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

[Avaitor]

As of late, I've been rotating through a handful of games at a time, taking turns with what I play when I get a chance. The titles I'm currently playing include:

Animal Crossing- I told myself that I'd stop playing the game as regularly as I was when I picked up a more consistent work schedule, and when I got my new job in September, that's what happened. I went from playing every day, to once or twice a week, to maybe just 2-3 times a month tops. As I've mentioned before, I don't think this is everything the new AC could have been, but it's still a relaxing time. The last time I played it was during my day off on President's Day, which I didn't realize was also the first day of Carnivale. So I got to make Pave a few feathers and got some neat Carnivale swag. That was pretty cool!

Sundered- This is basically a metroidvania with Lovecraftian influences, which is 100% my thing. But I suck at it, and can't last more than 10 minutes alive, so I keep picking it up for about 30 minutes, and drop it. I do enjoy it, although I'm not as impressed by the customizability. I tend to be a bit of a meat and potatoes fighter, so that doesn't matter as much to me.

Superhot- I'm having fun with this one too, a FPS that's basically a puzzle game. It's set almost entirely in slow motion- the more you move, the more likely you are to be attacked, and one hit will kill you. So it involves needing to find the right angle to shoot or hit your opponents. It can be a little frustrating, but I can get the hype.

Xenoblade Chronicles- I'm finally getting around to this. I'm normally not a big RPG person. It takes one or two really strong elements to get me hooked on one, ideally strong combat, music, or characters. But here, the battle system is just fine, the music is just fine, and the characters are just acceptable. Still, I'm going at it.

Although I just noticed that the story of the game is basically just Star Fox Adventures. Just replace the furry stuff with steampunk aesthetics, and replace the Zelda-esq gameplay with modern Final Fantasy combat. The dinosaurs are definitely still there.

[Mustang]

Persona 5 Royal
Not much to really say about it. I know last time I played it I was disappointed in how they implemented the new characters, but I understood it. Now I'm just playing it because I was in the mood for it. Not to mention I just wanted to build an overpowered Yoshitzune. I also found out that one of the DLC Persona's is flat out broken and I love it for what I'm doing because it allows me to fly through everything.

Granblue Fantasy Versus
This one is weird. I get what ASW is doing here and while I have no problems with it per se, I still find it weird. I haven't played much of it at all either, but from what I've tried out, it suffers from the same thing DBFz suffers from. This "always online" thing. It's irritating especially for someone who just want to spend time in training mode at the moment. If I can fault ASW for anything it's this forcing everyone online despite a lot of people having wi-fi internet (for whatever their reason may be). Ethernet is not an option for me at the moment. Regardless of all that, whatever happened to letting people just play without all of that lobby crap? I can already see Guilty Gear Strive suffering from the same thing.

Edit:

Persona 5 Strikers
I've played roughly about 2 hours of it and threw in the towel. There are some games that shouldn't be turned into a Musou game and the Persona series is one of them. And this is coming from someone that likes Musou games. The problem I'm having with this game much like other IP's being turned into Musou games is the combat. Where I find all of the fun in Musou games (particularly Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi) is the thousand of enemies that I can just pummel. I understand what Koei was doing. Trying to bring in some of the mechanics from Persona 5. To me, that don't work.

That being said, I'm not calling the game bad by any stretch. Hell, the game is right up my alley. Personally, I'd rather Atlus just add this as another story and keep it as turn-based combat (there's a new character in Strikers that's just adorable) to Royal. For this game it's more of bad timing than anything. More and more of these obscured games that I play are going to get sidelined, especially with Guilty Gear Strive coming out next month. This would've been my go to game when I need a break from fighting games but there are other games that deserve more of my attention than this one.

[Mustang]

Been watching streamers play Among Us. Some of them been using mods and the chaos has been awesome. This game might be the greatest / craziest party game ever.

Edit:

So to my surprise to see that Bandai Namco is still supporting Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 I decided to fire it up once again. I did remember why I stopped playing right away but I'm going to try and stick to it for a little. Bounce between this and Persona 5 Royal. I don't know how many updates there've been since the last time I played (I think Ultra Instinct Goku was released) but the A.I. is more aggressive than I remember. Not a bad thing, but I do remember getting through 3 and 4 stars quests fairly easily, but then again there was always that Android quest that got under my skin a bit. Anyway, I made a saiyan. Level 66-68 I think and just finished beating Cell saga.

As for Persona 5 Royal, I forgot the levels of my party, but I am at 5th palace. The build up to get to this palace always bug me because of a certain incident between 2 characters (all of it was dumb), making me do things I didn't want to do. 99% of this game is great just this 1% that's bad is here lol.

While it's on my mind, I was watching an old Kizzie Kay stream of BlazBlue Central Fiction yesterday. The guy he was playing against, I can't remember his name for nothing but he (Kizzie's opponent) was playing Naoto. In Kizzie's chat, someone mentioned that the guy was the GOAT Naoto. I don't know how true that is but the guy was amazing and inspiring. What made it even more impactful on me was that I saw my guy Dudley as Naoto. Naoto's gameplay looks very similar to Dudley. Both corner carry's are strong. Both can combo from an overhead. And both have frame traps for days. What makes it even better for Naoto is that he hits hard as well (you can feel the impact too). The only turn off I'm hearing from people is that he is execution heavy. Dudley is also execution heavy. Hell, the way I see it just about every character I play or like is execution heavy (Johnny GG anyone).

[talonmalon333]

I got around to finishing Mario 3D World for the Switch, and it's been delightful from start to finish. Really nails down the pure fun factor of the classics. I wouldn't call it one of my favorites in the series (for me, it's a race to the top between Odyssey and the Galaxy games, followed closely by 3 and World), but that's fair considering the high standards of the series. It's a great game.

Just as good, if not even better, was Bowser's Fury. It does feel more like a DLC that recycles the 3D World assets into something new, but that's fine by me. I love the open and exploration element that Odyssey combined with platforming, and this took that a step further by making it almost completely non-linear.

Also, I recently played Bioshock Infinite for the first time thanks to a PS4 re-release, and... it was something. I had a great time in the first half of the game (even if it didn't feel like Bioshock), but it really lost me more and more through the second half.

[talonmalon333]

Been watching streamers play Among Us. Some of them been using mods and the chaos has been awesome. This game might be the greatest / craziest party game ever.

It's wonderful. That's been the Zoom party game for me and my friends for a while. Admittedly, we haven't been playing it as much lately. Now, we work together through rounds of GeoGuesser. However, I'm sure it'll be back in our rotation before long.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I never even bothered to finish BioShock: Infinite. I'm just not a fan of the direction the gameplay went in, especially with how much more versatile the combat and enemy encounters in BioShock 2 were. In that regard it felt like a step back. I also found the enemy encounters to get more obnoxious as the game progresses as opposed to being a fun challenge. The story didn't resonate with me either and felt overly-preachy with a false attempt at depth. The Matthewmatosis video review of this game sums up most of my thoughts on it perfectly.

I've been playing Majora's Mask on the 3DS (which I know is the inferior version to the N64 original in certain aspects, but was my only option at the time) and I've pretty much completed 100% of the content from the main dungeons to the side quests, other than the final four heart pieces, Fierce Diety's Mask, and Majora boss fight to end the game. I will obviously do all of those things in my next and last play session with the game. That said, it's fair to say that overall I do really appreciate the game and find it worthy of it's praise. It's a strong case for why the more old-school 3D Zelda approach isn't rendered obsolete in any way by Breath of the Wild, as some people seem to claim. I'd be fine with the new style co-existing with a more traditional one, or Nintendo finding a certain balance between BotW's freedom and MM's more intimate and involved NPC's and story-telling as well as superior dungeon design (all four in this game are pretty fantastic, in my book).

That said, even though it's the popular thing these days to say that this is a superior game to Ocarina of Time in every way (which I can completely understand), I still personally find OoT to be my favorite 3D Zelda game. That doesn't mean that I can't be objective and recognize it's faults or how other games improve on it, but something about it's coming of age theme and general world design just resonates a bit stronger on a personal and emotional level to me. Obviously that's just my own preference, but again, MM definitely deserves it's praise and it's good to see so many people give the game it's due. I just wish it wasn't so often a point where people use their love of that game to shit on it's predecessor so much, despite it laying much of the ground work that MM was built on in the first place.

[Mustang]

Been watching streamers play Among Us. Some of them been using mods and the chaos has been awesome. This game might be the greatest / craziest party game ever.

It's wonderful. That's been the Zoom party game for me and my friends for a while. Admittedly, we haven't been playing it as much lately. Now, we work together through rounds of GeoGuesser. However, I'm sure it'll be back in our rotation before long.

Yeah, I think if I were to play it right now, proximity chat would have to be included at the very least. Sheriff, Joker, etc are nice cherries, but not a necessity for me to play. I don't think I've ever heard of GeoGuesser though. If it can cause chaos I'm for it though.

[Mustang]

Y's IX
I've never played a Y's game before but I've always had my eyes on the series since the PS2 days (unfortunately at that time the games cost a nice penny and I had no job at the time), but never bothered to get into them. Even this game is nothing special, but it satisfies me. The controls are simple and the combat is basic but it's what I expected so I am enjoying it (far more than most AAA titles these days)

Truth be told though, like usual, I watch more videos than I actually play these days but I refuse to watch people play single player games. I've been watching KizzieKay play numerous fighting games but mostly Guilty Gear XXAC+R and King of Fighters 13. I didn't forget but my God, KoF13 still looks so good. And watching him (and other content creators) do these trials has been getting me back in the mood for that game.

That being said I've arrived at a interesting predicament. I would say over the past 6-7 months I've been thinking about making the transition of being a console gamer to PC gamer. That's mainly because console just haven't been doing anything for me. AAA titles don't do much for me and the majority of the games I play (fighting games) are being played on PC. This also stems from all of the rollback netcode talk and parsec talk on PC as of late and I'm missing out. All the single player games I play are also on PC (RPG's and MGS5). The only game I will actually miss is Persona 5 and hopefully that'll come someday.

So what exactly is the problem? I don't know where to begin or what to look for when it comes to PC. Say I have a budget of $700 where do I start? I don't plan on getting a monitor because I plan to hook it up to my tv and I'm assuming none of the fighting games are that large, but I suppose I'm looking for 1-2TB. Other than that, yeah I'm lost. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've been replaying Half-Life 2 on the PC. Kind of funny how this was once a cutting edge game for it's time and I can now easily run it at max settings on a pretty average laptop (by 2021 standards). Not that I'm complaining though (I also have a strong craving to replay F.E.A.R. as well). Anyways, this game holds up remarkably well, outside of the platforming occasionally feeling kind of janky. Oddly enough, the game makes me think of Breath of the Wild, of all things, what with an intricate physics engine being a big part of the game and despite being linear, it let's you tackle most situations in just about any way that you see fit. It doesn't take long playing a game like this again to remind me of how limiting and patronizing most big budget modern games have become. Oddly enough, despite really being into the game back on the Orange Box, I don't think I gave it nearly enough credit. The design is phenomenal and it really speaks to Valve's expertise in how intuitive most of the game feels without having to condescend to the player by having a voice over point out where everything is and what to do at any given moment. Again, even though it's an odd comparison, it really does remind me of an old-school Zelda design philosophy in it's general approach to gameplay and guiding the player through the game in natural ways.

I'm up to Ravenholm now, and while I initially didn't like this level back when I first played it I think I have a bit of a newfound appreciation for it now. It's more frustrating if you don't know where to go or what to do, but otherwise it's a playground for you to get as creative as possible with the gravity gun and various different props.

Playing this also makes me a bit regretful that I simply won't likely be able to play Half-Life: Alyx for a long time to come since I don't have a PC good enough to run it and am not going to be able to spend up to $1,000 extra on top of that for a Valve VR headset (or even just a few hundred bucks for a generic VR headset that is compatible with the game).

[Mustang]

Got bored of Y's. Definitely the gameplay that started getting boring to me. Story-wise, it's your typical anime type of story. Gameplay is probably Kingdom Hearts-ish, maybe.

Not exactly sure what game I'm looking for. Outside of the usual fighting games I'm not feeling it at the moment. Let me add that Sony's not making it any easier either considering the garbage they're pulling. A lot of the game preservation don't effect me but at the same time, what's to say I won't have that urge to boot up one of them old games one day? Dare I say despite no exclusives Microsoft is actually handling everything better at the moment? I may just have to start firing up random games just to see if I can get motivated to play.

Getting deeper into Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2. Lots of studying going on. Trying to find all Johnny, Slayer and Venom players and form my own style of invoking fear. Think more along the lines of calculated or explosive rushdown. I can probably do that with Johnny and Slayer. Venom is going to be a probably considering his playstyle is completely different from anything I've ever played. Not to mention he's a charge character and I'm terrible with charge characters.

I don't plan on playing these games to try and prepare for Strive considering that Strive is completely different from Rev and AC. If anything, I'd probably say me playing Rev 2 is more of a preparation for AC when I switch to PC.

Also hoping BlazBlue Centralfiction gets rollback netcode implemented in the future.

[Mustang]

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
Zeku has been the character I've been using. I was about to bail on him until I saw this one player (BTM Gun Slingah) style with him. The one thing I find myself not caring about these days in fighting games in general is optimization (please do not follow my lead). Don't get me wrong you always want to go for whatever is optimal at any given point no matter the situation. My problem is I get bored very quickly so for me to keep going for the same combo over and over is a turn off, and I find it even more disappointing that in order to find that pleasure I have to play a selected handful of characters, whereas, I can't just pick up the character I want to play and go for unoptimized or stylish stuff. So like I said, Gun Slinga was what kept me going with Zeku and I'm actually motivated to put in time learning this character thoroughly (there's a reason why I gravitate to players like Smug and Sakonoko).

Ultra Street Fighter 4
I don't know how long I'm gonna stick with this one even though it's my favorite. At the moment I'm kind of using this game as training for Guilty Gear Strive. I know, I know, completely different games, but people are using the older GG's to try and prep them for Strive and I see Strive being more like USF4 considering the usage of meter. In general RC's is FADC, but the way I've seen RC's used in Strive reminds me a lot like how FADC's can be used in USF4. Hell, I can probably even say Street Fighter x Tekken considering how fast you build meter.

And then there's Among Us. For the most part I only watch Bruce Greene play with his friends because of the chaos that ensues. They've been playing with modifiers and boy it's been so chaotic and fun to watch. I have my grievances with Bruce some times because he has this mentality that he knows all or he's perfect, but it's nothing for the most part. I tried watching his Phasmophobia videos but my goodness he becomes unbearable to watch.

Other than Among Us, I am interested in Predator Hunting Ground as well as Dead by Daylight. Not on that competitive level I've been seeing but with a few friends kickin the shit.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I'm a hypocrite who pretty much went against my own sensibilities and sense of reason, but I bought the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection. I don't really need it as I own a PS3 and already have NGS2 and could buy NGS by itself for cheaper (and I never plan to play NG3/RE again). Furthermore, these are bare bones ports with nothing of value added to them. I don't want to reward lazy effort with my money....but on the other hand I'm voting with my wallet because at the end of the day I don't want to say that I didn't show my support for the series.

Still, even if it's the Sigma versions, I was playing a bit of NGS 1 & 2 for fun and noticed two things: having the Switch versions, both games are surprisingly well-suited to handheld play, and even just reliving each title for a little bit reminds me of why I fucking adore these games so much, even after all these years (and even not being my preferred versions of either of them). It's not simply about good combat, but just how amazing these games still feel to play to this day. They are so fluid and responsive with such good enemy design that it instantly reminds me of why I miss these sorts of games and have more trouble getting into a lot of modern action games. The sheer mechanics of these first two games are still largely unrivaled by most games in the genre to this day, IMO.

[Mustang]

Don't feel too bad Ensatsu-ken. I bought the Mass Effect trilogy (haven't started yet) and am debating on buying Ninja Gaiden as well. I don't need either but at the same time I don't have my older consoles anymore.

Anyway, I just got my copy of Guilty Gear Strive and am currently installing it. Not sure who I'm going to main but I am eyeballing Sol, Zato, Giovanna and I-no.

Street Fighter 5: Championship Edition
Zeku is quite the character. As fun as I think he is and with GGS being in my hands I'm probably going to drop this game. At least until Akira and the last DLC character comes out.

Trails of Cold Steel 2[b/]
I beat ToCS1 some time last week and have started up another run of this game. Gonna do 3 and 4 as well. The customizing the series allows is so good.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Fair warning for anyone looking into the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection: do NOT buy the Switch version. The second and third games have pretty noticeable performance issues with this port specifically, and it points to a either a lazy or rushed job on KoeiTecmo's part. The first game runs very well, actually, and I could even recommend it if it were available to purchase by itself, but since you have to get the collection it's not worth the money.

It's stuff like this that passes me off, though. I could care less about NG3, but when a company is OK with doing that poor of a job bringing over games that they have had ported countless times to any console and releasing it in a significantly inferior state to it's intended performance, it shows how little they truly care. It irritates me because for quite a few people this could be their introduction to the NG series and that's a pretty shitty first impression to give them.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I have a Wii U now. I didn't actually ever plan on getting one, but I did want to buy a used Wii to play some exclusives for that console. When talking to a friend about this he said he had a Wii U pretty much collecting dust in a storage box of his that he was more than happy to straight up just give me as long as I would pay for shipping, which I did (and of course the Wii U is 100% backwards compatible with the Wii), so now I own a Wii U. He also threw in some of his Wii/U games that he still had lying around, including Skyward Sword and Wind Waker HD, and I've already played and beaten Skyward Sword so I have no reason to buy the Switch port anymore. I'll give my thoughts on that game at a later time, but I'm really eager to replay WW one of these days. I also bought myself a copy of MadWorld for $20, so I'll eventually get to that as well.

Anyone have any good Wii game recommendations? I'm particularly interested in good lightgun games. I also wanted to get Tatsunoko vs. Capcom but it's nearly impossible to find a reasonably priced copy of that.

Also, yes, I will eventually be playing Devil's Third when I get around to it. I never thought I'd ever be in possession of this console, but now that I am I feel obligated to play this game no matter how bad it is.

I got back to 2D Metroid with Metroid Fusion, in preparation for Metroid Dread. I know people are more mixed on this one since it's linear, but I enjoy it so far for it's gameplay and atmosphere, though I'm not very far in it yet.