anything (at least from what I can recall) but here you have to find a ledge with an R2 prompt that'll lead you up or down a rocky mountain. Considering you're on a path to becoming a ninja you'd think they would have some sort of claws or something to remedy that. Oh well.

Apparently I'm still on Act 1 (Goodness)

[Avaitor]

RIP to the 3DS.

I'll admit, I never did get one, as I haven't had much of a taste for handhelds in a long time, but this does raise an interesting point- are they a thing of the past? The rise of smart phone gaming is one factor, but also the Switch's own portability is an undeniable boon.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have a 3DS which I plan to use for more games, but up to this point I've only really used it for ALBW (which is genuinely one of the best Zelda games IMO) and some retro games. Still, a thing of the past or not, a 9-year life-span is nothing to sneeze at. The 3DS will go down as a classic, regardless of the future of handhelds going to mobile phones.

Speaking of Zelda, I started up Twilight Princess (Gamecube version) this past weekend. People weren't kidding when they said it has a really long tutorial-phase. On the one hand it does work well enough for a first playthrough, but I could see it becoming a barrier to replaying the game since there's a lot of unskippable story and tutorial stuff in the beginning. It took me well over two hours just to get Link to revert from his wolf form back to normal. That said, completing the Forest Temple, which is understandably simple for a first dungeon, was both familiar and simultaneously refreshing to experience. While I did enjoy BotW on the whole, I admittedly missed the feeling of completing a classic style Zelda dungeon, so it was nice to go back to the old style here. I do hope that the game takes more advantage of the Twilight Realm and wolf-form features though, to keep an interesting twist to the gameplay. I'm hoping that Link will be able to switch between both at will as the game progresses, but I'll just have to keep playing to see, I suppose.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Gotta love how Midna pokes fun at the series trope of having to light torches to unlock a secret entrance. I suspect that little bit of dialogue was just added in by the localization team, but it's appreciated all the same.