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

@Ralizah The old games are worth it if You're invested in the world and characters. I enjoy the world but I reiterate the side quests are the good parts where your learn to appreciate the characters (more in later games) the main stories are generally terribly written.

Technically you don't need the old games for the new lad games, it's a fresh start with ichi, but old characters make some appearances including kiryu that are important to the story (and also discards the ending of 6............) but infinite wealth seems like it really benefits considering half the game you play terminally ill kiryu revisiting the places of his life which you presumably have experienced with him. "Critical", no, but the impact is different. Even adult haruka is there Even though I want to throw her from the millennium Tower after 5/6 . Dumb writing there.

Look well 0 you need money because money is exp in 0 and you need a LOT of it. It almost requires completing the hostess and real estate games.

Lol funny you'd say Joker for majima because the lone English dub on PS2 of Yakuza 1 featured Mark Hamill ad majimas VA! I love Hamill but it was horrible 😂

3 is the slowest of the games by far. It has its charm, is love or hate. Also horrible combat. It's the oldest of the remasters.

4 shakes things up with 4 protags. 5 also has 4 but one is harkas dance chapter. 6 is....ugh.

I adore the series. Mostly for side quests after 2. But some of that writing....

@Ralizah Also a PSA since it sounds like you didn't complete 0 yet but are mid Kw2, the second mini-campaign in Kiwami2, the Majima campaign, that you start on the main menu is a direct sequel/conclusion/closure to Majima's story in 0. Do not play it until you have finished 0.

Also (even though you're not playing it) the Hostess club game in Kiwami 2 is a direct sequel (for Yuki and the Sunshine arc) that won't have any meaning without 0's hostess club game.

@NEStalgia Geez.

Appreciate the heads up. I was gonna play it after finishing up the campaign, but yeah, I didn't beat Y0, so I'll go ahead and skip it for now.

So, based on what I've heard from you, I could complete the series in this order with little issue in terms of references and understanding plot points, right?

Kiwami 2 (current) --> 0 --> Majima Saga --> Like A Dragon --> 3 --> 4 --> 5 --> 6 --> Infinite Wealth --> [Insert latest game that'll be out at this point]

And do I need to worry about where in the series I play the Judgment spinoff duology?

@Ralizah Glad I mentioned it! Yeah, I think that order will be fine, the only "out of sequence" thing was that Majima Saga bit that was thrown into the Kiwami 2 remake as sort of fanservice to give closure to loose threads in Majima's story in 0, so it's really a stand-alone "epilogue" for 0 that shipped with Kw2.

3, 4, 5, 6 are a bit more coherent as sequels and narrative connections, while it's only 5 into 6 really run directly into each other as true continuous sequels where 5 ends on an obvious cliffhanger for its sequel that opens right into the same scene. (though...I have my opinions on that whole sequence.... )

LaD after 2 is fine. It'll be a weird kind of tone shift in that order because 3's opening scene starts in 2's closing scene but there's not an important story link other than the overarching living of Kiryu's life. And while Kiryu plays a role at the end of the story in LaD, it's not like it spoils anything other than throwing away narrative results from 6 because mascot. (I.E. Kiryu hanging out in the open in LaD is narrative inconsistent with him basically going underground at the end of 6, and then they made Man Who Erased His Name to retcon the plothole.) I'm certain by 2038 we'll be playing centenarian Kiryu ripping through thugs with his walker. Actually with RGG, that's actually likely, lol.

Nah, Judgement is a complete spinoff series. It does have cameos from main series characters, but they're just that, cameos, and it doesn't connect with their own stories, they just happen to exist in the same time and place because it's not like Kamuro's that big...

Zet Zillions dropped on PC. Picked it up to play on steamdeck. I am rubbish at these sorts of games for some reason, but still having a good time anyway. There is enough story packed between the battles to make it feel like you're still experiencing new things even with constant failure. The range of enemies and the strength of the visuals help as well. I won't say every run has felt unique but after a good dozen failures each run has been different enough.

In the same vein I picked up Inkbound and Monster Train. I am pretty sure I finished Monster Train years ago on Gamepass, I didn't realise I didn't own it on Steam so picked it up on sale and will chip away at this on Deck. In terms of Inkbound, I heard really positive things about this, but I have to be honest I am not really loving it. Kinda feels like a turn based Hades for a lack of a more eloquent descriptor and I thought it'd be for me but it really isn't.

The Getaway finally has RetroAchievements, time to see what the fuss is about. There really aren’t enough games set in the UK, weirdly enough.

This game is insane. Zero HUD. Navigate what looks like London if it’s been scanned with rudimentary satellite images, complete with Pret A Manger, Boots and so on. Use your indicators to find where the f**k the objective is, meaning if you bust your taillights you’re flying blind. To recover health you stand near a wall to make yourself heavy breathe a bit, WHICH IS NOT MENTIONED AT ALL. Truly wild design decisions… yet it’s kinda impressive for the time? Actually enjoying the jank as the vibe is excellent and the shooting is an interesting change from the usual third person controls of the early PS2 era. The voice acting is brilliant too, it’s like The Bill meets Snatch. Will never tire of the guy calling dead enemies f**king muppets.

Also… this was written by Bertie of Bert and Bertie? As in, directed a block of Hawkeye on Disney+? She’s done quite a lot of good stuff too. And, the craziest twist yet, the series has a spin off called Gangs of London on PSP. Turns out the TV show Gangs of London on Sky is an adaptation of it? So there’s a big high budget Sky show based on a PSP spin-off of a semi-obscure PS2 first-party game? Screw The Last of Us, this is the real Sony TV project.

I am around the 30ish hour mark into Unicorn Overlord now and it honestly might be my game of the year so far.

I deffo think if you were to have one criticism with the game, it has a real tutorialisation problem which can make it feel like you're running into difficulty walls fairly regularly. They often aren't that hard to overcome, but I do worry about whether that might put people off and I do wish they had done a better job of cleaning this aspect up.

And while that might be a deal breaker for me in other games, every other aspect of this is just so damn good. And addictive. So addictive.

It is funny because there was recently that divisive article on NL of this alternate future for the Fire Emblem series and while its not the vision that author envisioned, I feel like Unicorn Overlord solves a lot of Fire Emblems lingering problems for them and sorta feels like the actual future for what a Fire Emblem should be. Sure, it may be no Three Houses narratively, but as an actual game, I think it is significantly better built. Arguably that was true of Engage too, but I think Unicorn Overlord goes a leap or three even further on the gameplay frontier.

If the next FE - assuming it isn't already deep in its development cycle - doesn't take a long look at how Unicorn Overlord does things, I think it would be a mistake.

Might have to bin The Getaway. Persevered through 12 chapters of absolute hell only to get to the single worst chapter of any game of all time. The controls…. the f**king controls. Dreadful. There’s a lot going for the game but it’s practically unplayable most of the time. A remake with y’know, controls that worked, would be great.

@Malaise The lack of a HUD would be really cool if it was executed with any sort of competence.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is kinda disappointing. The original was this tight, suspenseful drama with a hilarious rivalry between you and Majima throughout that escalated in absurdity.

Kiwami 2 just feels like it's spinning its wheels for the entire game. Combat was dumbed down. I literally spent an entire chapter just trying to fend off some sketchy manager guy who was weirdly insistent on turning Haruka into an idol against her will. And this is after I fought off a bunch of tigers in a magical Japanese castle that rose from the ground like a LoZ dungeon. I know Yakuza is absurd, but that absurdity is usually grounded in reality. This was all just pretty stupid.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (PS5) - Currently (stuck) on the final boss. I've genuinely loved the game until now in spite of many things to nitpick about, however this final boss has to have the most disrespect of the player's time I've about ever experienced in a modern game. This thing is 10 phases long (with unskippable cutscenes), takes about 2 hours just to get to the end (even if you don't die on an earlier phase), with no option to save between any of it, and then once you get it's health down to about 10% in the last phase you have to finish it off in about 10 seconds before it charges an unavoidable OHKO move (all the while it spews this purple crap all over the place that flings you to the edge of the arena if it hits you).

No matter what I do I just can't deal enough damage in the absurdly short timeframe you have to finish it off (I even tried summoning Odin right before that final bit, but he seemed to be removed from the equation as soon as it started, which is BS. Also remembered that I had Limit Syphon on Cloud, so I was able to fire off two Limit Breaks during one run, however the game interrupted the second Limit Break's animation in order to trigger the OHKO animation which seriously ticked me off).

Sure, as long as you're still playing the game you can retry from that phase as many times as you want, however forgive me for not having the time to do so after spending 2 hours to get there in the first place (I tried about 5 times before having to put the game up). So now next weekend I'll have to start the whole thing over again from the beginning (I'll try doing it on Normal again this weekend with a few strategies I've read up on, but if that fails I'm not too proud to drop it to Easy the time after. If the game is going to BS me, I'll BS it).

Onechanbara Origin (Steam) - Years ago I grabbed a bunch of these low budget fan service games on PC in support after the "Sony Censorship" debacle first really started breaking. I'll pull one up occasionally and admittedly most of them end up being pretty mediocre at best, however as it turns out this one is better than most.

Sure, I probably still wouldn't give it much more than a 6/10, but it's fun. It's not terribly deep (or difficult), but the gameplay loop is fun, it throws new enemy types often enough (including frequent bosses) & only takes about 5 or 6 hours to work through the story mode so it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

Also not quite as pervy as many of the other games in this niche. Sure the leading ladies jiggle & don't wear very much, but it doesn't seem to have any modes that are voyeuristic for the sake of it (no "touching" mini games or the like) that you'd usually see in a release like this. The sexiness is just one element of the schlocky B movie horror vibe it has going on. Enemies dismember easily & pop like pressurized blood fountains dousing your player characters (& is part of a power up mechanic) as well as the screen, and one of the bosses is even a giant demon baby that uses it's umbilical cord like a whip. It's pretty twisted stuff, but fun.

Paper Mario: the Thousand Year Door (Switch) - Just retrieved the Sun & Moon stones & am headed to Hooktail's Castle, so I'm not too far in yet, but it's been fun so far. Never played it before, so it's nice to finally be able to experience something considered a classic.

Stellar Blade (PS5) - Started this a couple weeks ago as well, just finished off the 3rd or 4th boss, and it's honestly the most fun I'm having at the moment. If you've played the Star Wars Jedi games, this is pretty much those (now with copious amounts of jiggle), and those were some pretty darn fine games.

It's maybe not quite as ambitious in scope, but it still looks & feels very premium, and at least so far doesn't come with any of the performance hiccups or bugs present in the SW games, so I'd say it's a winner overall.

I was playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux on my 3DS until I misplaced the thing the other day, ugh.

I don't like the non-press turn combat (feels very similar to the system in Soul Hackers 2), the music is unpleasant, and the game has WAY too much dialogue in it, but the dungeon-crawling and demon collecting is still good fun.

I'm very much in an SMT mood and won't be sated until SMT V: Vengeance is in my hands. Maybe I'll start one of the older SNES games on my modded Vita.

Picked up the Monster Hunter Stories remake. I really loved the second one and I think that is kind of to the originals detriment?

When Stories 2 came out on PC, I had no access to Stories 1 as at the time I had no DS and I tried it on mobile and that's just not how I want to play my games, so I just gave up and pressed on with stories 2 without an knowledge of the original.

As such, this is the first time I am properly experiencing the original. And now I see that Stories 2 is almost like a remake of the first one, but with just a massive amounts of quality of life, balance adjustments and tweaks. So the whole time I've been playing the original I just can't help but feel like I am replaying a worse version of a game I already played and loved.

That isn't to say I think MHS is bad, but it really needs to be played I think with zero knowledge of the sequel, so you can just appreciate MHS for what it is and does, in a way that's much harder to do when you've already seen it done so much better by playing the sequel first.

Started playing Kirby: Planet Robobot on 3DS. I honestly feel like my summer gaming has been off to a poor start as Far Cry Primal just isn't doing it for me. So I decided to play Kirby as well and it's an absolute blast. Having Kirby pilot mechs is such a cool idea. It feels rather refreshing, which isn't something you say about Kirby games in general as they tend to be very similar. Anyway, really enjoying my time with the game so far.

I don't know why, but I got the feeling earlier that because I started playing this game, that a port might get announced for Switch at tomorrow's Nintendo Direct lol.

I have been playing Fire Emblem Awakening and seem to have sort of unintentionally soft locked myself. I tried to keep a healthy rotation on my units, but naturally some units are just more useful and better than others, so I had a core squad of MVPs and then a backup squad all on the cusp of promotion but not quite there yet.

I am at a point in the campaign where their difficulty design is two things, split your units into small packs and then wear them down with seemingly unlimited reinforcements, to create a slow attrition drain walk to the boss. My MVP squad just isn't deep enough to survive the push to the boss in the campaign any more though.

I figured I just needed then to get my backup squad the next couple of levels they needed to be promotable and then expand the roster, let them soak up some hits while the MVP squad continue their push, but the AI is programmed to ignore all common sense or logic, and just always beeline for your weakest unit. They'll literally run past like ten of your units just to kill the one right at the back and its like... wtf are you meant to do? How tf am I supposed to keep underlevelled units upright long enough to get any XP?

I can't turn the difficulty down any lower so I think I'm just stuck.

Unicorn Overlord solved this problem, cause you could use strong units to farm a material that just gave flat packets of XP to any unit you wanted, so you could just keep applying those to your weakest units until they're strong enough.

Here though, I dunno what to do. You can pair the weaker units with a stronger one, but if the stronger unit is killing everything, the weaker unit doesn't get XP on a participation basis, so they have to actively be involved somehow. You can pair a stronger unit to a weaker one to bump their stats, but it just increases their chance of getting absolutely dogpiled.

Today I’ve decided to pick up and play bowser’s fury. I’d say it’s plenty fun so far.

Started playing The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures on Switch today. The last time I played an Ace Attorney game was back in 2016 when Spirit of Justice came out. It feels great to be back playing this series again. I have to say though that my sense of deduction was terrible back then, so I'm curious to see if I've become better since then. I've only played the first couple of hours (still on the first case but I'm nearing the end of it) but I definitely feel more confident than I did back then. Although I do have to say that there are moments in this game, which are also present in the other games, where you have no idea where it's going with that specific reasoning. But I guess that's just part of the series' charm and I just have to roll with it. Anyway, I feel like this is going to be a great title to play during my vacation as I just love a gripping visual novel.

Still Wakes The Deep is my most recent, jumped in last night for about an hour. Good pacing, incredible character expositions and world building before everything goes to ****. I expect no less from The Chinese Room, they delivered something special in A Machine For Pigs and I’m seeing notes of it here already. Supposed to be a short game, so I’m hoping to finish it before heading to the Lake next week.

I've been re-playing the Sly Cooper series on my PS5, thanks to the PS3 HD Collection still being available thru PS+ Premium.

Just recently beat Sly 2: Band of Thieves, currently on Episode 1 of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

Currently trying to get Lost Odyssey out of my backlog to also stop myself from getting addicted to yet another musou or R* sandbox game. It’s a neat RPG, feels like a spiritual successor to FFX.