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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm almost done with Elden Ring. Yes, I've been playing this game since it came out (not every single day of course), and with my tight work and life schedule this is just how long it takes me to beat a massive open world game like this these days. It's probably why I don't play too many games like this anymore. That said, after sinking over 130 hours into this, I can safely say that this is indeed a great video game that will go down as an all-time classic. However, I probably wouldn't consider it to be one of my personal all-time favorites. I still prefer a great combat system like in Nioh above all else, despite the level design in this game being probably the best I've ever seen in the open world genre. It's amazing how massive this game is and yet still feeling like so many areas are entirely memorable with very little filler in-between. This is also a great game for anyone who likes to play the numbers-game in Action RPGs and loves to craft different kinds of builds. For me personally, now at the endgame, I have geared more towards putting my stat points more into Dexterity, Faith, and Arcane, the last of which I almost entirely ignored early in the game but realized how useful it could be with scaling some powerful late game weapons. I'll probably finish this game in another weekend or two, and I doubt I'll replay it after that given how long it is, but it has been time mostly well spent so far.

I have also gotten around to playing Titanfall 2 (well, am currently playing it, as I still haven't beaten the campaign yet). It's one of those games that made a quick splash when it came out and then got quickly forgotten about, but caught my interest because of how much of a cult following it developed. After playing a few levels, I can definitely see the appeal. The movement mechanics alone make this game stand out from other FPS titles and it helps that while the story is nothing that original or unique on it's own, the actual delivery of it all is stupidly good with how much they get you to buy into Cooper's partnership and bonding with BT, his Titan. The mech battles feel like a more fully realized version of what Monolith was trying to do with the mech sections in F.E.A.R. 2, but honestly the on-foot segments of this game are really where the combat shines, especially once you get a feel for wall-running as well as this game's version of bunny-hopping in conjunction with shooting down enemies.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

And after beating Titanfall 2 I immediately want to replay it. I mistakenly passed up on this game for so long but it's legit one of the best FPS campaigns in the last decade or so. This is like the Vanquish of FPS games. Amazing movement mechanics combined with tight gunplay. Definitely deserves it's praise and strong cult following.

[Mustang]

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
While I don't have the DLC to it, I did end up running into I forgot his name (Dante's replacement) and got my first game over. Yeah, this game's no joke at all, and to be honest, because of the random encounters I don't mind grinding. Then again I suppose that's because of the kind of game it is. I don't know if I'd could handle a Trails game with random encounters and having to grind. Anyway, my character is pushing lvl 28 I believe while my demons are between lvl 19-26. Negotiating is ridiculous lol. Trying not to spend money as is but when you got demons asking for 400+ and then turn you down in the end, brutal. I'm currently in, the name escapes me, but it's something with Ike______ getting ready to go up this tower/base or whatever.

Edit:

On my way to Asakusa. My character is level 37. Everyone else is between 16-33. Back then Atlus really knew how to keep you on edge and sort of made you have to grind to go foward. I'm thinking about grinding now just to have some extra cash on me at all times. Demon's asking for 700+ makka in order to join you now. I should've expected that by now but damn, so soon? Especially when you're trying to find demons that are immune to certain ailments or null some attacks. A lot of the demons I have on hand right now are weak to electricity and fusing them is not guaranteeing me much either. Rock, hard places indeed.

Been having some enlightening moments with some of my character choices in some of these fighting games. Heat of the moment, for sure. I've been watching a lot of GGXXACr footage and seeing this one Order Sol player makes me want to switch up. Before I was a Johnny main I was hipped onto Sol but switched up because at the time my brother-in-law was also a Sol main and I didn't want to have too many mirror matches with him. I didn't know of HOS back then either until I saw Kazunoko play him and then eventually I saw how much swag Johnny had. Anyway, watching guy play HOS and in my mind I'm like why am I not playing him? Sure I can be playing Slayer since he fits right in with my game plan, but I want that threat of bum-rushing you to linger in your head. And it's spilled over into other fighting games as well. BBCF with Susano'o. MvCI with Captain America. Just to name a few. USF4 even though Dudley is the main I come back to Cody. I'm not dropping the characters I usually play but I will be picking up these characters I either used to play from the start or never tried and should've been tried them out.

Edit:

So the fun in USF4 has been completely killed by the nephew. He's a kid. Not going to go into it but he's a kid and gonna do kid things. Aight, cool. In the meantime as punishment he's not allowed in my room to play games for a month. That outta of the way I can get back to focusing on getting prepped for DNF Duel which is out next week. From what I've seen even playing GranBlue Fantasy Versus looks like it won't be enough. Sure, it has the same ground base game, but damn near every character has far reaching moves. The game I should probably be playing is Under Night in Birth.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been on a bit of a Halo kick recently and have been replaying the original trilogy's campaign modes. I may do a longer post later but these games hold a really special place for me and I think I actually appreciate them more now than I did when they first came out.

I've also started playing Phantom Dust, a re-release of an OG XBOX game that's now completely free to play on both XBOX and Windows PC. I've known about it since it came out but never bothered trying it because back then I assumed it was mostly an XBOX Live multiplayer-focused game (which i didn't have at the time). To he fair, it still is a multi-player game at it's core, but it also has a beefy, fully fleshed-out campaign mode and I'm loving the core combat mechanics. I'm now kicking myself for not having gotten this game back when it was released and I owned an OG XBOX.

This is yet another example of how that console had a treasure-trove of underrated gems.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Tunic is fucking amazing and I can't believe I only just got around to it. I initially wanted to try it as a 2D Zelda-clone with some Dark Spuls elements. While it definitely takes some influence from both of those games in terms of being focused on puzzles and simple combat, what makes it feel unique is that most of it's puzzles and progression come from intuitively deciphering pages of the in-game instruction manual that you find rather than on more physical puzzles like what you find in Zelda. It's a pretty great feeling just being able to use your own judgement and visual clues rather than relying on expository text or dialogue on how to progress or even in terms of how basic functions work.

[Mustang]

Ultra Street Fighter 4
Got back into training with Yun, but man, every time I see a good Yang it makes me want to switch because I love resets. And Yang's resets are crazy good. I saw a guy on Smug's stream a couple of days ago using Yang and he did some reset that made it look like Yang was on the other side of Smug only to still be in front of him (you clearly see him dash under Smug's Dudley) and everyone in the chat lost it while Smug was confused as well. Only reason I haven't switched to Yang is because Yun can do something similar and he does more damage (not to mention, if Yun resets you in 1 combo you're pretty much dead). Not to mention I don't see anymore Yun these days and I happen to like him and I plan to take him online soon.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Played this one with the nephew last weekend. He's getting the hang of things somewhat. He's trying to learn parry, but I'm trying to get him to block first. He just don't want to block at all lol. Anyway, I'm learning Yang even though I mostly played Ken. There's not much to really learn with Yang in this one, but his spacing in this game is something I need to get down. Don't let me find out Yang have resets in this game.

I wish I was going to Evo this weekend but I still don't trust people enough to go traveling yet. I got a little rant about FGC again (I know I know, not another one lol). Gotta gather my thoughts on this one since it's been a minute since I've last posted not to mention there's been some conversations that came up recently that's actually got people discussing things instead of bullshitting.

[Mustang]

Persona 5 Royal
This is what, my 3rd or 4th playthrough of this game. At this point I can probably nitpick this game to death. The only nitpick I will throw out there is I wish Atlus would make either and Persona or Shin Megami Tensei game where you're an adult. I don't know what's up with Japan's fascination with teens (anime and games) as main characters, but for once can they make one of these games where you're an adult? Don't get me wrong, I love these games, but I'd like to experience one of these games where the main place to gather is home and work instead of home and school. I'd even settle for a character like Akechi to have a game of their own. Not saying AKechi himself, but a character juggling college life, with detective work and still having to deal with society. Like I said, nitpicking. Other nitpick I'll throw out there is Ryuji and Morgana still irritate me.

Street Fighter 5 Championship Edition
So the nephew has challenged me to this game for some reason. I'm assuming he's been watching some matches from Evo to want to challenge me in this game. I'm going to oblige him. Probably will play mostly Ken and Laura or I may play mostly Laura. Idom's performance really inspired me. I might bounce around. Not entirely sure.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
He's also challenged me in this as well. I'll mainly play Yang here. Will probably try out Makoto a few times. Might bust out Ryu as well. Ryu is too fun in this game.

I've been trying to get my nephew into other fighting games such as Dragon Ball Fighterz, King of Fighters, but no dice. He'll watch DBFz though. He did say he want to play Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid though. I'll buy it for him first to play on the Switch to see if he really likes it before seeing if he wants to challenge me in it though.

Other than that once I beat Persona this time I'll probably go to Y's 8 or Tales of Arise. Been hearing a lot of praise for Ys 8.

Edit:

3rd Strike
My Yang is looking pretty nice, although I am keeping it simple. I mean he's not exactly hard to play but he does fall in that category of easy to play, hard to master category. Knowing how your opponent plays is huge when playing Yang and because my nephew is random made things a little bit on the easier side for me. If this were Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 though, man my head'll be twisted. He did take 2 games off me though. He's also trying to punish correctly. His timing is off, but I gave him moral victories anyway because he clearly tried to punish and I should've been punished but I can only think he didn't make it in time in the end.

Felt the burnout seeping in with Persona 5 though (I had already beaten it and decided to try and min-max some personas) and for some reason my controller to my PS4 has been randomly de-synching and when I try to turn it back on it's like it just freezes for some reason. Right now I'm reinitializing everything again (lost data but I'm moving on from a lot of games anyway). Not like I had much to begin with.

[Mustang]

So I fixed whatever internet issue I was having where my controller just kept disconnecting. Problem now though, is that wasted time initializing my PS4 back to factory condition so a lot of saved games are gone in the process. The only games that actually mattered were the Trails games and luckily I can go back to play those games for quite some time. Persona 5 Royal on the other hand I'm probably done with for good. With Trails there's another game coming at the end of the month so that gives me reason to play those games again.

That being said, this huge backlog of games I have is a problem and I don't really see myself ever going back to them. Not to mention there's just a lot of games coming out that I'd rather be playing right now. So when it comes to single player games I'm kinda in a funk right now. Usually I can rely on a Musou game to hold me over for a little bit but I'm not really feeling any of them.

Anyway, cutting the BS for a little bit and playing fighting games kind of full time for a little bit, at least until either the next Trails game or Valkyrie Elysium (very interested in this one)

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Wolverine. I love this character (not as much as Vergil) and with my team of Wolverine, Vergil and Doctor Doom it's hard to make Wolverine work with Vergil (both works with Doom). Matter of fact it's kind of hard to make Wolverine work with majority of the cast (fitting to his character). This is Punks team and he's a lot better with this team than me but most of his wins comes from Wolverine solo or Vergil solo. If I get too bored with Doom I'm going to focus on Vergil, Dante, Hawkeye (my original O.G team back in 2013)

Dragon Ball Fighterz
SSB Gogeta and 17 is the shell I want to focus on here. Yasha really showed a lot of synergy with these 2 characters. It's not the best shell in the game but you can throw any character on this team and it'll work. I'm working with Beerus at the moment but if I'm not feeling him there are tons of characters I want to try out in his place. The other shell I'll be toying around with is Hit and Adult Gohan. I love Hit, no question. Unfortunately there's a ton of Adult Gohan's that've popped up (of course because of Wawa) but like the other shell you can probably throw any character on this team and it'll work. For this shell I'm working on Bebi Vegeta (Wawa and Tatsunical have been going ham with this character lately)

Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
This is purely for my nephew. He loves Power Rangers and I promised him we could play the next time they come to visit their father. I'm not exactly sure who I want to play in this game. Eric Meyers for sure because that's Vergil. I might pick Lauren Shiba because she does tons of damage. The 3rd character I have no idea. Maybe Ryu (street fighter), Dai Shi or this weird blue ranger.

Guilty Gear Strive
This game has been catching a lot of heat and for the most part I think a lot of people just need to grow up and adapt. No it's not Xrd or +R, but if I wanted Strive to be like those games I'd go play those games. It's still Guilty Gear just less in it. I would've been putting time into this game but I don't have a character (same situation as Street Fighter 5) but I'm sort of settling on Sol or Zato until I get that character (don't necessarily have to be Johnny or Slayer, but I'm hoping for one of them or a character that's as cool as them). Anyway saw a tourney in I think Europe. This Sol player was schmooving and it inspired me.

BlazBlue Central Fiction
Of course I'm coming back to this. I'm going to continue to come back to this. There's no perfect fighting game but this comes close to it. Tons of characters for me and on top of that I'm into combos and there's tons of swag combos. So I really don't understand this notion why everyone in the FGC gotta whine so much when there are fighting games out there for everyone to play and enjoy. I mean sure I'd love for USF4 to go back to get the limelight it once had but it's not so move on already. Anyway, I'm really hooked on Susano'o at the moment. I usually don't play big/tall characters but he fits me. There's also Azrael, Jin, Naoto and Hazama that I can play as well. I haven't jumped into Cross Tag Battle but I just might considering the type of craziness that can happen in that game.

Other than that, there's still 3rd Strike and USF4. I'd really need to get a good working PC so I can get Fightcade and play Capcom vs SNK2 and King of Fighters 13 (rumor that this might get rollback but later in KoF15's lifespan).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Started playing Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin for two reasons. One is that it's a Team Ninja ARPG and while I will always prefer a good old-fashioned hack n' slash like Ninja Gaiden, they still make these Souls-likes really well so I was going to play it eventually. The second is that this game has been touted as a gloriously unintentional meme-generator with how painfully lacking in self-awareness the cringe-factor of it's dialogue is, like a relic from the PS2-era, and to me that's genuinely a great thing. In this predictable era of most things being safe and boring in their presentation, there's a lost charm to a video game story being entertainingly bad. I haven't played much of this game yet but it has delivered on both of those aspects pretty well so far. While I don't think this will go anywhere near as deep as Nioh's combat system, it still feels like it has a lot of interesting possibilities for mixing and matching different weapons with different armor sets, and your AI party member are surprisingly useful in this game so making sure you spec them just right actually matters so far. This is also a sufficient way to hold me over until Wo-Long comes out next year.

[Rynnec]

I'm 99% certain the cringe in Strangers in Paradise is intentional. No way you have characters bonding over Limp Bizkit and not have it be an intentionally funny scene.

[Mustang]

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Been a nice little minute since I've played one of these type of games. Only doing it to get out of the little funk I'm in / heading in. What can I say? Getting my ass whooped. Not because it's a hard game, because it most certainly is not. Getting used to the controls is where I'm getting jacked up at. Mostly the L1, L2, R1, R2. Trying to remember these is costing me a lot, especially when I prefer City/Origins/Knight with the extra gadgetry. That being said this game still holds up, and I do see and remember why people prefer this one over the rest of the games in the series. Looking back on it, I still prefer City/Origins/Knight, but that's only for the gadgets, but presentation and overall package Arkham Asylum all the way. I love open world, but here in Asylum it feels just right without feeling overwhelming, and when I was speaking on DMC needing to try an open world route, AA is probably what I was alluding to. It don't need to be nearly as giant as Breath of the Wild, Arkham City/Knight, nor Dark Souls, etc. but that's another conversation for another day. Yeah, I've been shot up, sliced up, hit in the back of the head a couple of times just trying to remember everything, but once it clicks it's still satisfying to land these hits. I did forget just how much time you spend in detective mode though, wow. Also, I could've sworn Asylum had extra costumes. I know city and knight have them. Probably misremembering.

Now in terms of getting me outta my little funk, it's working in a sense. Arkham Asylum's probably not the one I should've started with. I probably should've started with Arkham City instead, but it's all good. I'm probably done with Asylum at this point though. Might actually move on to either Arkham Knight or just go right into Spider-man. Been wanting to give this one a retry for a minute now.

Not much to be said on the fighting game front. Still playing the same games.

Twitch streams, still the Chilledchaos's and the Aplatypuss. Dooley_Noted has been added to the foray now. Most of them are still playing Among Us, Jackbox Party games, Project Winter, Codenames, and Phasmophobia, but they have been trying newer games as well so they're not totally boring me yet. Their lobbies for Among Us got bigger (They go to 12. I wish they would just go the full 15, but I understand why they don't). You get assholes to come around every now and then in their chats, but for the most part it's still been good to get involved. Fighting game streamers is where all the bullshit is at though (Not the streamer, but their chats). There are some smaller standouts though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm 99% certain the cringe in Strangers in Paradise is intentional. No way you have characters bonding over Limp Bizkit and not have it be an intentionally funny scene.

It's from a director who has been associated with over-the-top edgelord content before, and the game takes itself seriously and seems to lack self-awareness, so I'm not really sure if it's intentional or not. Either way, it's ridiculously funny and entertaining whether it means to be or not, so I count it as a positive.

Anyways, now that I've got about 7 hours in, I really regret not picking it up earlier. The combat is excellent for anyone who likes Nioh. The job system is great and unlike in Nioh, they have simplified the leveling system so that you don't have to worry about re-speccing your character to switch between classes. You can have two jobs at a time and create different sets to switch between at save points; that includes weapons, armor, and active party members.

I have currently created and named four different sets for the eight jobs I have unlocked so far (there are something like 25+ in the entire game that you can unlock):

Set 1: Samurai- Ronin (Katana) + Duelist (Daggers)

Set 2: Warrior Mage- Swordsman (Greatsword) + Mage (Mace)

Set 3: Noble- Swordfighter (Broadsword) + Lancer (Spear)

Set 4: Veteran- Marauder (Axe) + Pugilist (Knuckles)

Samurai is my personal favorite base set that I've created so far, which is exactly the same weapon set that I go for in Nioh, which should probably tell you something about how similar this game is, lol.

[Mustang]

Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite
The amount of creativity is wild in this game and I have all these ideas in my head to the point where it can get a bit overwhelming at times. From what I can remember Dante was considered the best character in the game, and I don't know what the general thoughts are now, but if he's still considered the best I can see why. His million dollar super alone gives him synergy with the rest of the cast because they're either stuck blocking or getting hit while you can have whoever your other character is either stocking, combo extending, or prepping for a mixup. Just that alone got me trying Nova, Spiderman, Doctor Strange. Dante/Doctor Strange in particular on paper sounds like it can potentially be the dirtiest team in the game. Sure from UMvC3 we know Zero/Dante and Dante/Strider are beastly, but Dante/Strange sounds like best buddies especially when you think about everything they can do, and then factor in either Reality, Soul, or Space stone. All provide potential for dirty mixups. But because I'm a power kinda guy I prefer Nova/Dante with Power stone. Truthfully, Captain America/Nova with Power stone scares the shit outta me. Justin Wong's old team Spiderman/Nova with Power stone is just as scary. All these characters I'm naming are potential characters I'll be experimenting with either w or w/o Dante.

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Speaking of Dante/Strange, I finally decided that Dante/Vergil shell is best for me and the team will be Doctor Strange May Cry. I never seen anybody use that team, mainly because Strange is a technical beast and weak, but his loops deals out insane damage plus he and Dante are best buddies and Vergil/Strange got some nasty mixup potential. I'll also toy around with Spiderman May Cry as well. Even though there's been a little bit of a resurgence within the past year for this game, I believe there's a rumor about a mod that'll involve rollback netcode is in the works so that could be a huge boon for the community as well.

Haven't made the dive into Power Rangers Battle for the Grid or Dragon Ball Fighterz just yet. Too much of my attention is on Mahvel at the moment. Single Player games, God of War and Spiderman may get some play soon. I can rant for and against God of War lol. Seeing some things I don't like from both sides, but it's all good.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I had a long-ass post on my impressions of the Wo Long demo on PS5 but my computer ended up crashing and I lost the entire post. Still being butt-hurt about that, my impressions are essentially that I love the actual feel of the combat and how it adapts the core mechanics of Nioh. It also improves on a number of pet peeves I had with Nioh's loot system and magic here is especially an upgrade. That said, The fact that abilities are tied to specific weapon drops rather than being unlocked through a skill tree that allows you to switch between ones that you can equip and unequip based on your preferences is just....fundamentally a bad game design decision. Not sure who at Team Ninja greenlit that idea but it severely limits your options in combat, unless you want to grind for gear that gives you the stats you want AND comes pre-equipped with the weapon abilities you want to use. That will also mean spending more time sorting out your menu options to keep several of the same kind of weapon to switch between so you have access to all kinds of abilities for a given weapon type. Essentially, that utterly contradicts and outright kills the entire purpose of streamlining the menus and gameplay aspects of this game in the first place. Not sure what Team Ninja is thinking here, but I'm praying that they fix this for the final build of the game, which is doable, since the system is already in place in Nioh, which this game is literally lifted from.

[Mustang]

The bulk of last week was me playing and watching mostly Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. One player in mind that I was watching was Milkynrco. He plays Magneto, Doom, Dante and the way he plays you can he enjoys the game. And looking at his team closely, each character individually allows you to play how you want. In my eyes there aren't many characters in the game that allow such freedom as those 3, yet some people will tell you that UMvC3 has so much freedom. I agree but I disagree with that sentiment. Those 3 characters plus Viper, Spencer, Ironman and maybe Thor and Spider-Man, but everyone else, not so much. The jury is still out on Vergil and Strider. I've seen some swag from them, and personally, I'd rather see more swag if it's available. You've seen me mention it before. I prefer swag over optimization any day of the week. To me when you swag you're making a statement, kind of like all the tea-bagging going on all over the place, but better in my eyes. Like I said, Strider and Vergil might have some swag but those characters, in a sense, if they're your anchor characters you're better off just being optimal. I've been seeing some point Vergil and point Strider teams though.

That being said, again, 2 teams for me. Magneto, Doom, Dante. Dante's toolkit allows for all the swag in the world. Magneto's speed and movement allows for swag. Doom's TAC infinite and his combo routes in general allows for him to swag. There will probably be times where I'll toy around with dropping Magneto for for someone like Ironman or Viper, you know, just for fun and testing stuff.

The other team. Magneto, Doom, Vergil. Yep, top tier for a reason. This is for when people start shit talking or I'm playing to win. Another variety of this one would be Spencer, Vergil, Doom. I know I said I was going to work on the shell of Dante/Vergil last time, but I can't bring myself to do that because the only characters I actually like with that shell is Zero and Strider. I hate Zero (never have been a fan of the Megaman series) and Strider bores me. Spencer and Spider-Man sounds great on paper and truth be told they are characters I want to try out with that shell in the future. We'll see. Another team I am eyeballing is Magneto, Spencer, Doom (if I ever get away from the Sparda brothers). That just sounds mean. The problem I have with Spencer is I can't fight Zero or Wolverine. They tear Spencer apart in the point battle.

I'm also starting to get that inkling of love for this game again too. Could be nostalgia or just putting more time into it, but that love is coming back. (could get back into my top 3 favorite fighting games again)

Let me leave this gem here you to see what I mean for Mags, Doom, Dante

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3k2pEnqKsk