What game(s) have you been enjoying recently?

[Nyarlathotep]

Despite it being against everything I stand for in a game (at least from what I was hearing from outside the game itself)…

Zenless Zone Zero. I got into it this January and I’ve pretty much fallen in love with the characters and world itself. The fact it has character action gameplay that actually plays alright sets it FAR apart from its contemporaries in my mind.

The way it presents itself and its mechanics is also very unique, bordering on overly generous. The story lets you trial-run many characters for free, and there is a lot of effort evident in individual stories alongside events. The gacha gives back a lot of extra rolls on dupes.

I quite enjoy that you are able to quickly level agents up, equip them with a W-Engine, and then slide in some drive discs. Then you’re ready to tackle Shiyu Defense or any other myriad modes.

You actually get helpful pointers to where you can obtain level-up materials instead of buying it all using some insane MTX scheme. It feels like they actually want to have people play and enjoy it.

The characters actually feel like characters, people with fears and aspirations. Every one of them has their own story that links into the main plot. Mostly. Shungus… I’d get into specifics if I didn’t feel like I was rambling.

Oh, I gotta mention the music, San-Z makes the entire game feel like an EDM concert one fight and then a free-jazz the next. And there’s even J-pop if you factor in the recent Angels of Delusion and Astra Yao.

(I find it hilarious and fitting that Astra Yao’s Japanese Dub singing actor is May’n, the VA for Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier.)

All in all, ZZZ changed my opinion of Hoyo just because it stepped up and did something different from the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genericism depicted in so many big F2P titles.

[JDarkside]

Man I cannot get over how much I dislike ZZZ from just the most basic of levels.

I think my real issue with it, however, is that it’s so fucking gentrified despite taking the aesthetics of street culture, specifically black street culture. The people behind it already annoyed me for their complete inability to have people with a skin color darker than a very light tan in their games, but that gets magnified in their ripoff of the Jet Set Radio games, which at least had the decency to give a nod to the culture they were mining from by actually having a black character.

They took one of the flashiest, most unique styles out there and turned it into bog standard Gacha Anime Girl slop that absolutely refuses to even consider people having even slightly darker skin tones and I will never not be annoyed by that.

[NotJam]

I started playing Silent Hill F and so far my main takeaway is that my computer cannot handle it: the frame rate drops badly if I move the camera with any speed, even with all graphics settings set low. Weirdly turning off features that I’d assume would be expensive (indirect light, motion blur, anti-aliasing) actually make the stuttering worse? In fairness though I’m playing on a five-year old laptop that wasn’t a high-end gaming machine even when new, so not really the fairest of criticism.

With performance issues aside then I’m actually having a good time with this. Ebisugaoka is compelling to explore so far, and the design of the mannequin enemies is fantastic, especially the unsettling way in which they move. Neither puzzles nor combat have been particularly challenging thus far (combat especially: it’s a little too easy to defeat or evade enemies, which has detracted from the horror somewhat), and healing items seem perhaps a little too abundant for survival horror, but then I’m only around an hour and a half in, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they ramp up the difficulty over the course of the game.

I’m also hoping that the pace of the game relaxes a little - whilst first introducing the story, characters and mechanics it’s understandable that there’s frequent interruptions for cutscenes and tutorials, but I’d love to see slower paced sections where the player is challenged to truly understand a large, complex area rather than being shuttled between smaller, self-contained levels. I can absolutely see hints of this in various sections so far though, so I’m cautiously optimistic!

Conscious that this seems like a lot of complaining, but I am genuinely enjoying this so far, it’s just that I’m spoiled recently with so much fantastic survival horror available looking forward to seeing where the game progresses, so long as my laptop doesn’t explode lol

[Pixel]

Still playing Demon’s Souls. I’m now at the Poison Swamp and i hate it.

The poison is fine. I can live with poison. it’s the swamp preventing me from dodging that i have trouble with!

[NotJam]

Continuing my playthrough of Silent Hill F tonight - conscious that as I’m getting further into the game I’m entering spoiler territory, so I’ll use appropriate tags from hereon out for images and any spoiler-y text.

Made it a fair bit further this evening! The game finally opening up a little with exploration of the fields was great, and the difficulty has now started ramping up nicely. The minor boss fight against the big-sword-flower-monster was good fun too.

All that said, I do have some mixed feelings still. The scarecrow monster designs are fantastic, with the contorted forms all the more compelling with the more recognisably human features, and working out the puzzle of which scarecrow to examine was initially a nice challenge, but the section dragged on - after the first two or three batches of scarecrows it was wearing thin for me.

And then there’s the first full boss. The fight itself I think is genuinely excellent, clearly taking heavy inspiration from Soulslikes but nailing the execution. Moves are punishing but clearly telegraphed, with enough variety in attack patterns and reactivity to the player’s actions to make for a difficult encounter that’s a clear step up from everything the player has encountered to this point.

The issue is that I just don’t know if this type of boss is a good fit for a horror game?

It’s not that it’s lacking in tension - the fight is long, moves are damaging and resources scarce (at least on hard difficulty, can’t speak to other modes), and mistakes will be difficult to recover from. But it’s not the same tension I’m looking for in this genre. Death is almost inevitable whilst you’re learning the attack patterns and openings, and any fear that the game has generated is lost when you reload and try again.

I’ll continue to update as I progress, but as with my previous post I’ll add here that despite my complaints I’m having a fantastic time with the game so far! Also my laptop didn’t seem quite as close to catching fire this evening so that’s another win

[JDarkside]

Queen’s Wish: The Conqueror is done! Gonna start the second game later today.

Really enjoyed it, even if I had to bump down to casual difficulty for the last area because you really hit a wall with a progression system based around modding gear. Really like how well it showed how passively evil can manifest in people and how culture can justify it to them, and how every faction was a unique form of this. I also really liked it still made sure these were people, and you felt sympathy for them, with exception to some of the slave owning Mascha in order to make it clear how evil their slavery system actually was, but even then only some. It made decisions feel like they had weight without running into the problem I’ve seen from other games (coughmasseffectandromeda) where they just make everything a bad choice and therefore meaningless. Highly recommend it.

[NotJam]

Played again last night, but kept from posting to let it sit with me a little while. I’ve avoided commenting thus far on narrative and themes, partly to avoid spoilers, partly because trying to analyse a story I’ve yet to finish seems premature, but I’ve got to say it’s really working for me. Looking forward to seeing where tonight’s session will go!

This session was the school, and the “letting go” segment of the otherworld.

The school, whilst not as complex as I’d have liked in terms of exploration (I’d really been hoping for something with the scope of Midwich elementary from the first game) still made for an engaging location. The locker puzzles were good fun, with plenty of charm in the notes from the various students, and Rinko’s characterisation here, for me at least, straddles the line between sympathetic and horrible really well.

The Otherworld on this session was a big improvement from previous otherworld segments. Whilst a change of pace from Otherworld settings in the rest of the series, Shrine Path and Corridors had started to feel a little too similar and monochromatic, so the change here was very, very welcome. Spoilers: each of the friend’s sections felt distinct (Rinko’s section in particular stood out to me), and managed to address the character’s fears well, and Hinako’s abandonment of each in turn felt brutal.

It was also the first time I’d felt the game actually challenge me to study the map and approach an area with a plan - the door switch handles were great!

One issue I’m having with the game so far is the combat. It’s not that it’s not enjoyable - minor issues with the camera in tight spaces aside it’s actually pretty good - but there’s just too much of it, to the point I find it detracts from the horror. Each new area is less suspenseful as a result: the player is not left to wonder what that movement in the shadows might be if they’re able to just deduce it’s yet another basic enemy (I had the same issue with Silent Hill 2 remake, incidentally.)

Some stray thoughts, hidden behind a spoiler tag as they’re about specific enemy designs that I suspect would be best experienced without prior knowledge:

The Irohihi feels as though it has a particularly strong debt to The Last Of Us visually (I haven’t played, actually, and really should at some point), but it’s behaviour and attacks are quite uniquely repulsive. Makes for a deeply unpleasant enemy and an excellent fit for the game, even if I hate it lol.

The Hatcher is not a subtle design, and seems oddly placed in this section. I’ll wait to see where the game goes next!

As always I’ll end with my usual disclaimer that all of my issues aside I really, really like the game so far! I wouldn’t have nearly so much to say if I wasn’t so gripped by it

[Pixel]

Demon’s Souls is going well. I beat every stage except 1-4. The bosses for 4-3 and 5-3 were… honestly a bit pathetic.

5-2 too, but at least it had a challenging level to it.

I don’t know if i’ll do a wizard in Dark Souls when i reach it, but this is easy breezy so far.

Anyway, gonna see if i can beat the game today or tomorrow. I can’t imagine the final boss will be too easy.

[NotJam]

Well, I made it to the ritual and I guess the game isn’t going to pull its punches any more, that was quite something. I think the extreme, graphic violence and the bluntness of the message actually complemented each other really well here, leading to a sequence that feels suitably sickening, especially in how Hinako responds.

Gameplay through this portion of the game was a little underwhelming, with nothing much to the path up the mountain, and the main hall feeling especially repetitive in its combat encounters (even with the new abilities granted by Hinako’s transformation), but frankly by this point I’m playing more for the narrative and atmosphere. The boss battle that rounds out this section was strong though: the character design is fantastic, and while the boss took just a little too long to defeat for my taste the actual attack patterns were really well crafted.

Tangent - there were a couple of moments here that played out surprisingly similarly to something in the game I’m working on - I may have to revise mine as Silent Hill F pulls them off much more competently lol

Lastly, more spoilers:the taiko drum monster continues the trend of enemy designs that are not at all subtle in their meaning, although as with the ritual I found I actually appreciated how direct the game’s being with its message here.

[Pixel]

@NotJam

Well, I made it to the ritual

“Well Seymour, i made it to the ritual despite your directions”

[NotJam]

I reached Hinako’s house, which I found particularly frustrating because it was so close to what I wanted from the game. The different iterations of the house were all striking and distinct, with plenty of intruiging imagery and puzzles. Still, the solutions ended up being simpler than I’d hoped, with no need to perform more than a single loop of the different houses - maybe higher puzzle difficulties or subsequent playthroughs are more challenging? Feels like there could have been more to this.

Combat is getting to be really tedious by this point in the game, with almost every corner and event trigger prompting an encounter with a Kashimashi and Irohihi - it’s not a bad fight, forcing the player to focus on the more aggressive Irohihi but keep tabs on the location of the Kashimashi to avoid the grab attack, but by the third identical combat I was just so completely done with it. It’s not helping that enemies seem to be damage sponges on hard difficulty.

Despite my complaints, the narrative and thematic elements continue to be fantastic. Hinako’s relationship with her parents is awful to watch, and the conversation between Hinako and Other Hinako was fascinating. It feels as though the game is starting to wrap up at this point, I’m really looking forward to seeing how it ties together.

The boss fight at the end of the house was also excellent, both thematically and in terms of gameplay. My first couple of attempts were frustrating, with some stunlocks that felt cheap and unfair, but once I took a moment and approached the game on its own terms I found that the different demands of each of the opponents lent to a really tense and engaging fight, which rewarded careful positioning and timing.

The treasure hall was more of the same, really - engaging plot padded out with more combat. Thankfully, this section was relatively short, and the different playstyle within the Other World makes combat faster, so it wasn’t too much of a slog.

I suspect I’ll finish the game either tonight or tomorrow - genuinely can’t wait to see how it wraps up!

[edited to correct a typo]

[5007]

Still playing Card Forge.

I’ve made a squirrel commander deck (22 creatures and 17 of them are squirrels, plus lots of token generators for both squirrel tokens and food).

yerGonnaLoveMyNuts.mp4

[NotJam]

I finally finished it! Going to continue posting here rather than the Beatlog thread as it feels weird to jump to a new thread when the rest of my thoughts have all been over here.

Most of my thoughts right now are with regards to the ending, so are going to have to be hidden behind a spoiler tag. The handful of thoughts I have otherwise are largely a repetition of issues I’ve already discussed at length - the final gauntlet of enemies was definitely overkill as I was already ready to be done with the combat. Thankfully the game is willing to let you skip a good chunk of the encounters by now, but the ascent back to Hinako’s house was particularly tedious.

Still, I think it was all worth it - for me, at least, the game really sticks the landing (more thoughts behind the spoiler tag!).

There also continues to be some absolutely excellent visual design. The reveal of the fog monster’s true form is superb, with a sequence that’s going to be horribly triggering for anyone with trypophobia, and whilst I found the fight against the final boss to be a little underwhelming I suspect there’s reasons for that (again, more thoughts behind the spoiler tag).

The game locks you into a specific ending for your first playthrough, but I didn’t find I minded too much as I think it’s an excellent ending. Hinako, torn between two worlds, neither viable; Shu’s misguided attempts to help causing her madness - it all has a real tragedy to it that really worked for me.

I really do like the idea of Silent Hill not as a town, but as a form of purgatory and on the whole I found the game really delivered this. I really appreciated the game’s slow pacing allowing the player to gradually learn about Hinako’s instability, so that the final reveal felt like a twist, but one with a deep sense of inevitability to it. It’s evident there’s a deep appreciation for Silent Hill 2 here, but unlike many other games it does an excellent job at creating something highly specific to Hinako as a character.

I’m aware of the multiple endings, but as it’s unlikely that I’m going to bother to replay the game multiple times in order to get them given my many issues with the moment to moment gameplay: I think I’ll settle for watching them on YouTube. I did watch the “true ending” of Ebisugaoka in Silence - I’m not sure I’d really interpret this as a “good end”, as there’s a distinct sense of unreality about it, and the script repeatedly calls attention to the lack of any other people, but without having played the game fully to this ending maybe I’m lacking context?

I still might revisit at some point (with lower difficulty settings so it’s less of a slog, and after a reasonable interval) - the alternate final bosses look fantastic, and given I really enjoyed the boss design through the base game I’d quite like to see what their fights have to offer! I can’t help but wonder if the final boss for the first ending is underwhelming deliberately?

On the whole then - despite my misgivings with combat, this is a big recommendation for me for anyone with an appreciation for the Silent Hill series. It was a fascinating world to explore throughout, and one that handles it’s themes deftly whilst managing to nail the dreamlike tone that differentiates Silent Hill from other survival horror series.

[FrownyBiscuit]

I’ve finally been checking out Vampire Crawlers, the rogue-lite deck builder dungeon crawler and other genre words followup to Vampire Survivors.

Only a few hours in, and it seems… okay? So far it’s been really easy and not very engaging. Every dungeon has been like, just make sure you’re playing cards in sequential order as much as possible, and you win. I dunno. It hasn’t been actively un-fun, but nothing about it has been very engaging so far.

[JDarkside]

Picked up Your Crown Is Mine, a VN slash raising sim slash political strategy game made by someone really into Korean comics hopping on that otome villainess trend.

The premise of this one is fun. You’re the villainess of the story, sort of forced in the role by her fiancee breaking things off to marry a commoner he supposedly loves (this is a lie, this is a power play) and she decides to run in the election to be the nation’s next ruler out of spite. The fun part is that there’s a second villainess character from another country who quickly gets mixed up in things, and you have a lot of freedom to play the lead, Ludena, as nice or mean, proactive or passive, as you want. Also, both the heroine and the second villainess are romance options, and they’re both hilarious. I love the heroine is so absurdly pure and kind that it constantly throws everyone off, and that she has a crush of the villainess since before the story started due to her saving her life while serving as a guard, and partly entered that fake arrangement so she could enter noble grounds and meet her again.

I went ahead and made the TV Tropes page, which I’m gonna be working on for awhile. I on ly do this for things I get really obsessive over so that’s a huge thumbs up on if you should try it or not.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/YourCrownIsMine

[Pixel]

Playing Tokyo Jungle. It’s very interesting how the PS3/XB360 generation really revived the Arcade Score Attack genre.

I’m mainly trying to go through the story, so i’m glad i need to do arcade runs to unlock story acts. Also the way you unlock new animals is neat. I’m enjoying it despite the small size of the game map and repetition. It actually does a good job of many every run subtly different. It’s just a bit annoying how fast everything goes off the rails with big predators and toxic event occurring… but then again, it makes the runs not last too long.

One thing i don’t like is how many housecats i had to kill and eat as a pomeranian to unlock the housecat to play as. I like cats so i don’t like killing them.

[Pixel]

Tokyo Jungle update. 3 Story mode acts left and the last couple got kinda hard.

I do like the story of story mode. it’s a neat interconnected tale of two dog clans and a nomad lion-and-hyena horde.

i wonder if the deer will come back though. That one kinda stopped appearing.

It’s cool how the arcade mode will get me entrenched for nearly an hour when all i need to do is play for 20 minutes to get all the codex entries and maybe unlock an extra animal. The appeal is slowly waning but in a good way, in a “i’m not overstaying my patience” way.

And then, on Friday… Mina the Hollower.

[SMD]

100%ed donkey kong bananza, it was a lot of fun but didn’t quite scratch the itch of a 3d mario game. on its own merits, its more about solving puzzles trying to find all the collectables than actual platforming challenges. there are some, especially in the post game, but nothing like grandmaster galaxy or champions road.

first ever donkey kong platformer i’ve ever finished so i decided to go back and start donkey kong country again. they should make platformers a prestige genre again.

[Meow]

@Pixel

Playing Tokyo Jungle. It’s very interesting how the PS3/XB360 generation really revived the Arcade Score Attack genre.

Woah, it’s that phenomenon where you hear about something for the first time and then it pops up in your normal life somehow! I started Tokyo Jungle a week ago for the first time! My partner was really interested in it based on the description so we’ve been playing together. It’s a lot of fun, but I agree with your sentiment about the toxic and predators feeling a bit overtuned. But like you said, runs are meant to end before going on too long (I think especially for the earlier animals).

We were both distraught about having to hunt housecats in the game too, but then I played as a housecat and got some revenge on the pomeranians and felt a bit better haha.

[Pixel]

My favorite thing is when lions take over the train tracks and park areas completely.

I don’t think i’ve got any predators big enough to fight a lion yet. Dunno if i will play long enough for that either, lol. i need to intentionally take deaths early to avoid spending all evening on a score run.