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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hmm. So far the 2 people I've been watching play Elden Ring, I don't know if they've done anything with magic yet, but I do know neither has used magic at all. The other person I thought was doing a dex build is doing a strength build.

Do they not used any Ashes of War, weapons skills, or summons? There are tons of things that require FP in this game beyond just spells, so I'd expect they put magic to use in one way or another. It's kind of hard not to, though it doesn't have to be directly applied to combat depending on your build.

Anyways, I just beat Godrick at Stormveil Castle, and I've been all over the map doing a bunch of random side-quests since then. It's funny, since for as big as this game is, it still kind of shocks me just HOW big it is. Like, I discovered an underground area the other day and expected it to me a sort of mini-dungeon of sorts that I could get some cool loot from. Then I discovered a map and realized that it's another fully sized region of the game with tons of area to cover right underneath an entire other region of the game. It's pretty incredible how big this game is without feeling so padded or full of meaningless fluff, though at the same time that's also why it can be tad overwhelming for me in this day and age when I don't have much time to play.

[Mustang]

Do they not used any Ashes of War, weapons skills, or summons? There are tons of things that require FP in this game beyond just spells, so I'd expect they put magic to use in one way or another. It's kind of hard not to, though it doesn't have to be directly applied to combat depending on your build.

I don't even know what Ashes of War is. They may use weapons skills, if they have I wouldn't know. Nobody has summoned anything. Romalla is stubbornly using these claws and has been doing well with them. APlatypuss, last I saw was using a big sword and was going for a look that look like it was inspired by Berserk. Honestly, it's almost boring watching them play because it's been swing swing roll. The other is swing swing troll for parry.

Edit 1:

Nioh
Hino Enma is beaten, but yeah, definitely hate her. 1st couple of times I'm still trying to get used to the controls and this broad hits me with paralysis (I forgot she had that). 3rd time I ended up panicking and she caused me to get the wrong jutsu (ended up getting poison resistance). 4th time she just bum-rushes me. 5th time she gets smoked. Didn't touch me one time. I say all that because I'm disappointed in my 4th try and I gotta run it back. And then I find out I had some paralysis stuff in my inventor (double pissed). So yeah, run back indeed.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You know, it's funny. For how much George R. R. Martin's name was brought up to hype this game up a couple of years back when it was first announced, I barely see that used in this game's marketing or coming up in any discussions about the game now that it's out. After 30 hours with the game so far, the story-telling feels just about the same as any other Souls game. I'm not saying that GRRM didn't contribute to this game's lore, but it also feels like if his name was never attached to it and I was told the story and lore were crafted in-house like any other Fromsoftware game, I'd easily believe it.

I will say, though, despite how wary I have become of open world games, it is impressive to me so far how massive this home's world is while not feeling nearly as padded out as most other open world games. There's always something new to experience around every corner.

[Mustang]

So I've been listening to Game Scoop for a while now (also gravitating towards MinnMax now too) and while IGN gave Elden Ring a 10/10, this crew certainly don't particularly care for the game. I'm always going to be neutral when it comes to how people feel about whatever it is they like/don't like (I'm going to have to give this a listen a couple of times). Some of the things that's being said I can certainly understand. On the other hand I can see their emails getting flooded with hate mail lol. Personally, the main thing I'm taking away from their discussion is that they don't usually play these kind of games and still trying to give it a try. So I'd say before letting the hate mail go flying at least they are trying it out. Back in my younger days I'd probably go off on people trying to question said thoughts and wouldn't care about fan outrage and whatnot (sort of like I am these days but I try to ignore it more these days).

Anyway, I only brought that up because I thought the discussion was interesting.

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
Ryu's 10th trial Vol. 2 is still beating me up. Make matters worst my wrists are acting up and it's effecting the way I play. I don't want to go back to pad but at this rate I may have to. Anyhow, I may be closer to having a main than I actually thought originally. 3 characters are starting to separate themselves from a list I had. Zeku, Poison, and Laura. I won't ever truly be done with Karin, but I have more fun with the 3 characters I mentioned. Juri is another I can probably add but I want to narrow, not add to at the moment.

Guilty Gear Strive
Saw a video from a top GG player that made me look at this differently now. While I do still think the game is overall fun I was still on the fence because I wanted the characters to do more, but the way the player explained it, in previous games the accessibility of said moves were never used in the first place once you get to higher level. So here in Strive, Devs just removed the "useless" tools to make the player focus on optimizing what they should be doing. I can dig that if that's actually Dev's reasoning from removing the extra fluff because if there's one thing I've been saying time and time again lately is that I don't give a rip about optimization. I want flash and I want combos, but to bring in new people from that standpoint on trying to get them to compete, I can dig that and take a step back from this one.

Still having a hard time on a character I want to main but I'm going to settle for Giovanna (again). She's the only one I can gravitate to despite having such a simple design.

Later will be more Nioh

[Mustang]

I still don't have it but I'm digging what I'm seeing of Elden Ring. I'll wait a little bit to see if it goes on sale or if DLC comes out. Dr. Ensatsu-ken, what type of build are you going for? I'm still going to aim for a samurai build or dual welding samurai. I also know people are already claiming this as GotY and they might be right but I'll wait and see. For me it might be one of them Trails games or DNF Duel.

And then there's Final Fantasy Origins: Stranger of Paradise I'm curious about. I know people are down on the story but let's be real here. This is Koei Tecmo we're talking about. If you think you're going to get a good story from then you need to go read a book. When was the last time they put out something with a good story? I'm more interested in the combat. I read that there are 20+ jobs. I'm curious about that and how that'll work with combat and then of course the customizing. I think I saw that you'll only be playing as the main guy while you can customize the other people, but not nearly as much as the main character. In any case, I won't be getting this day 1 either. Money is tight and my priorities is elsewhere at the moment.

The niece and nephew is coming down this weekend as well so Ultra Street Fighter 4 is definitely on the table. Not sure about Street Fighter 5 just yet. I know for sure my nephew might want to try out Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid. That one, Whoo boy is wild but it's easy enough for both of us to learn at the same time. So I might fire it up for him.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I started as Samurai class and my build has been mostly focused on dexterity and physical combat. I'm still primarily using the Uchigatana that I started the game with. That said I have mixed some magic into the equation since certain spells can be extremely useful in clutch situations. I just beat one of the main bosses of the game and seemingly unlocked the ability to re-spec my character if I need to, which I don't plan on doing now but may end up going for if I find a better build that I want.

I've been spending a lot more time on side-quests than I anticipated since those often yield some of the best rewards. What I like is being able to venture into areas that I'm way too underleveled for and run past enemies to find some pretty good mid-to-late game items and loot.

[Mustang]

Ultra Street Fighter 4
Yeah, my Ryu is mean. Anyway, me and my nephew just stayed in Training Mode duking it out. Didn't play any actual matches. Little booger trying to talk smack in training mode but don't want to play in an actual match. I'm not gonna knock him though. Let him learn at his own pace. We started off with Ryu mirrors, Ken mirrors and branched off from there. I pulled out the very rusty Guy for the last session when he chose to try out Makoto. While he likes USF4 I think he's getting bored of it.

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
Low and behold my nephew took a heavy liking to this game and I can understand why. He fell in love with V-shift and V-trigger because they're so easy to use (activation for him). He also took a strong liking to Chun-Li. Even though we were mashing I can tell for him it felt like he was actually doing something, and I think that's the point people are missing when they decide to hate on this game. A lot of the game is very accessible for a 7-8 year old. Again, he got to talking a little trash and I pulled out Karin and sort of humbled him with her lol. Then I put her away and tried out Kolin, Mika, Cammy (she's boring). Both Kolin and Mika felt good in my hands but I couldn't remember some of their moves. Like I said, he took a strong liking to Chun-Li as well as Blanka and Honda (oh goodie...) We'll probably continue to play in training mode until he's actually ready.

Speaking of ready, it might be time to try him out on some beat em ups. I know he's interested in the Ninja Turtles collection. Probably have a lot of fun with Back in Time and whatnot. I may try out Streets of Rage 4 as well. Kind of at a standstill on what to get on my PS4 for him to play.

Edit1:

I will say that after we finished up with SF5, I went back to USF4 for a little bit. I even went with Omega. Might be done with USF4. There are 2 things that USF4 has over SF5. Characters and combos. And those 2 are the most important things to me in fighting games. So why would I say that this might be the end of USF4 then? Well, it's certainly not the characters. It's the combos. And this is what puts a lot of other games over USF4 as well when we go on a deeper level. Yes, execution means a lot. But that's only in USF4. What kills USF4 are the 1-2 frame links. And USF4 was praised for its execution, but when it comes to some of these combos the links aren't necessary. That's what makes UMvC3, GG, BB, etc so special. All you have to do is adjust height timing and space timing and ta-da you might hit that specific combo. 1-frame links, to much you have to do in order to be successful with it. SF5, I think most combos are 3-frame links or higher. And because of my love for 3rd Strike you can't go wrong with the shorter combos either because that's more damage when using super. Not to mention that it's fun doing these combos. (When I was doing the trials in BB, I was having a lot of fun despite having to repeat it a lot). So yeah, might be time to put USF4 (and probably SFxT) to rest, especially with DNF Duel and Project L on the horizon.

[Mustang]

When I'm not playing anything I'm usually watching games be played. Be it on Twitch (never will watch people single player games on there, let alone games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, etc) or IGN Tv (or whatever it's called).

On IGN I've seen quite the amount of games being played.

Metroid Dread
I've never played a Metroid game and probably never will but I respect this game. I could barely hear much of anything (I don't know if music was being played or not) but everything else was really good. The person playing, well, I think I could do better, but whatever. I think I prefer meaningful weapons like how you get them here instead of all this looting.

Final Fantasy 7: Remake Intergrade
Will probably never play this either. I still haven't even played the original remake yet either. Probably won't either. I'm not sure if I like the gameplay or not. No doubt its one I'd have to try, but just looking at it does no justice. If anything it almost looks bad. I find no reason to pay attention to the story even though they added some things. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly an attachment like other FF nuts do. I think that's why I have no desire to play right now. On top of Square/Sony pulling some BS and made this a PS5 exclusive when everyone and their mother new the game in its entirety would go the PS5 route. The problem is is that they said they wouldn't do that. So right now I'm kind of out on this remake altogether.

Horizon: Forbidden West
Someone made the comparison of this being a cross between Mass Effect and Monster Hunter(?), aw man I can't remember, but I can certainly see Mass Effect comparison. I didn't play Zero Dawn (I have it) so obviously I'm a little lost, but what I saw looks really good. If only the person playing the game was actually good at it.

Twitch has been the typical ChilledChaos crew playing Among Us, Clue, Project Winter, and Town of Salem. They play other games like Minecraft and Mario stuff, but I'm usually checked out at that point.

Edit1:

Everything I said about me transitioning over to Street Fighter 5. I take it back. The nephew blew it. I'm not going to go into details and we'll still play, but it definitely won't be my main focus. Not having a character really sucks and no matter how many times I take Zeku or Ryu to training mode, not having my character doesn't cut it. I won't say I'm going back to USF4 (maybe I will), but I might be making a full transition to Guilty Gear Strive once Testament comes out. Who knows, I'll probably have the same issues in Strive that I do with SF5 if I don't get Johnny, or they change Testament (and Johnny) enough to where I don't find them fun and engaging, but right now Testament looks very interesting.

[Mustang]

Guilty Gear Strive
Honestly, I thought Testament would do it for me. I don't think they're weak, and honestly, I don't care about that. This Testament has a mid-range style that don't jive with me. I like the idea of Testament playing similar to their old counterpart and Venom, but implemented here, it's not working for me. Footsies have never been me and it's like Daisuke's changed them to be a mid-range zoner type.

Ultra Street Fighter 4
My nephew's mouth is getting him in a world of hurt lol. I don't want to take away his enjoyment, but everybody knows what happens when you start taunting. I told him a few times he needs to chill on taunting, but he kept pushing my buttons. Gave him a taste at where my Dudley, Guy, Ryu and Cody is really at (yeah got a little serious on him). There is one other habit I'm trying to get him out of but I have to remember that he is a kid. In a sense, it's like he's trying to tell me how to play the game, and I'm dude, I've been playing this game for 10 years, but in reality even though he's pointing it out to me he might be trying remind himself of some things. I gotta remember that the next time we play. I still have a lot to learn trying to teach him as well.

[Mustang]

I swear, people in the FGC now. It's like these new games aren't even worth buying anymore because the community find ways to ruin it for everyone. DNF Duel is on my radar heavy, but when I think about it; Street Fighter 5, Guilty Gear Strive, Tekken 7, King of Fighters 15, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, Dragon Ball Fighterz, Mortal Kombat 11, and the new Melty Blood have been released within the past 5-6 years and nobody wants to put in that work anymore. It's just "argh, this character is too strong, nerf" and I'm at the point where it's like why are you buying fighting games then or even playing if you're not gonna put in the work? Back then had it's fair share of whining as well, but we were forced to adapt. Pick top tier or learn the matchup. Plain and simple. I think for now I'm going to stick with my older fighting games for now and just buy the new stuff to support the devs.

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
That being said I went back to playing this crack addicting game. Like MvC2, people have been discovering new tech because there' have been new team combinations starting to see light. Yeah, you're still going to run into Zero May Cry and other top tier teams but it's been exciting to see these new teams go to work. I've seen Hsien-ko being considered broken now (lmao) because of some of her nasty mix-ups. Thor has some mean resets with Rocket Raccoon, and Spider-man has become a menace.

Speaking of Spider-Man, he's one of the characters I've been learning to put on a fun team. Yep, my main team is still Nova, Vergil, Hawkeye. Most of my teams will always be centered around Vergil simply because he's just that deal and my favorite character ever (with Sephiroth being 1B). I have a lot of ideas rolling around in my head and combinations I want to try.

Other than that, not much has been played. Not watching much on Twitch either. I heart ChilledChaos and company but I stopped supporting him. I can only handle so much Among Us. It's played almost everyday and by the same people and I'm like can we get a little bit a variation or something. The people are cool and everything but I'm not paying for 5-6 hrs of Among Us and 2 hrs of whatever else you have on the back burner. I did go back to watching Easy Allies though. They've finally decided to change things up for the better and it's something I can get behind.

[Mustang]

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite
It was not a good weekend for me when it comes to these 2 games. I got bopped. Bopped pretty badly too. 2-5 in UMvC3 and 1-5 in MvCI. My boys brought that Detroit thunder outta me too. So much trash talk and whatnot (all in good fun though), and they just bought it out. So when I'm not playing some sort of JRPG all of my attention will be on these 2 games. These newer games have the potential to do the same thing if people would just stop whining and just play the game regardless of whose top / bottom tier. Pick yo ish and play. When you're having fun tiers don't matter. That being said, Spencer, Vergil, Hawkeye coming in full throttle the next time we get together. Man, when I say they woke me up.... It's gonna be some desert heat.

Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3
Playing around with different quartz setups and whatnot. Trying to compare how cheap I can make characters compared to the other games in the series.

Eventually I'll get back around to playing Persona 5 Royal. Eventually. Once I do it'll probably be the only rpg I'll be playing for a while. You know, gotta min-max certain personas (I need a devilish grin emoji here)

Edit:

So my nephew and I are currently playing Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Both of us sort of training in our own way I suppose. My nephew I guess is training to ultimately play against his father and eventually me using my best team. Speaking of team, right now I'm using Wolverine, Spencer, Doctor Doom (my Doom is trash) against the little fella and he's managed to take a couple of games off of me. I've went back and forth with Doom and Magneto finding out little things that Spencer and Magneto can do together. To tell you how he got those games on me, the very first game, he pops X-factor and threw me completely off my game. That's not something you'll ever see. It threw me so off I had to hit training mode just to get the feel of doing combos. My brain was that rattled. After I came back down to earth it was murder she wrote. I will also say he gravitated towards a mean team (Zero, Vergil, Strider) which completely bops my Spencer team. That being said we had fun. Nice little bonding moments (especially since I'm not the type to like kids, but my nephew does look up to me and I can see it).

I haven't gotten back into playing Dragon Ball Fighterz but I've gotten back into watching it. Eventually I will get back into playing it only with the friends and fam. Online is still as toxic as ever, but man, watching some of these Wawa teams that he puts together are a joy to watch. Once you get past all the hatred for Labcoat 21 and the fusion characters (hell, leave them be IMO) you can see how far the game has really developed and how fun it truly can be. It's not Marvel by any means, nor is it trying to be. It's its own thing and it's a spectacle. I don't think I'd use SSB Gogeta and SSB Vegito together like I'm seeing so many people do now (LMAO, France really got America shook to the core) but I definitely think I'd use each one individually on there own perspective teams. Like I said, good stuff but this crowd, I can't help but shake my head at them.

[Mustang]

Trails of Cold Steel 4
Whoever made this Pom Pom Party game, I swear I wish that person ran into a tree. Ordinarily I wouldn't touch a game like this, but noooo, Falcom thought it was a good thing lock a Master Quartz behind that game. I've lost far more games than I've won and seeing how I only got up to Emma unlocked but am currently stuck on Ash. Yes, to the dev that thought it was a cool idea, kick your toe.

Edit:

So still playing through ToCS4 (probably my 4th-5th playthrough). This will probably be my last until I get ahold of the rest of the games in the other series (Trails from Zero, etc). Rude awakening playing this game. So there are guest characters in the game that stick around for quite some time. The only thing you can customize on these said characters are the weapons they use. Everything else, cool. I made one of the stronger than ever. Doing between 50-60,000 of damage with just 1 simple attack. Over 100K for S-Attack and 300K if boost by brave orders. So what is it that got me in my feelings this time. By the end of the game they stripped said characters of everything you put on them for some garbage setup. I hope whatever games comes after this one fixes this garbage because playing as fixed characters has got to be some of the lamest things you can do in a game just to make the game feel harder than it really is.

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Believe it or not it's been almost a full week and my brain is still rattled from that X-factor at the beginning of the very first game. So I've been playing this game full time now and I forgot how fun it is to do combos in this game. For some reason though, Vergil's super jump from Trick is giving me the blues though. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.

Dragon Ball Fighterz
Doing someone bonding with my nephew and watched a few tournaments. He's very interested in the game so we'll probably fire this boy up over the weekend or the following weekend. Already got me thinking about teams and mixups and the like. I'm thinking about something along the lines of SSB Gogeta, Beerus and 17.

He's also interested in the older MvC games as well so I'll probably end up getting another laptop specifically for Fightcade and hooking that up to my TV for the time being. I think in general my nephew, like me might just like most fighting games.

[Mustang]

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Some Vergil training. Went back to playing on pad for a little bit too. Hitbox is messing with my wrists. No matter what I use, some thing's gonna hurt lol. Anyway, training with Vergil for the past couple of days now. For the most part he's relatively easy to use and combo with. Teleport > Super Jump can be a little tricky at the beginning but I got that down. Just a matter of being fast and precise. The real tricky thing is Roundtrip. Holding A/1/light attack (whatever you want to call it) to use in combos and mixups are hard for me at the moment, especially when it comes to relearning wavedashing. I can wave dash forward, but backwards wavedashing is tricky, and to be efficient with Vergil you need movement (at least when it comes to his mixups).

Did some Spencer training as well. For the most part he's still easy. Zip combos are gonna be a little problem but once I get past muscle memory and memorizing the combo's he'll be a walk in the park. There are some characters I want to use instead of Spencer and maybe I'll start training with them next. Nova, Magneto, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Captain America are the ones I've been sort of trying out and seeing if I can vibe with them. Nova's a given, but at the same time characters with flight gives me a problem (double for Magneto because he has TAC infinites and combos with flight).

Then I've been training with Taskmaster. Again, a relatively easy character once muscle memory is accomplished. His supers on pad can get a little weird some time. Using him and Vergil together I have to setup the controller a certain way. Not to complicated but it takes a little bit to get used to. In place of Taskmaster though, if I were to replace him would be Hawkeye, Magneto, Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, and Iron Man. Hawkeye's a given. Very easy to play. Just memorize the combos and you're set. Doctor Doom/Strange are hard for me, but could probably be some of the funnest characters in the game to learn.

Then we have characters you will never see me use. Zero, Strider, Wesker, Dante. First Dante. Don't get it twisted. I love Dante. I'm just note going to use Vergil and Dante together. For me it has to be one or the other. Too many people using the Dante/Vergil shell and besides, it's pretty much just me, my nephew, my brother, my brother-in-law, and my boys. It's not like I'm trying to go to Evo or anything of that nature. Anyway, I hate Zero. Strider, Wesker are "meh" so yeah.

In terms of single player. I finished Trails of Cold Steel 4. Haven't really decided on what to play next. Not really feeling much of anything at the moment either. I have a backlog to catch up on and then new games I can actually play but I don't have any motivation to do either.

Haven't been watching much either. I mean other than fighting games stuff I haven't checked out anything. I haven't even been watching ChilledChaos and them folks as much lately. I don't know, I might be getting in one of them little moods again where it might be time to take a break from gaming for a little bit. If it wasn't for my nephew challenging me I probably wouldn't be playing anything to be honest.

[Mustang]

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Decided to torture myself with this hellhole. I still have fun with it but man, the controls to this game is bonkers at times. I'm mashing btw, but one moment my character is charging up a punch (I'm mashing, how the hell are you charging?) to sometimes not getting an attack to come out at all (I can sort of understand this one). Don't get me started with the blocking. I block and get broken, CPU blocks and its a perfect guard (Bullshit). Oh, Teleports. Now suddenly when the CPU is going for their big move and I press the buttons for teleporting behind them my character just floats and I'm like "hello, TELEPORT FU$@$@$%". A lot of times it's Kamehameha (and good thing I got that one, soul thing, called "HAAAAAAAAAAAAA" because the amount of times I'm going from Goku to Gohan's blast puts me on tilt a lot. So why do I come back to it? Every now and then I have fun with it. Sort of trying to cope I guess, deciding what to play while going through this tortuous hell.

Fighting games, I'm all over the place at the moment. My nephew has this tendency to want to play 2-3 games of Street Fighter and switch to the next one. I'm like, this ain't helping me at all (certain little things that irks me). I take my fighting games serious. If you're not gonna help me learn you're wasting my time. Fortunately, I'm getting through to him little by little. I help him try to have fun while I'm trying to learn, but he's got to stop talking lol. Certain trigger words/phrases that brings out that desert heat and I want to embarrass you at that moment. Bouncing from Dragon Ball Fighterz to Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and a little bit of GranBlue Fantasy Versus.

No idea what's next. Debating between getting back to Persona 5 Royal to starting the Mass Effect journey. Hell, I may start one of these weird Atelier games just to see what that's like. I will say every time I think about jumping back into Spider-man I am reminded of the stealth parts that I hate so much.

[Mustang]

So to no ones surprise after I beat Xenoverse 2 again as the Frieza race character I didn't stick around for the extra stuff. I was aiming to do another character, but hell no.

I moved onto Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne. I've been putting this game off since I was about 19-20. Back then I was very immature on how to handle games like this because I was going to church heavily at that time. I didn't exactly like the thought of fighting against demons and whatnot, let alone when it came to "end of the world" kind of stuff my conscience just wouldn't let me handle it so I said no on all of it, despite wanting to always play through the MegaTen series.

Now that I'm pushing 40 and maturing a lot. I'm able to separate those kinds of things and just play the game (movies? HELL NO). Anyway, this game is brutal. I thought I had a little advantage considering I've played Persona 5. Boy was I wrong. Luckily I do know the Japanese names for the elemental magic attacks. I also know Light and Dark attacks as well. Some of the ailments, though, are not the same as it is in Persona 5. I do remember some of the buffs and debuffs, but again they got here that I didn't even know exist. Anyhow, I just made it to Ginza. My character is lv 14. Trying to get to 15 so I can get a Bicorn. I am enjoying the game though.

Fighting games. My nephew has challenged me in Ultra Street Fighter 4 so, here we go again.