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

[Daxdiv]

Good, if they keep up the same 2D art style, I won't complain. This game really is a labor of love towards gaming and animation, 2 of my favorite things. I swear the details in the animation of this game is one of many positives about it. Even watching other people play the game makes me appreciate all the work that went into animating and drawing the bosses, the background and the duo of Cuphead & Mugman themselves. Sure I can catch that while playing, but sitting back does make me go "Damn, how did I not notice that detail before?"

[Mustang]

So instead of firing up MGS5 as I originally planned I decided to fire up Persona 5 again. Just been in the mood for some Persona lately (started because I watched a video of Dante in Nocturne).

Even though I've yet to play them (and probably won't at this time), if someone were to say something along the lines of Nier Automata or Horizon is their GOTY I wouldn't say a word. Looking at other folks play both games I respect them enough to say they deserve it (at the very least they need to be in the conversation). For me at the moment it's a toss up between Persona 5 and Ni-oh (I'd give a slight nod to Tekken 7 as well). Just some great games that got me out of my gaming slump.

[Foggle]

I'm glad you found a game you like that much! That's exactly how I felt about Persona 2 and 3 back when I played them the first time. I really need to give P5 another go when I'm less busy. I do gotta get around to Ni-Oh and Horizon also. Both have complete editions coming out soon so it'll be a pretty good time to pick them up. I also wish I could play Mario Odyssey because I know I'd love it.

Nier Automata is definitely my favorite game this year. As unbalanced as it is, I really enjoyed the gameplay (enough to 100% it... twice!), and of course the music is excellent, but the story really means a lot to me. Doing a second full playthrough made me understand the writing much better and, though I wish 2B and 9S were more likable, I have to say that it is simply brilliant narrative-wise. Ending E, which I already loved, I found truly beautiful upon reexamination. Both Automata and its prequel stir up a lot of emotions in me.

The most pure fun titles for me this year were Prey and Sonic Mania by a long shot. The former may very well have surpassed Deus Ex as my all-time favorite immersive sim while the latter is the smoothest and most vibrant 2D platformer I think I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Meanwhile, Resident Evil 7 was a scary and funny return to the survival horror days of old which I appreciated immensely; The Evil Within 2 attempted the same thing and while I'd say it was less successful I still liked it a lot. I also loved both the writing and gameplay in Wolfenstein 2 though it was slightly outclassed by some of the aforementioned titles. My beloved Yakuza series saw two(!) releases and it continues to be my favorite annual-ish standby.

The biggest disappointment for me this year was probably Yooka-Laylee, but I still enjoyed it very much (I 100%'d it, after all). It definitely needed another year in the oven, so hopefully Playtonic is able to learn from their mistakes and deliver a killer successor in a few years.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Mustang: Really glad that you're enjoying Nioh. It's main campaign is one of the best that I've played for any action game in quite a while. I will warn you that the DLC is a bit of a step back if only because Team Ninja put a bit too much emphasis on scaling, forcing you to grind a bit too much for better gear in order to do half-way decent damage to even normal enemies. That said, they did add the tonfas as a new weapon with a sub-class called Gun Sticks (tonfas with gunpowder that lets you blast enemies at point blank range at the end of combos), probably one of my favorite weapons in gaming.

Nier: Automata was a great game as well. It wasn't quite what I expected it to be, but I suppose that's the whole point of a Yoko Taro game.

I've also been meaning to get around to Horizon and some of the other games that you mentioned.

Foggle: Just FYI, Nioh Complete Edition is already out on PC. From what I can gather the game had some early bugs and issues (not surprising for a KT port to PC), but a patch has recently been released that apparently fixes most problems. Still, the general consensus is that if you have a choice, go for the PS4 version of the game.

[Painted Outlaw]

Focusing right now on Majora's Mask on my Wii U. I never got a chance to play it back in the N64 days (I did for OoT, though!) and although I tried the 3D copy, there's something about playing it on my TV that I couldn't pass up. And no, I'm not using the gamepad; partly because mapping the Ocarina on it was a pain in the butt and also that for some reason whenever I put it down, Link kept walking in directions by himself and it kept messing me up in spots like sneaking into the Deku Palace. So, blerg to that; classic controller all the way.

My other backlog of games consists of Resident Evil 0, Mario 3D World and a friend indirectly recommended to me Final Fantasy 6 (since as I told him, "I thought what I played of the first one was fine but I'm thinking of skipping around some" and I thought 6 sounded the most interesting out of the list he gave me).

[gunswordfist]

Been playing the Hell out of Double Dragon Neon kinda. I beat the game twice and I'm now on the hardest difficulty on the final stage.

[Nel_Annette]

Trails In The Sky trilogy is finished. Fantastic series. Hoping we get 4th and 5th games in the U.S. someday. Doesn't feel right to just skip ahead to the 6th.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I finally picked Bloodborne back up last week. Such is my life that I get busy with so many things in my day to day life that I just have to temporarily drop things and pick them up literally months later. At any rate, I've made it up to Cainhurst Castle. Since you can tackle areas out of order in this game, I should mention that so far I've cleared Central Yharnam, Old Yharnam, Cathedral Ward (the lower portion), Hypogean Gaol (which apparently is an optional area, though I didn't realize that), Hemwick Charnel Lane, The Forbidden Woods, and Byrgenwerth, in addition to a number of side-quests. Thematically and Aesthetically, I think that Cainhurst may be my favorite level so far. I absolutely love the combination of this area feeling like it's taking elements from both classic Dracula films and mixing them in with good old-fashioned haunted house tropes.

Also, the Rifle Spear has been my favorite weapon so far. It's transformed state in particular makes it probably the most versatile weapon in the game, at least out of the ones that I've managed to collect so far. It has proven to be particularly useful on pretty much all enemy types at Cainhurst.

[Foggle]

Cainhurst is an excellent level and also features one of the most intense boss fights in the game. I love it! (It's also an optional area, btw.)

[gunswordfist]

I've been playing New Super Mario Bros. 2 on my 2DS. So far it's very linear like the 1st one, hell I literally just youtube to make sure it wasn't the same thing. They start off similarly. Anyway, it's good to have my a Nintendo system that I have bought by myself for the first time (I think I might have bought a Micro or Color from somebody, idk). Anyway, NSMB2 came in a bundle with 2DS for 80 bucks and I'm waiting to get Alpha Sapphire. Will probably snatch up all the Gameboy Color Zeldas while they are on sale.

[Mustang]

So my brother-in-law is coming to town in about 2 weeks so all other games don't exist to me right now unless DMC5 gets announced. That being said, it's Street Fighter time. This time we'll probably bounced between 3rd Strike and USF4, but probably end up focusing more on 3rd Strike. I'll probably talk him into USF4, but at the same time I'm also gonna get some SF5 playtime as well (probably do ranked or battle lounge)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I defeated Martyr Logarius and met Queen Annalise in Bloodborne. Literally the only thing that I dislike about Caihurst as a level is the run back to the boss. I think I actually spent more time running back to fight him than on the actual fight itself. It's a shame too because the boss himself is interesting, but having a two-to-three minute obstacle course standing in my way to get back to him makes it a lot more frustrating than it needs to be to fight him on subsequent attempts.

The boss himself is quite interesting. Any boss that emphasizes good parry skills is worth fighting in my eyes. That said I actually found his first phase to be the hardest to deal with by my play-style. He loves to spam arcane attacks which are easy enough to avoid if you keep a relative distance from him and only chip away at his health with one or two hits at a time when he leaves himself open to attack for a brief window of time. However, that requires a degree of patience that I iust don't have, and thus I often went in to attack him with wreckless abandon in order to get him to the next phase and ended up taking a lot more damage than I needed to. The rest of the fight is pretty fun, though, once you get decent with timing your parries against him. My only gripe here is when he sometimes starts spamming his summoned swords to attack you. Taking out the sword that he stabs into the ground can be annoying at times when the lock-on is acting finicky and keeps targeting him instead of the sword.

Overall, though, that one gripe aside, Cainhurst is my favorite level in the game up to this point. In case you're curious, The Forbidden Woods is my least favorite so far. Too long and drab for my tastes. I do like the boss fight, though, which is another one that emphasizes parrying.

[Mustang]

Just curious if anyone has ever played Nidhog? Daigo vs Tokido. I was mentally taking notes throughout the video because of how good the spacing was between the 2, and I want to try to implement the level of spacing here into my Street Fighter game. I'm ok with counter poking with Dudley but after that, that's it.

[Mustang]

Sort of went back to playing Nioh, but I almost decided to get rid of it along with Nier Automata and my whole backlog (pretty shitty month, let alone holiday), but after calming down a bit I just need to get my hands on some money and a Switch so I can play Zelda (until then, nothing else really matters unless it's Street Fighter).

So as of now, I'm looking into getting Yakuza Kiwami and possibly Yakuza 0. Also been thinking about getting a 3DS, but not entirely sure on that one either. Basically been watching videos of Zelda, Street Fighter 3 and 5.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I myself have encountered the problem of playing or wanting to play so many ARPGs back-to-back. I only have a limited amount of hours that I can play per week, so it literally takes me at least a month or more to get through a game like Nioh, Bloodborne, or Nier: Automata. Tack onto that wanting to play some Persona, Yakuza, and Zelda as well, and you basically take away most of my free time. Simply put I just can't keep up with this genre, which is why the shorter but more replayable character action game set-up is much more up my alley these days as opposed to life before acquiring a full-time job or attending college. Fighting games are also preferable since I can play those in short bursts while still feeling like I didn't completely waste my time unless I sunk several hours into them in just a single span.