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

[Foggle]

I mean, I'm bad at most games, but I still have fun with them. Darkest Dungeon just has the kind of gameplay that does nothing for me, and the narrative isn't engaging enough for me to look past that.

Doom 64 is fantastic, btw. I played the unofficial PC port last year (which I think is what they're polishing up for the Eternal release) and it's honestly one of the best in the series, far superior to 2, 3, and Final Doom for me. Not that I dislike those games by any means, but 64 has the same kind of airtight level design I love in Doom 1 and 4. Also, John Romero's Sigil - the pseudo-official 5th episode released last year with a badass Buckethead soundtrack - is amazing and 100% worth playing.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

If anybody here has a Nintendo Switch, DMC3 just released for the system this week but this port has a special bonus. Two, actually: Freestyle Mode and Bloody Palace co-op. Freestyle mode allows for on-the-fly style switching in this game for the first time (officially, anyways, since PC mods had implemented this feature in before).

There has never been a better time to get into one of the greatest games of all time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I had to take a break from gaming over the past couple of weeks due to a busy schedule, but I've been playing a few different titles over the past week.

Among these, I finally got back to God Hand and I cleared the first four stages of the game so far. Despite being under the branding of Capcom and Clover Studios, this is definitely a Platinum game at heart. While the game is definitely flawed in many ways, even for it's time, it's combat is so unique and interesting while also having an intentionally juvenile sense of humor to it's story that I can't help but find charming, myself. The soundtrack is also fucking killer. I also find that for the most part, the game is pretty fair in most encounters despite complaints about it's difficulty from detractors. It is difficult (and I mean genuinely difficult, not just hard to figure out for newcomers like a Souls game), but there is also definitely that aspect to it which rewards skilled players. That said, where I find it oversteps it's bounds and becomes obnoxious is when you're closed in a small arena and forced to fight multiple tougher enemies or mini-bosses at a time. The game's camera isn't really friendly to taking on too many enemies at once, however the main game encounters balance this out by de-aggro-ing enemies that are off-screen much like Devil May Cry. So, in normal encounters you don't have to worry too much about being hit from behind. However, this concept doesn't apply to certain encounters and mini-bosses, and can lead to some utterly frustrating deaths that you really can't do much about, unless there are some other mechanics to deal with this that I'm just not aware of. Of course, it's been a minor issue so far since only certain mini-boss encounters have done this (the battle with the Sentai characters is easily the worst offender of this), but I'm just hoping that the game doesn't decide to throw an increasing amount of these scenarios at me in future levels.

[Avaitor]

Speaking of Doom, the Switch's eShop had a sale on the games. I got the first 3 for $6 total!

[Mustang]

Yeah, you can probably ignore me trying to finish up Nioh. Not likely gonna happen before Nioh 2.

Dragon Ball Fighterz, while I haven't gotten the chance to play it yet, but season 3 looks crazy good. Now I don't want to over hype it, but there's definitely a lot more Marvel vibes with the additional assists. I don't know if it makes all the characters viable or not, but just from looking at it, I hope to see a lot more variety in tournaments. I got 3 teams in mind for sure, but if I were to try to narrow it down to just main team and fun team, right now

Main team - Base Vegeta/Bardock, A.Gohan, Base Goku


One of my coworkers was telling me about Diablo 3 and it piqued my interest because I've always been under the impression that it plays like World of Warcraft or League of Legends, and I can't stand those MMORPGs. And stupidly on my part, I never bothered to even check out a single clip on youtube and low and behold I find out it's almost like X-Men Legends. I don't know if that's a good comparison, but just looking at it that's the vibe I got. And considering the funk that I've been in this is probably the game I need to get out of it. Another game we got to talking about was Divinity: Original Sins 2 and he told me that it was a turn-based RPG. I remember watching Ben Moore (easy allies, I got some issues with these guys as of late) talking about it being his favorite game of 2017 I believe over Zelda Breath of the Wild, and the way my coworker was talking about it got me very curious. Have anyone else tried out either Diablo or Divinity? I'm curious about other folks thoughts on the games.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Speaking of Nioh 2, I just completed the Last Chance Trial demo. I think after two demos I already know that I'm going to go for a build that prioritizes the Skill and Magic stats as that most seems to fit my playstyle, with my two primary weapons of choice being the Switchglaive and Dual Swords.

Also, I'm definitely sticking to Feral Guardian Spirit types on my first run, as they have the best Burst Counter and that ability is insanely necessary in this game. Seriously, I died nearly a hundred times to the first main boss of this demo because I tried fighting him without using BC's and ended up getting fucked hard because of it.

Even returning enemies from the first game feel different when you throw that ability into the mix of combat flow.

[Rynnec]

I just got done with a 12-hour session with the demo myself. I haven't played Nioh since the first games beta, but I've played a bit more Soulsborne and similar games since then, so it was a little easier getting into the groove of things. Getting used to using X as the dodge button instead of O is going to get some getting used to, and whadya know that those are conveniently the only buttons you can't swap in the control options. It does make sense with the intereact button being used in conjunction with your strong attack for your Yokai Trigger, but going from Bloodborne to Code Vein to this is going to throw me in for a loop when the full game comes out.

Since this is my first outing with Nioh in a while, I really appreciate just how good the weapons and combat feel in this game. Took a spin with each of them in the dojo and every one of them feels awesome to use, and doubly so when you use them in actual levels. Of the ones I took for the demo missions, The switchglaive is my personal favorite so far, feels like a good all-arounder and is stylish as hell. The Odachi was cool too, easily my favorite of the sword weapons.   The Kusagrima and Tonfas are just flatout badass, I might make the tonfas my secondary weapon with how much they wreck human enemies and lesser yokai. Not sure what build I'll go with, I usually go for pure offense, (which is why I picked the brute guardian) but the way the game describes the stats and how it affects weapons is leaning me towards a jack-of-all-trades character, especially since there aren't as many healing options as there are in Bloodborne.

With me being preoccupied with Code Vein and Doom Eternal releasing in a few weeks, I won't be able to tackle the full game until April at the earliest, by then enough gameplay videos and threads will be around for me to decide on a build.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, the weapons and combat in Nioh are "it's thing" that make it stand out in the Soulsborne sub-genre. While it isn't quite up to par with the level design and atmospheric world-building of those games, it makes up for it in deep and nuanced mechanics that entices experimentation and multiple replays with different character builds and weapon sets. I especially love how crazy stylish you can get when learning to switch stances mid-combat. XLH Gladiator has tons of great videos on that.

The Switchglaive, which is one of this sequel's new additions, is an instant favorite of mine as well, and my main go-to against Yokai in this game, especially bosses. Meanwhile, the dual swords are my returning favorite from the first game with it's parry being the best in the game against all human enemies. I especially use them to farm revenants. Literally every other weapon is great, though, like Rynnec mentioned. The only one that I'm not that into is the axe/hammer, as it feels a bit too slow and clunky for my liking, but even that I've seen videos of people doing crazy stuff with it so it's definitely more of a style preference thing than it not being a good weapon.

I already have the game preordered from Amazon so I will be playing the shit out of it as soon as it arrives. Let me know if any of you guys are interested in co-op anytime.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I recently got a Nintendo 3DS along with a copy of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. I actually recently replayed A Link to the Past in it's entirety on my brother's Switch, so seeing how this game maintains the world design of it's predecessor while switching many other things up is pretty fascinating. I've only gotten past the first dungeon in the game, so I don't have much to go on yet, but I do want to mention that I finally have a lot more appreciation for ALTTP than I used to. I always had trouble getting into it before for various reasons, but it really clicked with me this time, especially with the creativity of the overworld once the Dark World comes into play. Also, the music in this game still amazes me to this day. I'd still give the edge to the Oracle games as my favorite 2D Zelda games, but I can finally see why this game is so highly regarded amongst the fanbase.

[Mustang]

Been watching a little bit of Diablo 3 just to see what a bit more of what I'm getting myself into. I've only looked at this one person play as a demon hunter. Hated the way they were playing but I liked what I saw in terms of the abilities. I mainly want to try out Necromancer and I think I saw Wizard. In any case, my copy should be arriving tomorrow.

That being said, I had to make some hard decisions on what are my "must have" games that I need day 1 and what can I wait to hold out on because I recently had to go on a budget due to waiting on my taxes. (which is why I'm going into Diablo) Unfortunately, Nioh 2 is on the wait and hold out list (along with Granblue Fantasy Versus and Under Night) Persona 5 Royal and Final Fantasy 7 Remake are must haves for me (and what I'm looking for right now). One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 might be on there as well (if Persona 5 Scramble were to come out within that time, I'd be in an even more rough spot). And then I saw a little bit more or Ghosts of Tsushima, yeah, still not entirely sure what the game play is like, but all human enemies so far shoots this higher than Nioh 2 as well. All this can change if I get my taxes before Nioh 2's release date.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Cleared Stage 5 in God Hand. This felt surprisingly a bit easier than the previous two stages, with the boat fight being the only part that I had some trouble with, and that's mostly because I kept trying to save the innocent bystander rather than focusing on the fight properly, causing me to get my ass handed to me in situations that I'm usually able to avoid. Then I kept killing the guy by accident whenever I used roulette moves close to him, which I had to since the enemies automatically gravitate toward him to attack him. After giving up on trying to save him I cleared the mission just fine. The final battle with Elvis was also way easier than his past two forms. I got him down in three tries, mainly because his attacks were easy enough to avoid once you knew how to bate him into using the same basic swing and ground pound counters, and kept close enough for him to not bring out any ranged attacks.

That said, I like how this and the other Deva bosses are treated like a rivalry throughout the game. It reminds me of stuff like the reoccurring bosses from DMC1, Vergil from DMC3, or Genshin and The Greater Fiends from Ninja Gaiden 2's story. I just really like it when games give unique personalities to boss characters and you meet them in battle more than once until you finally put them down for good.

I also just got past the House of Gales in ALBW (my second dungeon). While I am still early on in the game, it does seem noticeably easier than ALTTP, not that it's predecessor was a particularly hard game by SNES standards, but this one just feels far more forgiving. That said, while it feels less tense in that regard, the puzzle solving and general pacing is a lot of fun. I like how using my knowledge of ALTTP let's me find my way to useful items but the game still throws me a curve ball by making me attain them in a different way. It rewards past knowledge of an earlier game while still giving you a completely new experience.

[Mustang]

Diablo 3: Eternal Collection
Yooo. This game is dangerous. I started earlier this morning about 1am, just to see what it's like (after going through another funk). Next thing I know it's going on 6am. It seems like it's been ages since I've lost myself in a game. Goldeneye 007 was the last game where I lost time (and that was at least 25+ years ago). So simple, yet so addicting, because I'm just trying to see how the attacks look and see how much damage I can pull off. This'll definitely keep me busy for quite a while.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Got Nioh 2 in the mail yesterday, but I was really busy so I only had about an hour to mess around in the game. That said I've already played enough of both Beta demos to determine that this is a more than worthy successor to the first game.

I also completed Stage 6 of God Hand today, and I was displeased to have to deal with the Sentai boss fight yet again, which was just as annoying the second time around. And almost right after that was another mini-boss fight with a telikenetic guy who spammed projectiles at you while you fought his minions. Both types of fights are this game's weakness, IMO, since it goes against what the main mechanics of this game support. Meanwhile the main boss fight was once again surprisingly easy. This may be the first boss fight that I cleared on my first try. It's a weird balance in challenge with this stage. That said, all of the regular fights felt fine. I think the game is at it's best when it's just being itself and trying to be goofy fun while challenging you as a player, rather than creating overly difficult sections for the sake of being difficult.

[Avaitor]

I picked up Animal Crossing earlier today and meant to try it out for an hour or two... ended up playing it for 5 hours straight.

I mean, it's Animal Crossing, you get what you paid for. Obviously I'm loving it so far, even if it feels somewhat like a beefed up version of the mobile game. I like that you have the option to build up "miles" and pay off your debts with them, which I was able to knock off in less than an hour. However, I'm not in love with how easily the items break. The first set of items you'd get would break pretty quickly too, but these only last a dozen uses each. That Nook is a smart, greedy bastard.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have Animal Crossing for the 3DS which came with my bundle. I might give it a shot some time, though first I'll be playing through Donkey Kong Country Returns once that comes in the mail.

I recently beat A Link Between Worlds, and it's easily up there with the best games of the franchise. That said, I've never been a fan of hiding heart containers behind frustrating mini-game challenges, and this title is no exception on that regard. Still, it was a really fun ride through the main quest. I'll be playing through Link's Awakening (original GB version), before finally moving onto Breath of the Wild.

Otherwise, Nioh 2 has been my go-to game this past week, and it has really been an addicting experience to say the least. I'm loving the new Burst Counter mechanics, and the combat has been as fun and engaging as ever.