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

Started playing The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap on Switch. Was in a mood to play another Nintendo game after having finished Fire Emblem Awakening and I realised it's been a long time since I played a Zelda game. I've played it for about an hour now and I just finished the first temple. It's a lot of fun thus far, it's very refreshing to play after my last Zelda experience, which was Breath of the Wild. Looking forward to play more soon.

Fancied some PS1 gaming, so playing Mega Man Legends 2 and Vagrant Story. Both games were ahead of their time when it comes to their visuals. They still hold up today.

Started playing the remake of Super Mario RPG on Switch. Played it for an hour so far and it's really fun. It clearly gives off 90s Square Enix vibes, which is nice. I decided to play it because I needed something else to play on the side when I need a break from AC: Valhalla. I also saw that the game is around 12 hours long, which is really short for an RPG. Which is why I chose to play it now as it won't be another long game alongside Valhalla.

I do love that despite having installed my uncle’s RTX 3070 he gave us, I’ve essentially used it to play upscaled SSX Tricky and PES 6. Played a bit of Quake 2 RTX and it’s very silly but quite fun to see how they’ll try and show off ray tracing next.

Started playing Hyrule Warriors Legends on 3DS today. I kinda regret buying this version as the Switch one looks so much better but I bought it before the Switch version was announced. It plays fine though and it has all the DLCs, which is good. Anyway, I got in the mood to play it after my friend was over yesterday and we played some Dynasty Warriors, which was the first time I experienced the series, and it was really fun. This game is also really fun as expected but it's much more simplistic, which I appreciate. Can't wait to play more of it!

Checked out the Romancing Saga 2 remake, I'm probably less than five hours in but enjoying it a lot so far. It throws really interesting ideas at you really quickly, but not in a way that will leave you feeling lost, it is impressive how ambitious a lot of ideas are, especially for a game that originally came out in the early 90s. Like I am not sure if I even like all the creative decisions it makes, but just sorta remain in awe of them anyway.

I've also started up two games on Series X today: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Definitive Edition) and Solar Ash.

So I was planning on starting up Wolfenstein II today but last night, for some reason, I dreamed that I was playing GTA lol. So I've been in the mood play GTA all day and I figured it makes more sense to play Wolfenstein later as I really want to play GTA instead. So I started up San Andreas, which is the last of the PS2/Xbox main trilogy that I haven't played yet. So far it's so much fun. I've really missed playing GTA as the last one I played was Vice City a couple of years ago. It's also nice to be playing the Definitive Edition as the graphics are great, the controls feel more modern and there are checkpoints as well as auto-saving. I'm really glad I waited to play this version.

As for Solar Ash, I figured I'd play a short game on Game Pass while I still have one week left of my subscription. It's pretty fun and it's heavily reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus, which is both good and bad. It's good because I think it's cool you're fighting on massive beasts. It's bad because the same issue I had with SotC is still present here, which is the controls. It's so wonky getting around on the beasts and I keep dying after only getting hit once. In other words, it's cool but it's also annoying. I'm still enjoying the game though.

Last year I picked up Fire Emblem Awakening during the slow period of the gaming release calendar. I got about 30ish hours into it, but then new releases came out, so I never finished it. I remember it getting really hard in the back half of the game too, so that helped motivate me to not go back. I couldn’t be bothered to start it all over again, so I picked up the special edition of Fates which includes the three routes.

After the first 20 chapters or so of Birthright were super easy, the difficulty spike since has been truly astronomical. I seem to run into the same problem in all Fire Emblem games where you eventually get to a point where enemies are so strong, trying to introduce and level new units basically becomes non viable and it's basically the same three Units you’ve levelled since early game that now solo entire maps for you. I got my very first gameover screen during Chapter 22 for this very reason, bringing my B-Team for the hope of some new promotions and getting utterly wrecked.

On a side note, it is weird cause Awakening is an older game but that lets you play in Japanese. This for some reason, does not. This would be fine if the dub was even serviceable but it's so bad it actually made me laugh out loud at times. It feels like a parody dub. There's an option to turn off the voice acting I'm not sure I've ever seen before, it's certainly the first time I've used it, that is for sure. I still have to listen to their post battle voices however and every time it sounds like a meme someone has edited in for a YouTube skit.

As such, I sorta have no feelings on the story at all. I suppose all Fire Emblem games have to be built around the permadeath modes, so that means they have to be constantly introducing new characters for you to repopulate anyone you lose along the way. But it feels like Fates absolutely barrels through locations, characters, story beats at such a pace that I just feel absolutely nothing for this story, or world, or cast. Possibly part of that is because I am playing with no voice acting, but I also think the writing is just kinda terrible in general, or maybe it is just the translation.

That being said, while all of that is true, there is something about these games is just so playable and weirdly addictive to me. Missions don't take very long, and you're constantly progressing something so it just makes it a real one more battle kind of hunger. The presentation for the battle animations still remains top notch, even if the overall visuals aren’t great being a ten year old DS game.

I also love all the weird classes they come up with, and while it seemed convoluted to begin with, using Heart Seals to go into different class branches to send characters in new directions became really fun during the later game when I really wanted to test the upper limits of my strongest units.

I dunno, this isn't necessarily a good game, but nothing else scratches the Fire Emblem itch quite like a Fire Emblem game. There are many imitators, and they may even out class FE in some areas, but that core FE gameplay is just unmatched for me.

Bought a new PC. Installed a bunch of games wanting to showcase my new hardware, but I haven't been able to play any of them, because I am hopelessly addicted to Marvel Rivals!

I have never really been an online PVP sorta fellow, but something about those early days of Overwatch really caught me. It is like a pocket of my life I look back on really fondly. My friends and I racing home from work or uni to sit down in front of the PS4 and spend our entire evening on Overwatch. These moments have become increasingly rarer as I've gotten older and schedules become harder and harder to line up. Overwatch was just in the perfect place for where my friends and I were all on our life journeys at that time, to fill a shared space between us all.

Rivals is the first time since those early years of Overwatch for a game to recapture that feeling for me, and my friends, and I am just loving it. A game so fun, my friends have to drop their other plans, and just jump on a Discord call and play a few rounds.

Marvel Rivals is extremely unbalanced and sloppy, but it is also mostly unserious too, even in Comp. There has been efforts to make every hero viable here, but there definitely seems to be a focus on first bringing these heroes to life properly first, and then doing whatever they can to bring it all into some semblance of balance. We can talk and argue forever about the benefits of what Overwatch eventually grew into, but it went into a direction that lost me as a player, and this is the first game of this nature to find me again.

Started playing Project Gotham Racing 2 on Xbox 360. The emulation on 360 is not good. The screen turns black when choosing cars, so I can't really choose which car I want. There's so much screen tearing during races and the sound cuts off when there are too many cars on the track at once.

As for the game itself, I'm enjoying it way more than the first one. Progression through career mode is better than in the first game. There are more difficulty options and considering this is an old game, the game is quite challenging so I'm glad I can play it on the easiest difficulty.

I'm unsure if I'll play through the career mode in its entirety as there have been moments where I just wanted to give up. But the races are so short and I'm progressing rather fast, so that's been motivating me to keep playing.

Tried Marvel Rivals yesterday for the first time on the Xbox. I only played for a little bit because of time but dang it’s so fun and I’d say it’s way more fun than Overwatch despite how much I’ve played that. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had with a hero shooter in a while.

I really like how the characters play and control, and one thing I appreciate the most was how all the heroes have a difficulty rating that shows how easy or hard they play, something Overwatch doesn’t do. So far I’ve played two matches and won both, even got MVP on my first match! Used Squirrel Girl for both of them and the way she plays is so fun. I love how bouncy and jumpy she is, and the fact she’s super easy to master too. When I play it a bit more, I’ll try to give some of the other heroes a try.

I've played about 12 hours of Avowed since the EA went live the other day. It makes a really strong first impression. I dunno if they can keep it up for the long haul, but its been a really long time since a game grabbed me this fast. It's like a delicious blend of old school BioWare cinematic RPGs, a classic Larian RPG and the Dying Light games. My monkey brain grins at the parkour challenge ahead of me, that I know leads to some loot. The monkey brain grins at the crunchy, tactile, first person combat and how impactful all the magic and abilities all feel. And the nerd in me grins at just how much agency appear present in how you resolve questlines. It may all be smoke and mirrors, but the greatest smoke and mirror is one that disguises a smoke and mirror from feeling like one, and they've near mastered that here. Oh and I have a big piece of wood growing out my face and everyone talks ***** about it who meets me.

A couple games into Civ VII and yeah it’s good. I would say it’s slightly more tiring than other games, less pick up and play, but there’s a lot of depth there. I do like the new system of switching Civs and it’s totally opened up the game. Definitely a lot of places to go once we start getting expansions.

Couldn't sleep, so I've been playing Resident Evil 2 on my PS one for the last couple of hours. I've just grabbed the cog and heading to the clock tower. It's weird going back to it after playing the remake, but it's still really enjoyable. I kept meaning to stop playing, but I couldn't pull myself away from it.

I'm continuing to play PS one games.

It plays pretty well. You can change it to a control scheme that isn't far off from modern controls.

Started playing WipEout Pulse on Vita. Still in a mood for racing games after having played through Project Gotham Racing 2 and 3. This is actually my first WipEout game that I'm playing through. I'm a bit unaccustomed to the floaty driving but other than that, I'm really enjoying this game. I like the campaign where there are different race events like single races, speed laps, zones etc., which is similar in structure to the campaigns in PGR 2 and 3 actually.

Decided to spend my Friday just trying out different games, while still grinding out ZZZ.

First up was Beastieball. A new early access Pokemonlike with battles that are based around volleyball (but still turn based). Makes a really solid first impression, but since its EA, I dunno how long it will be good for.

Tried out Path of Exile 2. Absurdly difficult. Felt like I hit a difficulty wall almost immediately and turned it off basically straight away.

Tried out Stalker 2. Made it further than I did with POE2, but still only about half an hour. Seems like an absolute slog. Not for me.

Stalker 2 did, however, inspire me to reinstall Singularity. The opening hour or two of that game still absolutely bangs, holds up way better than I expected it too. Pretty sure its only like 10 hours long, so might focus on getting a replay done of this this weekend. BioShock is my favourite game, and for some reason they don't really make many games like that, especially nowadays, so Singularity is like the next best thing outside of just replaying BioShock.

I also picked up Megaton Musashi W Wired, not had a chance to play this yet, but I loved Gundam Breaker 4 last year, and this seems like a very similar concept.

Gotta be hyped for Judas, eh?

@Pizzamorg Yeah Singularity is a banger and a under appreciated hidden gem.

Tried out Megaton this morning. It is mechanically very similar to Gundam Breakers which is what I expected and wanted. What I wasn't ready for is just how dark and twisty the story is, right out of the gate. Gundam Breaker is just about awkward teens playing an MMO together, this is certainly not... that. Not a negative at all, it just really caught me off guard, especially with the art style and general art direction it has.

Incredibly so! Rumours even suggest it could come out this year. I'm not sure it is ever going to feel quite real until it is in my hands.

I wonder if anyone has made a "Bioshocklikes" list anywhere, as I wouldn't mind playing through all of them. Feel like a lot of them just sorta got lost to time.