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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally got around to playing Quake (or starting it, anyways) on my Nintendo Switch and it reminds me of just how much I love old-school FPS design. No long-winded cutscenes or cinematic intervals between gameplay slowing down the pace. It's just constant fast and frantic action done in a way that's constantly engaging. It doesn't have any pointless filler, and the combat is actually more well thought-out and nuanced than it may initially seem despite the technological limitations of the time. There's also a decent bit of puzzle solving and secrets to find.

I also just miss a strategic use of strafing being a core aspect of combat in FPS games.

[Mustang]

Dragon Ball Fighterz
Major character crisis. I only have Beerus set in stone as a character I want to use. I'd really like to make a team with just swag combos but in my head I see one thing, but trying to get them to gel together is another. I may just say "bump" and just try it out and see where I go from there. I was gonna try to utilize A17's barrier assist, but I think I am going to settle with SSj4 Gogeta, Beerus, A.Gohan. I'm not looking to take advantage of Gogeta's lvl 7 (hell, I should probably go for SSB Gogeta instead) and the obvious disconnect might be trying to get Gohan and Beerus working together. If it don't like it we'll try A17. If I don't like that I'll drop Beerus and 17 for Hit and A.Gohan.

Guilty Gear Strive
Sort of kinda getting back into this one. Still not really feeling the characters though. I'm gonna settle only Sol for now though.

[Mustang]

Take last post and switch them around.

Guilty Gear Strive
So I've been watching and trying to learn from DEB (GG Vet) who also plays Sol Badguy. She has a style that's quite similar to how Smug played Dudley in USF4 (I try to tailor my game after his) which is more of a counter hit / frame trappy kind of game. I'd probably even add more of a turtle defensive in my game to wait for my opponent to mess up. That being said, I'm learning a lot and enjoying the game more than I originally did. This will be my main game for the time being.

Dragon Ball Fighterz
Unfortunately I won't be playing this as heavily. Bad habits are catching up with me every time I play this and Strive together. Especially because I have to play this game differently when comparing to Strive. When I play Strive I tend to carry some wildness from this game to that game and it's hurting me a lot lol. Love the game though. Earned its spot in my top 10.

[Mustang]

So because of Project L I'm changing things up a bit. Ultra Street Fighter 4 is done. Maybe I can talk my brother-in-law to playing it from time to time, but we're done. There are speculations that Project L will play like Marvel vs Capcom Infinite as well as Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid. I certainly see the influence. I mean, MvCI influenced PR:BftG. My only hiccup with those 2 games is that with the character, Ekko, that Riot showed off looks like he'll play even deeper than that, so with that being said I'm going to be playing BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle as well. With the amount of freedom in a BlazBlue game that you're given you can never go wrong with trying that out. And for the sake of what I saw Ekko doing I may bring Dragon Ball Fighterz back into the rotation simply for Beerus. I'm basically getting ready for the chaos that's going to come from Project L because just from that tidbit the Cannon's have shown, Project L is going to be very hectic and cheap.

While I will never play a MMO, Project L certainly had me looking up characters. If they bring in those skins there's a good chance I can dump over $500 into that game.

Anyway, I tried out the King of Fighters 15 demo. SNK definitely have their work cut out. In terms of looks/character models, they look good. Netcode is terrible. It's like one-sided roll back or something. The UI looks interesting. Well, it looks better than some of these other titles released within the last 2-3 years. I'll remain hopeful but I'm definitely skeptical.

Single player, nothing. I'll probably jump back into Persona 5 Royal soon. I'm also on the search for another Switch so I can play Shin Megami Tensei 5.

I've been watching a lot of content creators (mainly people affiliated with ChilledChaos so I can so said video from their perspective) play some wacky games. JackboxTV, Codenames, Cluedo, Town of Salem, Worms, Shellshocked. These are some very interesting games when you got a group of people you like playing with or like hearing people play and having a good time. I know Chilled got another group together that's going to play Monopoly with him so I'll be on the lookout for that as well.

[Mustang]

GranBlue Fantasy Versus
Honestly, I should've been tried this game out. It teaches you how to play footsies. At this point though, it's the last game I should be playing because every other game I play is hectic. I tried out Percival, Narmaya, Lancelot and Eustace. Percival is basically a hit-confirm machine and the coolest character in the game. The dude can literally teach you fundamentals and when you get the opponent in the corner it becomes lights out. You can compare him to Nagoryuki and Hakumen with a blend of Ky Kiske. Sort of hard to explain Narmaya. Probably pure rushdown. Lancelot is a mixup monster. Eustace is like Venom in a since, but nowhere near as cheap.

Watching ChilledChaos and crew play Monopoly
I've never seen people so terrified of a man because of the orange property. I know you can kill people off of them, but you usually kill off them combined with another color (yellow or red to be precise because that corner is deadly). It was getting to the point of being annoying because these people are so terrified to make deals with him. I'm like if you're that terrified of the man why play in the first place?

Also watched him play Jackbox TV Push the Button. I've never been apart of so much chaos. It was a blast. What made it so good was that his chat was not toxic. A lot of Twitch streamers are nice but tend to have toxic chats. Then you have some streamers who are complete dicks to their chat when its not called for, but chilled's chat is mellow, but when getting involved with the games becomes chaotic and we start placing bets. Even had Alanah Pearce to get in on it at one point.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Guardians of the Galaxy (PS4)- I decided to go ahead and try this one out when I saw it on sale for half off as a Black Friday deal. I wasn't expecting much after how much of a disaster Square Enix's Avengers was, but the positive word of mouth for this game swayed  me. Overall, the gameplay is alright, but suffers from a lot of tropes that annoy me about modern AAA titles, from forced walking to cool down timers that water down the depth of combat and makes the game feel more limited than it has to. It's actually an interesting concept for a combat system with Peter Quill as team leader ordering around the other Guardians, but it feels like a proof of concept rather than something fully developed. He does have one move that I swear must have been inspired by Vanquish, so that's a plus. The thing that really keeps me going is the story, though. I'm legitimately impressed so far by how well-written and executed it is. I wasn't a huge fan of the stories in the Arkham and Spider-Man games, which were fine for action games but nothing that memorable for me. I can say with complete honesty that, at least so far, GOTG is on par with the movies in terms of story-telling quality, mixing inspiration from both the MCU and the comics. It's actually hard to put the game down sometimes simply because I want to see what happens next, and the humor is spot-on as well.

Persona 5: Royal- I know, JRPG's are clearly not my genre, so this is unusual for me. I'm playing it because my brother bought it for me for my Birthday last month. I'm about 10 hours in so far. This is another case where the story is what's keeping me going so far. The combat is fine but I'm just not that into turn-based battle systems. However the story is incredibly engaging and feels like the equivalent of watching a really good anime. I like it so far, but I probably won't love it as a game as much as so many other people do.

Quake- I'm still at it with this game and I fucking love it. This may actually end up surpassing DOOM for me, and I don't say that lightly. It's peak 90's FPS design and reminds me of why I love classic games so much.

Rayman Legends- I bought this game years ago only because I found it for ridiculously cheap (I seriously got it for only a dollar). I only just started playing it recently on a whim and I adore it. Like, I'm actually ticked off at myself for taking this long to get around to it. It may very well rank as one of the best modern platformers that I have ever played.

[Mustang]

The positive word of mouth is trying to sway me as well for Guardians of the Galaxy. I've seen comparisons to Mass Effect. Max (bless his heart) compared it to God of War for some strange reason. I think because of Atreus with how you use him. Unfortunately, I'm at a point where I just want nothing to do with GotG and it's not their fault (I haven't seen the movies and don't want to cause I'm not a fan of the cast), but I'm not going to get into all that.

Persona 5 Royal on the other hand. I love the game. I hope you ignored all of my other posts about the game. Might contain spoilers. When it comes to combat I'm not going to attempt to sway you because I get it, however, and I really would prefer you to continue playing but the game is very long so it might not be for you.

So my brother-in-law is coming to town on the 21st and I've been challenged in Ultra Street Fighter 4. Now I said I was going to be done with that game but when I get challenged I have to break it out because of my love for the game. So the challenge this time, while it's not a character lock, it's more of a character ban. We're not allowed to use our mains. So I'm practicing Yun at the moment. I'm trying to avoid using shotos period since they were my go-to's during the ST-Alpha days. So I'll be using Yun, maybe a little bit of Cody (although it may be too much for my brother-in-laws Ken and Akuma) and maybe either Yang or Guy.

Guilty Gear Strive
Sort of committed to Sol at the moment. Still learning from Deb even though she switched characters on me. She still gives pointers though.

I have not started on the BlazBlue's yet. Kinda discouraged at the moment because I'm missing out on the rollback netcode action going on and I'm trying to find a decent starting point for PC gaming. I can only do so much on the PS4.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm mostly enjoying GOTG for the story, which again is surprisingly good and well-written by action game standards. Oddly enough the combat got me itching to replay Vanquish (which is a MUCH better actual game), mainly because Star Lord's combat mechanics feel sort of like Vanquish light.

As for the team mechanics, I'd say they are a nice idea, but again, being based on cool down timers ruins the whole thing for me. I'd probably give up on the game if I wasn't invested in seeing the story through to the end.

Persona 5 Royal also has a good story going so far, though I can only play sparcely these days, so I've barely made any progress. While turn based combat isn't really my thing, I'll at least give this game credit for being much more well-realized in it's team mechanics than with GOTG.

Also, on a side note, I finally managed to get a PS5, though it'll be at least another few days before I have a chance to play anything on it.

[Mustang]

Guilty Gear Strive
I lied. I thought I was committed to Sol but some of that commitment spilled over to Giovanna (again). Like I said, I've never been into "waifus" but her style is too good. With Baiken coming out, not sure if I'm gonna bother with her or not.

[Avaitor]

I usually tend to like the idea of indie games better than the actual experience of playing them, yet I keep giving them a shot anyway.

So it gives me joy to say that Celeste is one of the best games I've ever played. It's frustrating sometimes, since I seriously think a lot of the game relies on luck rather than skill- you have to land a jump at exactly the right time, which can be tricky to nearly impossible depending on the location. But at the same time, it's extremely cathartic when you land that perfect land, and the game seemingly rewards you for failure regardless. It can be a lot of fun, and the music is incredible. I do recommend checking it out if you like platformers with heavy puzzle elements.

I also started Metroid Dread, which is killer, even though I also suck at it lol. But the 2D Metroid system is a lot of fun, so I don't mind taking my time going through this world. It's making me want to play Super Metroid again, which I think I'll boot up when I'm done with this.

[Mustang]

DNF Duel
I really hated how ASW handled marketing with this game so far. Even trying to get access was a pain because some people (myself included) couldn't get access from the PS Store on the console. Had to go to the store on the internet and download to the library. Anyway, haven't really had the chance to boot up. Weather is bad, therefore, my internet is bad so I don't want to put people through the hassle of dealing with bad connection.

I did watch KizzieKay stream as he was playing it along with other people. He played the entire roster. Out of everyone I found Hitman to be the most boring. Which is unfortunate because he was going to be the main. But his playstyle just came off so boring to me compared to the rest of the roster. Ranger and Striker on the other hand I found to suitable for me. Vanguard is another that might works his way into my rotation as well. Crusader is a monster. Kunoichi is a mixup monster. Inquisitor is very intriguing. I'm not sure what to make of her yet. Berserker is also on the boring side to me. Grappler might be in the wrong game. I hardly saw Dragon Knight so I can't speak on her.

As for what the game is like. If I had to make a comparison it'd probably GranBlue Fantasy Versus with combos. The potential to get wild is there but I wish there was a training mode to actually see how wild it can get. I think I saw something like a roll cancel, but I'm not sure. If roll cancel is anything like SNK's roll cancels then the potential can blow through the roof at least in my head flooding with tons of ideas.

[Mustang]

Ultra Street Fighter 4
So my brother-in-law came through with the squad. Had fun. Even the nephew got in on it a little bit. All of us were rusty as hell and it showed. Eventually we got used to it again and the fights were getting better. I ended up using Evil Ryu, Cody, and Oni for the most part. When my niece and nephew jumped I just decided to use the same characters they were using to show them how to play as them. Chun Li, Juri, Ibuki and Cammy. They probably are done with the game for good but my nephew took a real liking to the game so we will probably bond with that game for a little bit. Now I just gotta get him out of the whining phase.

Persona 5 Strikers
I remember giving up on this previously, but I don't remember why I gave up on it. There's this one character that is so adorable that I wish she was in the main game. Game play, its a typical Musou game so that's definitely not a reason why I would give up on it. It was probably just a phase I was going through at the time.

Speaking of Musou games, I still haven't really played a Musou game that comes close to knocking off either Dynasty Warriors 8 or Warriors Orochi 3. Like the all of them are the same but the ones that try doing things differently leave things out and never really hit that strive that DW8 or WO3/U would hit. Like Ryu Hayabusa for instance. I can repeat his combo going into his izuna drop all day and still feel like I'm having fun whereas these other games just feel so dry. Thought I'd go on a tangent for a little bit.

[Avaitor]

Merry Christmas! Did anyone get any new games this year?

I mostly got boring, practical stuff this time, but I did get the recent Tony Hawk remasters, so that's cool! I did want Super Mario 3D World, but I keep missing when it's on sale. Ah well, it'll happen sooner or later.

[Mustang]

Unfortunately, no. I bought my nephew some game. Paw Patrol or something along those lines. Other than that, no games. I probably won't buy any games for a little bit until I get a new PC.

[Mustang]

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Dragon Ball FighterZ
My brother threw a monkey wrench in my plans. He introduced my nephew to UMvC3 and I had no intentions of doing so because it can get very confusing trying to teach him, especially with how chaotic it can be, but at this point the gloves are off. Now I probably won't put 100% into trying to learn either game at this point unless rollback netcode is implemented, but I'll definitely put in enough to keep a leg up on them and make sure I body them.

BlazBlue: Central Fiction
This game is fun. Probably UMvC3 levels of fun (not saying hype). I said it before but I regret not getting into this game earlier than I should. It's a hard game for sure, but I love learning and there's a lot to learn. Jin for such a simple character is one I can just jive with and not to mention he fits my style. And when I say that I mean I can use him like how I use Dudley even though Jin is more of a all-rounded character. Like, he has setups (Dudley not so much) and resets and his combos are flashy and he has damage. There's nothing more I can ask for. There are definitely other characters I can and will try out in the long run but I'm definitely jiving with Jin at the moment.

I haven't touch Guilty Gear Strive in a while now and that's mainly because I'm going through a similar phase that hit me with Street Fighter 5. Fun game but can't find a character that I can jive with. I'm hoping when Baiken comes out that I can jive with her.

Single player games, nothing at the moment but I think I might give Spider-man a replay. I thought the game was overhyped back then but I still enjoyed what I played minus the stealth.