Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

I've been playing a lot more Persona 4 Golden, reaching the second main dungeon. It's brilliant so far. The major characters are great, it's got that top-notch Persona soundtrack, and I'm enjoying the mystery with the overall story.

It's one of those games where I can lose track of time with it, and can end up playing for hours.

Tomb Raider 3 just… isn’t particularly good? I dunno, I had my issues with 2 but this one cranks up the BS, is far too hard and yet isn’t all that interesting. I just finished Nevada and the Area 51 level was one massive maze with too many keys that you had to backtrack in order to use. In terms of level design, they’re such a far cry from the tombs in the first game or levels like Venice and the monastery from 2. In those levels you could basically see where you were supposed to go and the fun was finding the route in order to get there.

I've gone back to Monster Hunter Rise in anticipation of the release of the Sunbreak expansion in a month or so. They've added a ton of endgame content compared to when I originally dropped it, so there's plenty to do.

Shadow Hearts: From The New World for PS2

To be perfectly honest I really can't recall when I actually got this.

All I do remember is that the other Shadow Hearts games (especially Koudelka) were rather expensive at the time and this was rather cheap at £10-£15 for a new sealed copy so... I got this 😅

And yeah... This is the last Shadow Hearts game and a spinoff title from SH 1 and Covenant focusing on a new set of characters in America.

It's the black sheep of the series and oft considered for "killing" it with Aruze shutting down Nautilus not long after this.

... Never mind that Aruze was in the pachinko biz, only really wanted SNK's licences for Pachinko and didn't care about game development giving Nautilus only a year and a bit to make this (with 40% of it's development being apparently done in only 2 months)

But I digress.

This game is really wacky from what I remember (Mainly due to it's bizarre cast) and losing most of the horror tone the other games in the series were known for.

I only played an hour or so last night but... I'm enjoying it so far. The combat system in Shadow Hearts is really quite fun. Especially with the combo and double system once you get giving you some tactical choices in the turn based battles 😄

I'll be playing this on the side of YS VIII every now and again to spice things up juuuust a little.

@RogerRoger Even using save states in a similar manner to being able to save anywhere in Tomb Raider 2, it’s doing my head in! The traps are brutal, relying on trial and error which is totally incompatible with the save system. Sorry to see The Last Revelation didn’t blow you away this time, I’m intrigued to see where the series goes after 3. Also, if I remember right then you played the PSP version of Legend or Anniversary a while back and I was wondering if they were worth picking up? I have the PS2 versions anyway but I do prefer portable versions and I saw them going quite cheap.

@HallowMoonshadow I feel like they pulled an Evil Dead with that series, and the IP became increasingly comedic going from Koudelka, which, from what I've heard, is practically a survival horror game.

It's definitely a series I plan to explore sooner than later. Especially with how acclaimed Shadow Hearts: Covenant is.

Still getting on with Ys VIII?

@RogerRoger Hmm, seeing as I already have Legend and Anniversary on PS2 then I might just stick with those versions! It’s just a little bit more hassle seeing as I’ll have to dig out my PS2 or bother ripping it to my laptop or PS3.

I mean from what I've seen/heard of the other titles you're not wrong at all with that Evil Dead comparison @Ralizah.

I just watched a playthrough of Koudelka and it is very much a survival horror game... with grid based jrpg random encounters.

It has a rather interesting development from what I can gather with most the team being ex square employees and a slight differences of opinion on what it was supposed to be?

Koudelka also has some surprisingly good voice acting for the PS1. Then Shadow Hearts 1 was dubbed by 4 Kids voice actors for some reason

I'm not familiar with Shadow Hearts 1 or Covenant all that much to be honest aside from knowing the main character Yuri, 1 having bad VA throughout & Covenant being highly regarded.

As for Ys VIII? I've posted about it 3/4 times now in the ps4 game thread.

Long story short I've really enjoyed it 😄

I'm in chapter 4 & I just made it to the ruins and I was switched to Dana to plant a tree to help Adol out.

My only gripes so far are the plot has been, like the other Falcom games I've played, a slow burn & Chapter 2 with the whole Kiergaard, nameless ripper thing coming out of nowhere and getting resolved as quickly as it was brought up.

Well that was short lived.

My PS2 has... Not exactly broke but it's essentially unplayable now thanks to the laser ribbon poking up and scratching the discs.

SH: FTNW isn't too damaged thankfully before I noticed... But I'm still rather ticked off 😡

@HallowMoonshadow Oh no! That stinks. I have my PS2 in storage somewhere and I have no idea if it still works.
Are you going to try to crack it open and fix it? If it’s simply the ribbon out of line, maybe it’s a simple DIY job. 😄

Youtubers Life 2 Switch

Afraid not @Th3solution.

I have this condition and well... This video explains it best

... Ok so maybe that might be a slight exaggeration at how bad I am

But I REALLY wouldn't trust myself to do something as careful and delicate as that with klutzy fingers like mine. I'd probably end up breaking the entire thing.

I was getting in the mood for a whole retro/turn based jrpg binge too. I was gonna finally replay P3, P4, Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 and all sorts. Now that's completely out the window 😦

At least it wasn't my P3 FES disc in the PS2...

@HallowMoonshadow Oh no, that’s a real shame! I’m fairly unlucky with these things too, although my sausage fingers mean that while I’ve fixed a few controllers and consoles, I usually electrocute myself at the same time 😂

Well at least you've fixed up a controller and console @nessisonett despite getting shocked!

I attempted to fix a PS3 controller's R2 button the once and completely busted the button from ever being fixed.

Pretty sure I completely broke a PS2 controller trying to fix it somehow too.

It's a slim PS2 @RogerRoger.

@HallowMoonshadow Sorry to hear about your PS2. My PS2 Slim that I'd had since I was a teen broke five years ago or so, and I bought a replacement from someone in the neighborhood for a reasonable price. It's a fat one, unfortunately, but the thing works well all the same.

I finished the South Pacific in Tomb Raider 3. I’d say it was slightly better than Nevada. A more interesting environment for sure. The dinosaurs were really annoying though, they tore through Lara’s health. The kayak handles absolutely dreadfully too. Onto London now which is already brutal. Par for the course.

@RogerRoger While I’m getting through it slowly and steadily, I’d say that it maybe will put me off starting The Last Revelation straight afterwards. London’s already really hard and I’m literally just jumping around on fire escapes 😂

Having finished Resident Evil 4 (and wanting something else to play before starting up its bonus content), I decided to start playing Muramasa Rebirth on Vita. It's made by Vanillaware (13 Sentinels, Dragon's Crown, Odin Sphere developer) and I first heard of this game when it came out on Wii as it was described as a hidden gem for the system. So when I saw that the game had been re-released on Vita, I had to get it (which was apparently six years ago now).

I've been playing it for about an hour now and it's a very fun game thus far. It's basically a 2D hack 'n' slash game mixed with Metroidvania elements. It's quite challenging but as a result, it feels very satisfying once you get hang of the controls and the combat. This is definitely a hidden gem on Vita as well since I haven't heard many people talk about it. The pros of playing it on Vita compared to on Wii is obviously the portability but also that the Vita version got four DLC packs with dozen of hours of extra content, so I'm very glad that I got this version instead.

I also had another reason for playing this game now. I've had Odin Sphere Leifthrasir on my watchlist for numerous years now but never gotten it since physical copies have rarely received a discount. Now I'm seeing the game sold out but luckily, one store is getting more copies later this week and I wanted to know if it's worth getting or not. After having played Muramasa for a short while, and considering the gameplay is very similar to Odin Sphere, I definitely want to get Odin Sphere now.

@LN78 I'm not sure Muramasa even came out physically on Vita, at least not in Europe. I got it digitally during a sale years ago and was happy with that.

But yeah, it's hard to find physical Vita copies of anything these days. The version that I'll be getting of Odin Sphere will be the PS4 one. I sadly waited too long for a Vita copy and it sold out some time ago. Hopefully I can play it on my Vita through PS4 Remote Play given it has a fitting control scheme.

@LtSarge I tried Muramasa Rebirth way back and found it a nice game and beautiful, but I got stuck and frustrated so I just quit about 3-4 hours into it. Back then I had little tolerance or experience with Metroidvania styled games and have only recently come to understand the approach. It’s too bad, because the same thing happened when I played Guacamelee and other 2D Metroidvania games and I just got frustrated really quickly.