I’m playing Xenoblade Chronicles. I started it years ago and dropped because I was disappointed by the writing. Now I’ve been playing the other games in the series and gave it another shot. I am enjoying it now - the combat is more interesting than the one in 2 or X and the world is fun to explore. I do still find the characters a bit shallow tho and the story fails to create mysteries, as it spoils them immediately in an attempt to do foreshadowing.

I’ve had fun playing it with friends, especially Knockout Tour, but I’m not really sold on it: I’m not sure if it’s because of the increased player count, but items feel overtuned to the point that getting to first place seems meaningless or even detrimental to winning the race, as you’ll often get thrown back 10 places. Besides that, there is too much time spent driving on the roads between tracks, which are not as fun as the actual tracks.

Haven’t played Free Roam since I mostly played with friends and I don’t find it interesting, but it seems like a decent extra mode.

Also yea obviously it’s overpriced and not worth 80 €.

A friend got a Switch 2 with Mario Kart World, so we too played that for a bit. Knockout Tour is really fun, while I didn’t like that Grand Prix races have only one lap. I think the highways are better for KT since there’s 6 tracks and there’s more risk due to the elimination. Fun game tho not worth 80 € (or 90), nor a system seller for me.

The Switch 2 feels like a huge improvement over the original, the new joycons are much nicer and the 1080p screen looks much better. My only complaints are that the screen is an LCD without HDR (not a dealbreaker since it’s good enough, but still disappointing when considering the price). The other complaint I have is the battery, as it’s too small for the system. Playing Mario Kart in portable drained at least 50 % in around an hour.

I’ve finished Xenoblade Chronicles X DE and I kinda wish I didn’t. The chapter added with the remaster was terrible, it was completely unnecessary, a waste of potential and ruined everything the original story did. It felt like the writers didn’t have a plan so they just forced these 3 quests because they had to.

Still tho, the Wii U part of the game was good, as were the other DE changes, so I enjoyed it.

I’m finishing Xenoblade Chronicles X. I finished the original Wii U story, which was alright but

I’m now doing a few of the remaining side quests and I might try fighting some higher level tyrants before continuing with the new chapter.

I tried a couple of roguelikes, it’s a genre I haven’t played much so I was curious to try it:

I tried Hades. The story is probably good, but I just can’t stand the gameplay. I didn’t find the combat to be particularly engaging, it’s too button mashy and none of the weapons feel good to use. I consistently get to Elysium in 25-30 minutes, then die at the boss and end up having to redo everything just for an attempt at fighting them.

Similarly for One Step From Eden, it takes me almost an hour to reach the final boss, for which I’m not ready since it takes so long to get to it. I do prefer the gameplay of this one, there’s more variety in the bosses and there seem to be more options for builds, although I haven’t had success in deviating from the one strategy I found.

I didn’t really find the gameplay of either interesting enough to justify the grind, so I have dropped them.

I’m continuing Xenoblade Chronicles X. I’ve slowed down a bit, since last time I played like 45 hours in a single week and I’ve gotten a bit burnt out. The game has also become a bit stale since since I’ve unlocked all the (main) mechanics and the mechs were disappointing.

I’m not saying the game’s bad or that I’m disliking it, but it feels too simple and repetitive for what the setting and mechanics could allow.

I’ve been playing Xenoblade Chronicles X.

The combat is pretty fun. It’s a bit more complex than the other two Xenoblade games I played (1 and 2), as there are more support skills you can use and overdrive requires a bit of planning. Enemies also have breakable parts, which add a bit of decision making during combat, although it does still feel a bit passive as there aren’t many enemy mechanics to interact with.

The main story is fine and the sidequests are pretty good. They are very short, but they have interesting stories. The “affinity” quests feel like they are the focus of the game instead of the main story.

I played a bit of Phantasy Star Portable, but my PSP’s battery is half dead and I’m waiting for a replacement so I didn’t play long. Seems like a fun game tho.

I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I have a few thoughts about it.

The gameplay starts slow, too slow to be interesting, but after around 20 hours you unlock all the main systems and it gets really fun. It is however dragged down a bit by how bad the blade gacha and how grindy other secondary mechanics are (affinity charts and region development/mercenary missions).

The story was fine, it was pretty standard for a JRPG. I felt like the main characters were more interesting than the ones in the first game, but the overall plot and themes were a bit weak.

The story feels overall a bit rushed towards the end (especially the ending comes abruptly, I was expecting it to be a fakeout) and weirdly unfocused before that, but still engaging enough.

Nay, but I have a few exceptions:

FFXV really benefits from the open world and never felt copy pasted like most others.

Outer Wilds (if that counts) could obviously only exist with a continuous map.

While I dislike most open world games, I don’t think it’s an issue with the open world itself, but with how shallow the games end up being as they all copy the same formula and they all seem afraid to hide “content” from you, so exploration gets trivialized.

After La Mulana I wanted to try more Metroidvanias, so I tried Castlevania: Symphony of the Night but found it incredibly dull and dropped it after a couple of hours.

I understand the historical significance of its level design, but the combat was so easy that traversal became boring, as enemies respawn every time you change rooms. Also, the sprites are beautiful and detailed, and the game looks great, but Alucard’s movement feels off due to the animation.

I then switched to Touhou Luna Nights, which was really short but fun. The time stop gimmick was fun to use and I liked the bosses. The metroidvania aspect was a bit shallow, probably due to the length of the game, as it’s mainly used for optional powerups.

I started playing Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. It seems like a fun game, the writing seems really cheesy (but enjoyable) and the combat is fun. A big problem tho is a bug that keeps triggering a slowdown at random times, which is really annoying and got me killed in a bunch of encounters.

Finally, I wanted to play Infinity Nikki, but I kinda lost interest with how the developer has been behaving lately. Can never trust gacha games.

I’m finally free from La Mulana. It took me 50 hours, and I had to look up hints for a couple of puzzles that I couldn’t figure out towards the end (and I’m still not sure how you were supposed to solve them without guessing).

The puzzles were manageable for the most part, although not knowing what solving a puzzle did made it needlessly more confusing and IMO a bit unsatisfying.

I found the combat to be too hard and unfair in boss fights and the hitboxes were really bad as they often didn’t match the graphics.

I’m conflicted on if I enjoyed it or not - the experience was quite unique (for good or bad), and the game being hostile and designed to waste as much time as possible is a big part of that identity.

The weird controls grow on you and navigation never got boring, as you plan a safe path through the screen. I found the story to be surprisingly interesting, the puzzles were memorable and while I disliked most boss fights, I did enjoy the final one and the previous quite a bit.

Probably gonna play the sequel sometime and also other metroidvanias, as it’s a genre I haven’t paid much attention to.

Understandable, yea.

The puzzle part feels like Outer Wilds, but without the log to help you and it’s also a bit less linear, which I’m personally enjoying but I can see why it could be boring.

The platforming/navigation is a bit janky but usable after a while.

The combat is IMO absolute garbage (the bosses in particular are pretty bad fights that waste your time and the hitboxes are terrible) and wouldn’t be surprised if this is what makes most people quit.

For now at least, the exploration and puzzles overshadow the negatives, but they are pretty big negatives that are hard to ignore.

I’ve been playing Under Night In-Birth II. I had bought it last year but never actually played it. After this first week of matches I’d say it’s my favorite in this latest “generation” of figthing games.

I randomly bought Azure Striker Gunvolt on Switch, since I rememberd hearing good things about it when it came out, but it’s not much fun to play. It feels really unpolished, the levels and bosses are a bit on the annoying side and the combat gimmick, where you need to tag enemies with projectiles to be able to damage them, feels really bad to use as it’s slow and unsatisfying.

Everyone playing Blue Prince reminded me of La-Mulana, which I’ve been playing in the last few days. I’m a bit conflicted on it, since I like most of what the game does except for the combat which I find rather bad and unfairly punishing when considering how imprecise it is. I am enjoying the game, although I’m a bit worried it might be too long.

Played Splatoon 3. The different modes are really fun, except for Turf War which kinda sucks. It’s the first time I’m trying to learn how to play a team game and I’m confused on how to improve, but I’m having fun with it.

For some reason tho Nintendo thought it was a good idea to do two day events (“Splatfests”) periodically which lock you out of any mode beside Turf War for their entire duration, so I went looking for other competitive games:

I went back to Guilty Gear Strive after dropping it for more than a year, but after playing it for a few hours, I still don’t like how sluggish the game feels and I’m not too happy with the modern design trends in fighting games (or in general the curent state of them). The biggest issue that stops me from playing tho is the terrible online experience which still hasn’t been fixed after 4 years.

Not much this week, been looking a lot at the Switch 2 trailers.

I’ve played Heavenly Bodies with a friend. We liked it, although it wasn’t really designed for two people.

I’m back to Fire Emblem Engage, played chapter 16 which took me ages.

I feel like that kind of price increase would encourage illegal downloads too. Especially for countries with weaker currencies

I wonder if that’s why they’ve been more aggressive against emulators lately.

But yea, same for me: there’s very few games I’d spend that much money on, and I can’t imagine myself paying 80$ for something I don’t even know if I’ll like. I hope it doesn’t become the new standard.

The +$10 for physical games also worries me they might be trying to push more people to digital games only. But also there seems to be the new “game key” cards which might be an improvement over codes, if they are not tied to accounts.

Also yea, I am still not used to $70 for games and even that seems too much.

Quite disappointed with how they are now going for $90 (physical, $80 digital for MKW) games, the upgraded versions are paid DLCs and even the tech demo is a digital purchase.

The console looks good, and $450 seems fine for it, but everything else looks overpriced and that has kinda killed my interest.

I’ll probably wait a bit to play III, but I’ve heard it’s alright from people who hate I and II. Although I’ve also heard that IV is not good.

Azure and Zero are definitely the best ones, I really liked FC and SC, although they do have some problems (the first half of SC is pretty bad, and the same problem with ouroboros I mentioned before) and I think 3rd has an interesting story, but bad gameplay and pacing.

Randomly trying games on my phone, I downloaded Infinity Nikki and I’ve been hooked for the past few days.

I like the customization, especially when compared to the more limited one in FFXIV, although I wish it had dyeing (and more jackets). Compared to other gacha games, I like how “the grind” is more focused on crafting clothing instead of just leveling up, although resources (and by that I mean the timed energy) feel a bit too scarce.

I finally finished Trails of Cold Steel II, or more accurately I watched the final story cutscenes because I gave up towards the end of the final dungeon (Which I’m glad I did because it otherwise would have been a waste of time).

The duology was really bad, I don’t think there’s anything positive I can say about it, other than that it’s finally over (hopefully III is actually better as I’ve heard). I’ve already complained about the characters in previous, so I’ll now complain about the rest.

Overall I think the two games were bad in the worst way possible: they were a boring waste of time.

Trying to finish Trails of Cold Steel II.

My opinion hasn’t really changed on it from last time, it still drags and most of the game feels like padding, the characters are uninteresting and the combat is a downgrade from the older games. The tone of the writing also really doesn’t fit the setting and that bothers me a lot.

As with CS1, the bond system feels unnecessary and it’s not really used for character growth (which would have probably been fine if they were interesting in the main story). I’m still playing only because I really liked the previous games, otherwise I’d have dropped them early into CS1.

Borrowed Nine Sols and tried it for a few hours. It seems quite good, I really enjoy the art and parrying feels really satisfying.