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

[Mustang]

Persona 5 Royal finally downloaded (after 3 days of waiting). I didn't want to take a chance and buy it physically and have to wait perhaps months. I'll probably buy a lot of games digitally for a little bit even though it's not my preferred way to go. I haven't started it yet, because I'm still playing Trails of Cold Steel 1, on my 2nd play through but I'm on chapter 6. So, pretty close to the end.

Oh, my 1st play through, the big plot twist hit me. Didn't see it coming at all. That being said, I do wish Japanese developers make more main characters not be a sword or dagger wielder. Culturally I get it, and I love them for it, but I kind of wish they mix it up once in a while.

Anyway, folks on discord trying to get online tournaments going for USF4 and 3rd Strike again, and well, that means it's time for other fighters to be put aside again and start practicing. Before I leave DBFz behind though, I gotta talk about this update. Boy, the additional assist opened things up. Its to the point of being in another character crisis. It's mainly because there's too much that I want to try all at once and can't narrow it down and it's a little overwhelming at the moment. Other than that the game is good.

[Mustang]

And since my last post I finally started Persona 5 Royal. From what I can recall from the original everything feels a little wider here in Royal. They've also added phone call conversations after you talk to a confidant. I'm trying not to skip the story, but it's hard when you've played through it 4 times already, but they definitely added some things to make you have to keep an eye out for. I'm just now getting to the 2nd palace.

Turns out our little online get together, they want to play DBFz as well as UMvC3 (I'm crying on the inside). USF4 on the other hand I'll continue to play Dudley, but my main now is Evil Ryu. No reason since they're essentially the same character in terms of game play and what I want to do.

DBFz I'm gonna toy around with Bardock, Broly (S), Goku (base), Vegeta (base), Jiren, Vegito, and Gogeta

UMvC3, man it's been so long, but Nova, Vergil, Hawkeye

[RacattackForce]

Instead of finally getting past the opening of Astral Chain, I decided to buy the indie title GRIS last night and am casually making my way through that. I also aim to dust off my Wii U and play some MadWorld over the weekend.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm two dungeons down in Breath of the Wild. Those two being the Elephant and Camel Divine Beasts (can't be bothered to remember their actual names). I did actually enjoy the dungeons, as different as they are from traditional Zelda, but do feel like they are substantially easier than most other stuff in the game that doesn't directly progress the story. I'm also not a fan of the quests leading up to the dungeons, particularly that forced stealth section to get the Thunder Helm for Riju.

I think despite my wariness of the huge scope of this game, playing it in nightly intervals in portable mode as I lie down really helps me to enjoy this game in a way that I can't usually enjoy games these days. I decided to just go at my own pace and not rush through the content, and it really helps to keep the game feeling fresh and interesting rather than a slog. Traversing the wide open landscape IS essentially the main focus of this game, more so than traditional combat and puzzle-solving, and it is definitely more entertaining than I expected, though it can occasionally feel like a slog. That said, the way the game does such a great job of having you discover tons of interesting things on your own really keeps the whole experience feeling more fun than tedious.

Anyways, I managed to also free the dragon from the Spring of Wisdom, found two out of the four great fairy fountains, and managed to reopen the Akkala tech lab, among other things. I also made my way down to Rito Village, though I'm not going to take on that Divine Beast just yet, as I want to go ahead and go for the Master Sword since I finally can. I only have 10 hearts, but I have four stamina wheel fragments, so I can temporarily convert three of them to actually pull the sword out and then convert them back afterward.

[Mustang]

Persona 5 Royal
2nd palace is done. Although I caught myself about to start getting bored with it until you actually get to fully go through the palace without any blocks. They changed it up quite a bit, and the boss fight itself turned out to be even more interesting than the original fight in P5. Atlus added a lot to it so far to make it a new experience.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4
You know I have to get obscure titles like this, especially for crummy days. So far I've played as Zoro, Luffy, Sanji, blue haired brother and his pink haired sister... (names escape me at the moment) Usopp (you're forced  ), Whitebeard, Ace, Law, Aokiji, Crocodile and Sabo. Out of all those characters the ones that I grew attached to were Ace (of course you saw that coming, best character in the series) Sabo and Sanji's blue-haired brother.

Having fun with both games but I'll admit that since Trails of Cold Steel, neither have really been satisfying, but because of all the time I have it doesn't impact me negatively (if I were working, I'd be a little disappointed and probably be in another funk). Now I probably could've put my money towards Nioh 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake first and have a different outcome, but P5R and OPPW4, for me, took priority.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I was tempted to buy P5R, especially since I missed out on the original P5 release, but it just didn't make sense when I already have not one, but two massive games to complete (BotW and Nioh 2), that'll take me months at this rate since I can only play a few hours every odd day or so. Not to mention that once I'm done with BotW, it'll be replaced by another Zelda game (in this case, Twilight Princess), since I'm going through every major game in the series barring the co-op only games and certain spinoffs like Hyrule Warriors.

I may consider it after beating Nioh 2, but then there are three whole DLC packs coming out that'll keep me coming back to that game up through Fall of this year. Speaking of which, I'm 8 main missions down through Nioh 2, and I've gotten to that point where my magic build basically let's me trivialize certain enemies and boss fights if I want to. I even beat the ice boss on my first try by casting Weakness Talismans on him and then hitting him with flurry attacks from my Dual Swords from behind when he was vulnerable after a big whiffed attack. Normally I'd feel cheap for doing that, but being able to cater a character build's perks to your playstyle is the whole point of Nioh. That's why I have to internally groan whenever one of countless people miss the point of that and complain that the game is a grind-fest claiming that you do shit damage to enemies and they can all pretty much one-shot you unless you're a significantly higher-level than they are. That's only true if you're just trying to play this game like a straight hack n' slash and not like an ARPG, blatantly ignoring all of the numerous advantages that this game gives you if you choose to use them.

In BotW I now have the Master Sword and have also activated all of the towers on the map except for the one at Death Mountain (which I think is called something else in this game). I've also completed a fair bit of sidequests, so I'll probably go ahead and take on the Divine Beast from Rito Village. I'm not interested in 100% completing this game, but I will at least do all of the shrines and memories, the former of which will take up the bulk of my playtime.

[Mustang]

I don't know if you would like P5R, to be honest. Not particularly sure how you feel about turn-based rpg's, but I figured you'd want more action rpg's. Like you said, P5R is a long game (the original P5 is about 100 hrs long, and P5R is longer). But if you are into turn-based rpgs do try it out some day.

Edit:
Played more One Piece Pirate Warriors 4. Ace is still the favorite after making it to the Whole Cake Island arc, however, TS Luffy is definitely better than Ace, and I want to say TS Zoro is too, if not a tad bit better, but in terms of who has a better feel to them, yeah, Ace all the way. I will say this though, Pirate Warriors 4 is a step down from 3. Despite having fun with it, it's a huge step down. (I never understood the coins outside of ATK, Life, Def, Sta) Your special moves are mapped to your face buttons and you're fairly limited in what special moves you can do. They can be good, it's just when you get to the main characters they are lacking.  What can I say, though, they're trying lol.

[Avaitor]

...someone stop me. Capcom is having a sale on the Nintendo eshop, and I already bought Devil May Cry. I loved the couple of levels I got to play of it before realizing that my 360 was not working out. Unfortunately, while 3 was recently added to the shop, it's not on sale from what I can tell. The second is, but I don't think that I need that.

I'm also considering getting Resident Evil and/or the first Mega Man Legacy Collection after I get paid on Friday. I was also considering getting Dragon Ball Fighterz, as that's also on sale for $15. Until then, I think that I'm going to start Bastion tonight, since I got that on sale for $3 a week or two ago.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd say that DMC1 is definitely worth it if on sale, though I've already bought the game on two other consoles which is why I passed on it. And yeah, DMC2 isn't even worth playing if it was free. It's that game that you only play out of curiosity and just to say that you tried it. I beat it once and never looked back. DMC3 is easily my favorite in the series (5 is a close second), but Capcom sales happen pretty frequently so it's definitely worth waiting for.

I was tempted to get the Mega Man/X Legacy collections, but passed on it due to having too huge a backlog of games to get through as it is.

You know, I couldn't help but feel like with KoeiTecmo and Team Ninja having a seemingly good relationship with Nintendo, it'd be great if they could port NGB to the Switch. Especially considering that Microsoft has apparently been cooperating with Nintendo recently and allowing some of their previous exclusives to be released on the Switch.

[Avaitor]

It'd be great if they could! I could see a joint HD remaster of the first 2 NG games come to Switch, in fact.

My backlog is pretty big as well. Besides all of these games for my Switch, I have a bunch of unused Wii games that I've hit up over the years (a lot of which came from Spark's excellent thread for the console), and also won a cheap Sega Genesis Mini from eBay. Not to mention the PlayStation Classic, which I don't hit up as often as I'd like, since the only place I can currently hook it up to is my mom's room. Although I actually did score a couple of hours of Final Fantasy VII there last night.

Oh yeah, and I do still have my own copy of NGB to boot up whenever I decide to set my X-Box back up. I've also been interested in replaying Halo: CE and KOTOR.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Not sure if anyone here has ever had to deal with the issue of trying to get an older console to play on a modern HDTV with half-way decent visuals, but after experimenting with multiple different options over the past few weeks, I finally managed to find a way to produce a clear image for my Gamecube on my modern Samsung HDTV. I tried using an AV-to-HDMI converter (I actually tried out two different brands), but in every attempt it would produce an incredibly blurry image, noticeably muted and washed out colors, and also cropped out a portion of the left side of the screen. It was just to the point where the game would technically be playable, but would look nothing like how it's intended and would really bother me personally. Getting a component cable for the Gamecube wasn't and option for me since my model is DOL-101, and those cables are only compatible with the 001 model (and also they are incredibly rare and expensive to obtain). So after doing some more research I got an S-Video cable for the Gamecube for dirt cheap, and then got an S-Video-to-HDMI converter. The first one I got, unfortunately due to my own stupidity and ignorance, was not compatible with the Gamecube as it's S-video-in component was literally designed to be plugged into the source rather than allowing for an S-video cable to be plugged into it. I returned that and instead got myself another one which appears to be imported, but it worked with my Gamecube and even had adjustable settings. After fiddling around with it, I found that setting it to 720p not only produced the best image quality, but also automatically scaled it to the 4:3 aspect ratio (without me having to manually alter my TV's settings) and more importantly fixed the cropping issue!

Is it as sharp as playing this on a CRT TV? Of course not. But it's a clear enough image that more or less resembles what the game should actually look like. Also, while I know that any hookup to an HDMI will produce some lag, from what I've tested, any lag here is so minuscule that it's not even really noticeable; maybe unless you're already familiar with the game and it feels off to you, but for me it has been very responsive so far.

Long story short, now I can finally play Metroid Prime, Twilight Princess, and any other Gamecube games that I get without them looking like ass.

[Mustang]

Still going through Persona 5 Royal. The fatigue is hitting me hard. What's keeping me going is the thought of what changed in the palaces. There is one change I don't like that's dealing with status effects. They last a full 3 turns on my party, but against the demons they only last 1 turn. I get it, it's to stop the money abusing tactic, but man, you're cutting off money and cutting off being able to enjoy playing the way I want to play, especially with this alarm system that can get random in some key critical moments in trying to make your ultimate persona. I will also say that I have to recommend playing this your own way instead of trying to follow a guide, there's way too much to do and it can get overwhelming fairly quick when the game starts opening up. Other than that I still want to call this a 10/10 game, but I'm hesitant as well.

The next game I get will probably be Nioh 2 or Final Fantasy 7 Remake (might try to get both), but neither will be played immediately. Even though I'm laid off, these long running games are still taking a toll on me. Might even stop playing Persona for while just to recoop.

[Mustang]

Persona 5 Royal
This might be the longest game I've ever played. Good God, as I said, the original was long enough, but the added bits might be too much. I'm still not done with my first playthrough and I'm clocking in around 112 hrs. I'm close to the end, but man, fatigue hitting hard. That being said, with the extra length you can probably get 99% of the personas during your 1st run. I'm at 84% now (I have no plans on getting all of them because I don't care), but a lot of it was due to unintended grinding.

Got Nioh 2 coming soon. FF7R is on hold. Gonna probably wait until it's completed before I touch it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Recently I played though and completed the original NES Zelda on my Switch. Yes, I did use a walkthrough because I don't know how I could possibly finish that game without one, but only for getting to the dungeons and at a few specific parts in said dungeons when I got stuck. However, I mostly got through the dungeons on my own as even bombing walls was a lot simpler there with only 4 locations to choose from. I can certainly see the appeal of the original game, especially back in it's actual era where kids could partake in the social aspect of it and make markings on their maps and share their findings with one another to help complete the game. That said, yeah, this is a game I respect for it's influence more than I actually enjoy. It's wildly ambitious for it's time, but naturally for a first attempt that ambition comes with a lot of issues that it took the series a few entries to truly refine into something great. Still, it's nice to finally say that I've beaten the original Zelda. I may do the same for Zelda II one day just to say that I did, but obviously I'm in no hurry to get around that one.

I also have Majora's Mask 3D on it's way in the mail. I would have preferred to play the original release of the game, but my copy and original N64 are in bad shape and don't work properly anymore. The Gamecube version is way too expensive online since it's only part of the Collector's Edition collection which is kind of rare at this point, so that only leaves me with the 3DS version as the most reasonably price alternative. That said, while having some good quality of life changes, I am not oblivious to the other controversial changes that it makes to the game that significantly alters the original intended experience, so I see this more as a way to play a specific version of the game until the day when I get actually play the original release as intended. I also have both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks for the DS, which I will get to after completing BotW, TP, and MM (and yes, I am trying to play through every Zelda game in the series aside from the multi-player only entries).

I'm currently 80-shrines down in BotW with 40 more to go (I do plan to complete all 120) and I've already conquered all 4 Divine Beasts. I'm definitely not spending the time to do every side-quest, though I did complete most of the major ones, including the entire Tarrey Town series, so I feel content in that regard. I've played enough of the game to be comfortable in saying that it does deserve it's praise, but I was also right to feel that it would not be one of my personal favorite Zelda games. I really do like it, and it managed to be one of the few modern open-world games to truly hold my attention for several hours on end, so it definitely deserves props for that. However, I feel that this is very much an Ocarina of Time situation (and I love Ocarina of Time). It's a game that is a big leap forward for it's series in scope compared to what came before, so naturally it gets heaps of praise put on it from the get-go. However, as time goes on I feel future releases will refine and improve on it's formula, and the flaws that hold the game back will become more apparent over time. After that, you'll get people with opposite extremes claiming it's overrated and not really a good game. In OoT's case, I have always been massively annoyed by this because, while I can personally accept that the game definitely has it's issues that have become more apparent over time, it still does so many things really well, especially for it's time. To me, BotW is much the same. It does a lot right, but also has a ton of room for improvement, so I'm saying right now that it is a good Zelda game that will become very influential for the series, but just not a personal favorite of mine. I personally prefer A Link Between Worlds from earlier in the decade. It may be the more formulaic Zelda game, but it's a formula that has persisted for a reason, and it's also refined to absolute perfection in that game.

At any rate, it'll still take me a while to complete BotW since some of these shrines can be really hard to find and sometimes has me searching for them for well over an hour.

[Avaitor]

I feel the same way about the OG Zelda, as well. If I was a child in the 80's, or possibly if it was my first Zelda experience in general, I'd be much more interested in it than I ultimately am. While I can still find plenty of charm in the game's simplistic (in comparison to later entries) design, but I'm just too accustomed to how the series has evolved since to fully enjoy it. I feel the same way about the original Metroid, although I still get plenty of enjoyment from Super Mario Bros.

And I do also wonder how BOTW is going to look in 10 years or so. Right now, I'm really curious to see how the sequel is going to turn out. Part of me is hoping for and expecting a Majora's Mask-esq diversion, but considering how successful this was for Nintendo (I believe that it's already the best selling Zelda game, period), I wouldn't be surprised if they don't stray too far from it.

I actually have been meaning to replay Ocarina, myself. I got a cheap copy of it a long while back (lost my original ages ago), but I haven't really hooked up my N64 in a good while. Maybe after I finish Super Mario Odyssey, I will. I wanted to play The Witcher 3, but I need to buy a memory card for my Switch first.