What other games do you like / have you been playing?

[KawaseFan]

If you feel like sharing with us any games you'd like to recommend, your top games of all time, or what you've been playing recently, please do tell us!

Personally, recently I've been playing Smash Bros. on 3DS and having a great time, and with Valkyria Chronicles having just come out on PC I've been playing a bit of that too.

[Nicole]

Alright, I'll bite! I've got way too many recommendations though, and way too much to say about them, so I'll probably end up rambling, but here goes. I'll be bolding the names of games I mention so they stand out a bit better.

Okay, so, speaking generally here, I'm a big fan of the former game studio Love-de-Lic, and the various companies it eventually spawned, like skip Ltd., Punchline (now defunct), and Vanpool. Unfortunately, it's mostly the latter companies whose games you can really play, since Love-de-Lic's games were never released outside of Japan, and there's no fan translations yet (though one is ongoing for Moon: Remix RPG Adventure). The big thing I like about their games is the atmosphere they have -- a number of them look fairly innocent on the surface, but there's darker undertones involved too, and they're often just bizarre in general.

In any case, first and foremost, I want to recommend Chibi-Robo!, which in my opinion is probably one of the best GameCube games ever made (certainly my favorite, anyway). It's an action-adventure game where you play as the titular Chibi-Robo, a 20 cm tall robot whose purpose is initially to clean the house of his owners, the Sandersons. It turns out that, akin to Toy Story, the various toys in the house come to life when no one's around, which gives the game a deceptively childish atmosphere -- but eventually gets rather creepy at times, and starts tackling topics like death, debt, divorce, and things of that nature, as you help sort out the various dysfunctions of the Sanderson family and the toys who live in their house. I'd definitely say that a major part of what made Chibi-Robo! so good was the atmosphere it gave... which is a shame, since none of its sequels really kept that part of it. I do hold out hope that a Chibi-Robo! sequel as good as the first one will come out one day -- the series is still alive for the time being, the latest installment being Photo Finder for the 3DS -- but I'm not really keeping my hopes up, since it's been passed off to different people from the looks of things.

The other one I'll mention from the Love-de-Lic family tree is Chulip for the PS2, which I'll be a bit shorter about, since I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet. Essentially the idea is that you're a boy from a poor family who recently moved to a small town with your dad, and you get a crush on this girl. Unfortunately, your reputation is poor enough that you get rejected right away, so to boost your reputation and strengthen your heart enough to gain some confidence, you... set out to basically kiss every single person in the entire town, because that will help things... some...how...... Interesting premise, but this one's a simulation game complete with day-night cycle, and you often have to wait for the right moment to pull off a kiss without getting slapped. So if waiting around's not really your thing, Chulip might be a bit tedious, but I'd still recommend giving it a shot.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Love-de-Lic style games tend to be fairly text-heavy, and not many have translations, so I can't think of any others off the top of my head that I could recommend right now. I haven't played enough of Rule of Rose to say whether I'd recommend it or not, though I've heard good things about it. I do know that the scripts of Giftpia and Captain Rainbow are translated, but there's no actual patches for either of them yet, so you'd have to consult a text file the whole time you're playing...

Hmm, what else... Regarding other obscure games, Cubivore for the Gamecube is a fairly unique game, if simplistic. It mostly involves playing as an animal made of cubes and ripping the limbs off of other animals made of cubes, which is... surprisingly violent, actually. It does get a bit dull, though, and I can't say much favorable about the graphics or music. It might be worth a shot, though it isn't really one of my favorite games.

Suzuki Bakuhatsu for the PS1 is absolutely worth a mention, though it was an incredible hassle to track down the ISO for it... I think I ended up finding it in the Emuparadise forums. The game's in Japanese, though you don't need to know it to play. I think this one's worth checking out just for the absurdity of its premise, which is batshit insane to the point where I think it's better just to go in blind. I don't really want to spoil anything, though I will mention it's a game about disarming bombs.

Incredible Crisis for the PS1 is another game that's completely nuts. This one's basically a bunch of mini-games, but the story itself is just bizarre. The soundtrack is excellent though, in no small part due to the fact that it was performed by the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Here's a representative sample of what sort of things you'll find in this game. (Unfortunately I have to link to a full longplay rather than just a video of Taneo Dance Fever, since all of the videos I could find of just that mini-game were either bad quality, had bizarre graphical glitches, had disruptive commentary, or the player just kinda sucked at the game.)

LSD for PS1 is probably one of the more widely-known ones on this list, but for posterity, LSD is basically a first-person "walking simulator" where you basically stare at weird shit, then walk into it to end up somewhere with even weirder shit. It certainly fits its name, at any rate. There's not much gameplay as far as LSD goes, but I would recommend it just for the experience.

Oh, and how could I forget! I definitely recommend the fan translation of Sweet Home for the Famicom. Sweet Home has to be one of the most polished NES games out there. It's the game that inspired Resident Evil, though Sweet Home is actually more like an RPG or adventure game. Essentially, it's a game where you have to manage five main characters who are trying to escape a haunted manor. Each character has a special item with its own required use for different situations, as well as a small inventory per character. However, you can't keep all five together at once, because only three people can be in a single group, so you'll actually be switching control between two parties usually. It has some really unique gameplay and a decent length, yet manages not to get repetitive and has a wide array of visually distinct areas. On top of that, it's aged incredibly well, especially for an NES game, so I definitely recommend checking that one out!

EDIT: Holy shit, that's a lot of text. I didn't realize it'd be this MASSIVE WALL until after I actually posted it. Oh well!!

[KawaseFan]

Now I feel like I should've put more effort into my post!

Thanks for the recommendations!  I will have a look into all of them if I can.  In particular I'm most interested in Sweet Home, and you've definitely got me wanting to try Suzuki Bakuhatsu.

[KawaseFan]

You weren't kidding about Suzuki Bakuhatsu!  Quite bizarre, I enjoyed it.

Have you finished Chulip?  It's interesting that the impression I'm getting from having a quick look around the web is that, while professional reviews seem to have been very mixed about it, everyone else who's played it seems to love it.

[Nicole]

I still haven't finished Chulip yet but I've played a fair bit more since then. Anyway, I'm not really surprised that there are mixed reviews for it, because the game does have its issues.

One of these is the fact that its localization was somewhat half-assed. It was translated by Natsume, and though I'm not entirely sure how they are nowadays (Sayonara's the only recent game they've translated that I've played), at least in the PS2 era, they were pretty iffy. In addition, Punchline was never really a big company, so I can imagine the budget for the Chulip localization was rather tight overall.

Anyway, the translation itself isn't so bad. The real problem is that, though they translated all of the text, there were two major things they didn't translate.

One is that, over the course of the game, you can find film canisters, which you can later watch at the movie theater. They're 20-30 second long silent movie clips, and don't have any bearing on the game itself (though you have to watch a specific one to get a kiss from Goro). However, the text in them wasn't translated at all, meaning most of the clips make no sense if you can't read Japanese. It's a very small part of the game, but it seems really sloppy.

The other thing is that none of the voice clips were translated. There's only a few in the game, and they're not too important, but it's a bit of a pain regardless.

One of these cases is a point in the game where you have to do morning exercises during a factory tour. Though there is a bulletin board earlier that tells you which buttons to press, this is more a poor workaround for the fact that you're told which buttons to push during the exercise itself... but in Japanese, not English.

The other case is more a problem of localization, or the lack thereof. There's a puzzle in a playground where markings on the ground correspond to train stations in Japan, and you have to lead someone from marking to marking in the correct order as he tells you which station to go to next. Not too bad if you're actually Japanese, but otherwise you're completely lost -- or, at least, you would be; more on that in a bit. And this ties into something that's more a problem with the game itself.

So, Chulip is sort of a puzzle game, in that you often need to figure out when and how to kiss someone. You might have to do certain things, or wait in a certain place at a certain time... and some puzzles can be very obtuse, with little to no hints on how to do them. Furthermore, if you fail them (either because you didn't know what to do or... literally just random chance. Seriously.) that means you have to wait another day before you can try it again.

It's actually the sort of game I'd recommend emulating (so you can just restart from a save state if necessary) and using a walkthrough for (so you actually know what to do). And, at least on that latter point, Natsume actually agreed with me, because the English Chulip instruction booklet (unlike the Japanese one) actually gives a lot of puzzle solutions, including that train station one I mentioned earlier (again, more of a workaround than actually localizing, but useful nonetheless).

Now, the thing is, despite its shortcomings (and it does have shortcomings), Chulip is a good game, as much as my rambling about its problems might have masked that. Its execution can be lacking at times, but it definitely has a very unique atmosphere... sort of childish with some disturbing undertones, I guess? (One of the people you can kiss includes a man in full BDSM gear...)

In any case, I did enjoy it in spite of these things, but I do acknowledge that it's probably not for everyone. I do think it's definitely worth giving a shot, at least.

[Nana]

You've got pretty killer taste, Nicole. I adore Love De-Lic's work, including the offshoots like ChuLip and Rule of Rose. I'm a huge fan of Osamu Satou, too. LSD is a fantastic game.

As for some other obscure games, I figure it's worth mentioning a couple of games about movement, considering this is an Umihara Kawase forum.

Chain Dive is an awesome PS2 Japan-only game by the developers of Malicious. It's quite simply about having an awesome grappling hook, rocketing through the air to some chill techno music, and slashing down enemies with an ice sword at 100 MPH. I highly recommend it to everyone here. Here's a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3eZSq_YRZI

Gunvalkyrie is one of my favorite games of all time, though possibly undeservedly. It's an Xbox exclusive (unfortunately), and is developed by Smilebit, more popularly known for the Jet Set Radio and Panzer Dragoon series. It plays sort of like a combination of both -- imagine a game where you're given a jetpack with only 2 seconds worth of fuel, but if you know how to work the system, you can fly through and clear entire stages without ever touching the ground. You do this by performing a series of boosts, flips, turns, and general acrobatics all whilst shooting down enemies with a homing lock-on gun ala Panzer Dragoon. It's easily the most original control scheme I've ever used, and it feels absolutely wonderful once you get into it. Great music, (some) great stages, and just an incredibly smooth and original experience.

Unfortunately, it's also very obviously unfinished. Half of the material shown in the launch trailer didn't even make it into the actual game. And aside from that, reviewers weren't able to figure out the controls, so it got almost exclusively bad reviews since people were trying to play it more like Halo 2 than a free-moving Space Harrier. And nobody on youtube knows how to play it either. ;_;

[KawaseFan]

I still haven't finished Chulip yet but I've played a fair bit more since then. Anyway, I'm not really surprised that there are mixed reviews for it, because the game does have its issues.

One of these is the fact that its localization was somewhat half-assed. It was translated by Natsume, and though I'm not entirely sure how they are nowadays (Sayonara's the only recent game they've translated that I've played), at least in the PS2 era, they were pretty iffy. In addition, Punchline was never really a big company, so I can imagine the budget for the Chulip localization was rather tight overall.

Anyway, the translation itself isn't so bad. The real problem is that, though they translated all of the text, there were two major things they didn't translate.

One is that, over the course of the game, you can find film canisters, which you can later watch at the movie theater. They're 20-30 second long silent movie clips, and don't have any bearing on the game itself (though you have to watch a specific one to get a kiss from Goro). However, the text in them wasn't translated at all, meaning most of the clips make no sense if you can't read Japanese. It's a very small part of the game, but it seems really sloppy.

The other thing is that none of the voice clips were translated. There's only a few in the game, and they're not too important, but it's a bit of a pain regardless.

One of these cases is a point in the game where you have to do morning exercises during a factory tour. Though there is a bulletin board earlier that tells you which buttons to press, this is more a poor workaround for the fact that you're told which buttons to push during the exercise itself... but in Japanese, not English.

The other case is more a problem of localization, or the lack thereof. There's a puzzle in a playground where markings on the ground correspond to train stations in Japan, and you have to lead someone from marking to marking in the correct order as he tells you which station to go to next. Not too bad if you're actually Japanese, but otherwise you're completely lost -- or, at least, you would be; more on that in a bit. And this ties into something that's more a problem with the game itself.

So, Chulip is sort of a puzzle game, in that you often need to figure out when and how to kiss someone. You might have to do certain things, or wait in a certain place at a certain time... and some puzzles can be very obtuse, with little to no hints on how to do them. Furthermore, if you fail them (either because you didn't know what to do or... literally just random chance. Seriously.) that means you have to wait another day before you can try it again.

It's actually the sort of game I'd recommend emulating (so you can just restart from a save state if necessary) and using a walkthrough for (so you actually know what to do). And, at least on that latter point, Natsume actually agreed with me, because the English Chulip instruction booklet (unlike the Japanese one) actually gives a lot of puzzle solutions, including that train station one I mentioned earlier (again, more of a workaround than actually localizing, but useful nonetheless).

Now, the thing is, despite its shortcomings (and it does have shortcomings), Chulip is a good game, as much as my rambling about its problems might have masked that. Its execution can be lacking at times, but it definitely has a very unique atmosphere... sort of childish with some disturbing undertones, I guess? (One of the people you can kiss includes a man in full BDSM gear...)

In any case, I did enjoy it in spite of these things, but I do acknowledge that it's probably not for everyone. I do think it's definitely worth giving a shot, at least.

I'm sorry I didn't respond to this!  I feel bad about it, I really do appreciate that you've taken the time to talk about Chulip in detail.

So, I've had a look at videos on YouTube and I'm definitely going to play it.  I'll emulate, but I'll try to resist save states unless I absolutely have to.  But yeah, failing puzzles because of random chance would be annoying.  I'm also shocked that they didn't translate the text in the movies, or those voice clips - the game having originally been released in 2002 and coming to North America in 2007, there was plenty of time.  It also seems really clear to me now why it never got a PAL release.

I suppose it was nice of Natsume to at least include those puzzle solutions instead of just leaving you on your own.

Anyway, it's definitely on my to-play-soon list.  I can take a few issues in a game as long as the rest of it is great, and besides those issues it really seems like something I'll enjoy.  Thanks again for the recommendation!

You've got pretty killer taste, Nicole. I adore Love De-Lic's work, including the offshoots like ChuLip and Rule of Rose. I'm a huge fan of Osamu Satou, too. LSD is a fantastic game.

As for some other obscure games, I figure it's worth mentioning a couple of games about movement, considering this is an Umihara Kawase forum.

Chain Dive is an awesome PS2 Japan-only game by the developers of Malicious. It's quite simply about having an awesome grappling hook, rocketing through the air to some chill techno music, and slashing down enemies with an ice sword at 100 MPH. I highly recommend it to everyone here. Here's a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3eZSq_YRZI

Gunvalkyrie is one of my favorite games of all time, though possibly undeservedly. It's an Xbox exclusive (unfortunately), and is developed by Smilebit, more popularly known for the Jet Set Radio and Panzer Dragoon series. It plays sort of like a combination of both -- imagine a game where you're given a jetpack with only 2 seconds worth of fuel, but if you know how to work the system, you can fly through and clear entire stages without ever touching the ground. You do this by performing a series of boosts, flips, turns, and general acrobatics all whilst shooting down enemies with a homing lock-on gun ala Panzer Dragoon. It's easily the most original control scheme I've ever used, and it feels absolutely wonderful once you get into it. Great music, (some) great stages, and just an incredibly smooth and original experience.

Unfortunately, it's also very obviously unfinished. Half of the material shown in the launch trailer didn't even make it into the actual game. And aside from that, reviewers weren't able to figure out the controls, so it got almost exclusively bad reviews since people were trying to play it more like Halo 2 than a free-moving Space Harrier. And nobody on youtube knows how to play it either. ;_;

See, this is what I mean - other than reviews, everyone I see talking about Chulip seems to really like it!

Thank you for your recommendations!  Holy shit, Chain Dive looks awesome.  I have to play it.  I've been wanting to play Gunvalkyrie for a while but unfortunately I don't have an Xbox.

[Nicole]

Oh geez, Chain Dive! I played a demo of that years and years ago tucked away in the options menu of some demo disc. I'm not sure if it was ever planned for localization or anything, since the demo was still in Japanese, and relatively hidden, but yeah, I forgot about that game! I remember it being pretty fun, so it's definitely something I should check out at some point.

As for Gunvalkyrie, I remember it catching my eye in a pawn shop a couple years ago, but unfortunately not enough to buy it... Luckily I still own an Xbox, so I guess I'll have to track down a copy.

[CyanideBlizzard]

Oooh! A games thread!

Goodness, well I'll try to keep things a bit short since there's been a lengthy list of games I've been playing recently.

For PSP, I've been finally getting around to playing some of the tales games, mainly Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Rebirth, and Tales of Destiny 2. Of course, I don't know a word of Japanese so it keeps me on my toes, but thank goodness for strategy guides.  I've also started to revisit Fate/Extra.

For 3DS I've finally gotten around to playing Etrian Odyssey Untold.  I really enjoyed the way they handled the story aspect with the set characters and found drawing out the maps to be far more satisfying than I probably should.  While outside of that, I've found myself revisiting Touch Detective and Touch Detective 2 1/2.  Tempted to get my hands on the third game, but I'm going to wait for a (probably not likely) translated release.

PS3? I've been checking out Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters.  I've always wanted to try out a visual novel-esque game and the execution of the art style really intrigued me.  If only the combat was far better handled though.  Of course, they also recently released The Misadventures of Tron Bonne on Playstation Network, so I had to get that.  As a Legends fan, I really had no choice and it allows me to keep my physical copy safe from use.  Of course, I also revisit Darkstalkers : Resurrection and Bloody Roar 2 whenever I'm in the mood for a fighting game.  I've also been looking forward to playing the Japanese version of Rival Schools, since I've always wanted to try out that dating sim styled adventure that only the Japanese version had.

I've actually been meaning to finally play through Lunar Magic School on the Sega Saturn.  If only for the fact that my Saturn has some bizarre sound issues, so I'm waiting for a replacement system I purchased to get in and hopefully I can finally finish the Lunar series.  Without knowing what in the world I'm doing!  Although I also purchased Cotton 2 and Twinkle Star Sprites as well, because for whatever reason I've been in the mood for some Cute-Em-Up games.  I just wish that they weren't so expensive.

For PC, I try to play Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft 2 on and off, although I recently picked up Ether One and I'm really excited to check that out.

[Alc]

My current go-to game is Spelunky. I put hundreds of hours into the SFC/PSX versions of UK, but I've now certainly put more into Spelunky - as a game it scratches the same sort of itch for me (brutally hard platforming action), but keeps things interesting with randomised levels. I eventually got to the point with the original UK where I'd basically "done" everything, I knew all the routes and had nailed all the tricks. I still fire it up from time to time, do a bit of skipping rope tricks, but the fire's gone - I'm just repeating what I've done before. Spelunky keeps getting deeper.

With that said, I just ordered a Vita TV as it seems Chirari works there, so I guess that'll be on my play list pretty soon.

[sol-alpha]

Let's see, well from Dec 5th to Dec 31st 2015 I was playing Xenoblade Chronicles X for wii u, I've played for around 250 hours but, I still got things to do even though I completed exploring the whole map.
Basically spent too much time trying to gear up my mech compared to my character.

In January 15th this year I'll probably be starting Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen on steam, I've played the original so thankfully I haven't played the expansion. Still stuck deciding what vocation to pick for most of the game.

Then afterwards, I got so many RPGs to play on 3DS when they come out within the next month such as Etrian Odyssey Untold 2, Bravely Second, Fire Emblem Fates. I may get Legend of Legacy, just about to start the demo.

Before I ramble too much, I'll just list some games I liked:
- Kid Icarus Uprising (3DS)
- The Wonderful 101 (Wii U)
- Bayonetta 1 & 2 (Wii U)
- Most of the Fire Emblem series starting from 6 for the GBA onwards
- Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)
-  Ace Attorney series
- Radiant Historia (NDS)
- Ys Series (Mainly the games on steam)

Oh that will do, I have so many games as it is.

Probably shouldn't forget to mention the Guilty Gear series which I started from X for Dreamcast since one of the characters is my avatar.

[sol-alpha]

My list of recommended Puzzle-theme games that I've played in no particular order (that do not include Umihara Kawase)

1. Series: Panel de Pon/Puzzle League
    Most Recommended Title: Panel de Pon (Super Famicom/Wii U Virtual Console (JP))/Tetris Attack (SNES)
    Latest in the series: A Little Bit of... Puzzle League (Europe/Oceania)/Puzzle League Express (US), (Nintendo Dsiware/Nintendo 3DS eShop)
    Vague Description: Developed by Intelligent Systems, the original title is Panel de Pon for the Super Famicom and when it was released outside Japan, it was palette swapped replacing the character Lip and others with Yoshi and others and released as Tetris Attack. Future releases outside of Japan not called Panel de Pon had to be titled Puzzle League because Nintendo would have to pay licensing for the Tetris Brand. This is one of the reasons Tetris Attack is not available on the Virtual Console. If anything I'd love for them to then translate and localise the original Panel de Pon and release it on the Virtual Console outside of Japan then, it shouldn't even take long or cost much because the game doesn't even have that much text to translate.

If I remember correctly, Ubisoft has the licensing to Tetris now which is why Tetris for the Gameboy was removed from the Virtual Console 3DS service and Tetris Axis was removed from the Nintendo 3DS eShop. (And we all know how Ubisoft's version of Tetris turned out. Hah! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvHIpxJE2Ss (Video contains swearing))

The latest game in the Puzzle League series is a single player version of the game and is the equivalent to Tetris as in, it's just the puzzles and no mascot/characters like the other iterations of the games in the series. If you cannot get Panel de Pon, this one is still playable and you can get it on your Nintendo 3DS off of the eShop. Since it is a DsiWare game it is saved to your system memory and not the SD card.

2. Series: Magical Drop
    Most Recommended Title: Magical Drop III [Preferably the Japanese version] (Arcade, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Zeebo, Game Boy Color (titled as Magical Drop), Wii Virtual Console)
    Latest in the series: Magical Drop V (Steam)
    Vague Description: Developed by Data East (Which went bankrupt in 2003), most of Data East IPs are owned now by G-Mode which is mostly known Japanese Mobile Games.
You can get Magical Drop III off of the Wii Virtual Console, unfortunately assuming you don't have a Japanese Wii, you will end up playing the English version of the game which removes the Japanese Voice Dubbing for each individual character with some crappy generic general voice dub which is the same for all characters, the story mode is butchered with a removed difficulty level, I think I already explained enough. If it is possible for you, play the Japanese version since it is the definitive version, only with the English version with regards to gameplay you just lose the hardest difficulty level in story mode.

In the latest game entry, Magical Drop V http://store.steampowered.com/app/204960/ was developed by Golgoth Studio (which have no relation to past Magical Drop games), the game was apparently a buggy mess at launch. I remember getting the game for $5 sometime after launch and now the game is 99 cents! and that is not a sale price... according to steamspy it has only sold around 30,000 copies. (For what is now a 99 cent game!)
It is still a cheap entry into the series, they apparently did fix most game-breaking bugs however, the game lacks a Puzzle Mode so it only contains Story mode and Multiplayer.
What makes things worse is that the character selection is smaller than in Magical Drop III, which affects character attacks. It may not matter to you if you've never played the series although it feels like losing characters in a fighting game.
There is also a demo for Magical Drop V on steam if you don't want to waste 99 cents although you could still get a refund anyway thankfully now.

I have no clue if G-Mode would ever consider porting their old games to Steam, they didn't even publish Magical Drop V.

3. Series: Catherine
    Most Recommended Title: Catherine (Xbox 360/PS3)
    Latest in the series: Catherine (Xbox 360/PS3)
    Vague Description: Developed by Atlus, I would describe it as a puzzle-platformer. You go about moving blocks mainly creating stairs because it is literally a race to the top to escape. It has a pretty good story to go with it involving relationships.
There hasn't been a sequel to this game, Atlus is currently owned by Sega. I don't know if Sega would ever make Atlus put some of their games on Steam. It surprises me how Atlus aren't interested in PC considering their Shin Megami Tensei series always involves computer programming/hacking in detail.

4. Series: Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?/Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!
    Most Recommended Title: (Undecided)
    Latest in the series: Brain Age: Concentration Training (US)/Dr Kawashima's Devilish Brain Training: Can You Stay Focused? (Europe/Oceania - Unreleased)
    Vague Description: I seriously don't get why they haven't released Devilish Brain Training in Europe/Oceania, it was suppose to come out in 2013 and apparently every investors meeting to now you will see the game still TBD (to be dated) for release in their release list of games. Are you kidding me? https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2016/160202_2e.pdf <-- go to Page 6 and look in the lower left box highlighting europe, this file is from January 2016 for their 3rd quarter Fiscal year 2015(2016?).

5. Series: Picross
    Most Recommended Title: (Undecided)
    Latest in the series: Pokemon Picross (Nintendo 3DS eShop)
    Vague Description: The free-to-play game of Pokemon Picross was my first venture into picross and it is interesting. It's something akin to sudoku or minesweeper where you mark boxes on a grid to reveal a picture. There are tutorials I think for every game I've listed on this list. I think the picross series started from the Super Famicom era and has persisted since then. It is a Nintendo-developed game.

6. Series: Picross 3D
    Most Recommended Title: (Undecided)
    Latest in the series: Picross 3D 2 (Soon to be released outside of Japan)
    Vague Description: A 3D version which adds a new level of play, instead of a picture, it becomes an object. So it may help you figure out what it ends up being.

7. Series: Zero Escape
    Most Recommended Title: Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (Nintendo DS)
    Latest in the series: Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (Nintendo 3DS/PS Vita)
    Vague Description: Developed by Chunsoft and Directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a Visual Novel game with puzzle elements. I highly recommend the game because of the story, although yes, you do puzzles to progress through the game. I also recommend that you play in sequential order, first play Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and then its sequel Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward.
It's also the kind of game you'd have to play without getting spoiled.

The third game in the series will be coming out this year for Nintendo 3DS/PS Vita in the US, I do not know what the European/Oceania release will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sITddSPNB48 <-- (This is a reaction to the third game being announced at a convention. There are no story related spoilers. I'm guessing you should avoid reading the comments section in case there are spoilers.)

8. Series: Ghost Trick
    Most Recommended Title: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Nintendo DS/iOS)
    Latest in the series: Ghost Trick
    Vague Description: Developed by Capcom and Directed by Shu Takumi who is known for creating the Ace Attorney series, you control a ghost that can possess objects which you use to solve puzzles. The story is good so once again you'd have to avoid spoilers.

9. Series: Boxboy!
    Most Recommended Title: Boxboy! (Nintendo 3DS eShop)
    Latest in the series: Boxboy! One More Box (Nintendo 3DS eShop - Japan Only (Currently))
    Vague Description: Developed by HAL Laboratory, it is a puzzle-platformer. You move a character that is box-shaped whom can make more boxes appear out of himself which you can use to solve platforming puzzles to get to the end of a stage. It's simple but is a good game.

10. Series: Meteos
    Most Recommended Title: Meteos (Nintendo DS)
    Latest in the series: Meteos Wars (Xbox 360)
    Vague Description: Developed by Q Entertainment and Sora Ltd. where Masahiro Sakurai (known for Super Smash Bros.) was a designer on the original game . You have blocks falling down into your planet and you match three or more to have them rocket propel back out into space. Apparently the IP for Meteos and Lumines(Not related to Meteos but is developed by Q Entertainment) were acquired by Japanese smartphone developed Mobcast.   

11. Series: Pullblox/Pushmo
    Most Recommended Title: (Undecided)
    Latest in the series: Stretchmo/Fullblox (Nintendo 3DS eShop)
    Vague Description: Developed by Intelligent Systems, in the original game, it is a platformer-puzzle game where you pull blocks to reach a flag funnily enough its not the same as Catherine just going by this description. The blocks are multi-layered and represent some kind of object like an animal or such. Later iterations of the games have new mechanics such a falling blocks and stretching blocks(?).

Oh that took long enough, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

[Alc]

If we're talking puzzle games then my favourites of all time are pretty easy. Tetris is king (OG Gameboy version for me), with Puzzle Fighter a near second, and I have a soft spot for Columns even though I know it's not that great (the co-op mode where both players alternate drops can be great fun when you're having beers with mates - it just goes on and on).

Lumines was pretty good. Weirdly, the PSP demo gave you endless mode, which is like... you're giving me the real game mode? for free? OK... Meteos didn't grab me, but I probably didn't give it a fair shake.

I find Picross weirdly compelling. I first played it on the NeoGeo Pocket, and it hooked me in pretty good, but from a mechanical viewpoint it's really very simple - nothing like the complex strategies you get in Sudoku/Killer Sudoku etc. A few months ago I played through Mario/Wario Picross on the SFC and listened to audio books in the background. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, but I'm still not sure why I like that game.

I tried Virtue's Last Reward and, eh, I got bored after a few hours. Didn't much care for the characters and the puzzles just irritated me. I've never been one for "scan the room for clues" type games (I'm thinking of old point and click adventure games, and Myst etc), and the interface was pretty clunky. I'm glad games like this exist, and have an audience, but they're not for me.

I'm playing Bloodborne at the moment. Over and over. I'm generally not one for brawlers, but it's so sublimely implemented that I just can't put it down (and you know you're in deep when you start calculating minor damage and health percentage gains with a pen and paper). The lore is great, but like most facets of the game you have to knuckle down and do it yourself if you want to figure it out - it doesn't hand the story to you on a plate, you have to work it out piecemeal. I had no idea what was going on during my first playthrough, but since then I've been poking around trying to work it all out, and once you start grasping it... the attention to detail is just incredible.

[sol-alpha]

I tried Virtue's Last Reward and, eh, I got bored after a few hours. Didn't much care for the characters and the puzzles just irritated me. I've never been one for "scan the room for clues" type games (I'm thinking of old point and click adventure games, and Myst etc), and the interface was pretty clunky. I'm glad games like this exist, and have an audience, but they're not for me.

Fair enough. I do think the cast in the second game is not as good as the first and an annoying thing for me was that the European version of the game kept the Japanese dubbing which makes no sense as it is a visual novel style game and it kept ruining the immersion for me when I was trying to read. The US version was English dubbed, and I'm sure that in all versions there is no option to turn off the audio because I would have preferred that.  (And no, turning off the volume on the 3DS would have meant I wouldn't get to listen to the music.)

I'm playing Bloodborne at the moment. Over and over. I'm generally not one for brawlers, but it's so sublimely implemented that I just can't put it down (and you know you're in deep when you start calculating minor damage and health percentage gains with a pen and paper). The lore is great, but like most facets of the game you have to knuckle down and do it yourself if you want to figure it out - it doesn't hand the story to you on a plate, you have to work it out piecemeal. I had no idea what was going on during my first playthrough, but since then I've been poking around trying to work it all out, and once you start grasping it... the attention to detail is just incredible.

I started it months ago then took a break and finished it around last month with the... (there's no spoiler tags on the UI here?) anyway, I'm not going to bother with the DLC. I just pretty much played the game on pattern memorisation and timing.
I've also started to not care about the souls games anymore, I first played Dark Souls and I liked it a lot that I started a new game and went to use a sorcerer or whatever the magic class was and I took the master key item you get gifted at the beginning and realised I could break the linearity of the game by opening locked doors in other places which allowed me to get powerful spells, souls and armour early on. I think I was able to skip the first area and fight the spider boss as the first one but I could be wrong. However, as I said I could break the linearity which was awesome (because I could go to the forest which I remember was linked to other areas).

However now, I don't really care about souls games anymore. I tried getting into Demon's Souls and I just lost interest after getting to the middle of the first area with the castle, I haven't bothered getting Dark Souls 2 either although that isn't because of hearing from people saying how bad it is. The game takes a lot out of you so it's hard to just decide to start a new one and the feeling you get with the first souls game you play and its difficulty is gone with the next iteration because you know the mechanics and it's hard to get surprised by anything later on. Oh and the funny thing is that the bloodborne fanbase on one of the forums I read doesn't make things better for the image of the game to "outsiders", for them it's not enough to like the game, they have to push the game on other people and convince them that apparently it is the greatest game ever. lol 

Anyway, I may as well mention I bought Bloodborne off of ebay second-hand a couple of months after its launch because it's funny how people were selling the game for cheap because of how hard they found the game that they felt they would have difficulty selling it back at full retail price.

[Alc]

Fair enough. I do think the cast in the second game is not as good as the first and an annoying thing for me was that the European version of the game kept the Japanese dubbing which makes no sense as it is a visual novel style game and it kept ruining the immersion for me when I was trying to read.

I'm one of those "give the the original dub or nothing at all" kind of arseholes so that didn't bother me, but that is interesting that you found it broke the immersion for you. Which way do you go with anime, generally (if you watch it at all)? I promise I'm not about to start droning on about the superiority of sub over dub, just curious.

anyway, I'm not going to bother with the DLC.

Honestly, unless you're really jonesing for some more Bloodborne, that's probably for the best. It's the most difficult content in the game, obnoxiously so at times. If (as it sounds) you've finished the game and your character has now rolled over into NG+, you can't go back to original difficulty, so you'll have a hell of a time with it - the DLC areas feel like they were scaled higher in difficulty than the base game.

The DLC also answers/clarifies lots of lore stuff, adds some really fun new weapons and items, and the presentation is incredible, but enough gushing from me.

I tried getting into Demon's Souls and I just lost interest after getting to the middle of the first area with the castle

Yeah I didn't get that much further myself, far enough to get to the nexus and dip my toe into all the available levels before getting tired of how punishing it was. I remember reading someone making the observation that with each game, Fromsoft seem to have had more respect for our time, as players - I think that's a really good way of putting it and DeS is definitely at the bottom of the list.

I haven't bothered getting Dark Souls 2 either although that isn't because of hearing from people saying how bad it is.

I really don't understand some of the fanbase's reaction to DS2, I liked it more than DS1 or DeS (at least, I liked it enough to complete it, with the exception of a couple of DLC bosses as I recall). It has issues, sure, but all of these games have pretty significant problems one way or another and I found DS2's to be far less dramatic than you sometimes hear. I suspect most of the fans who talk shit about DS2 originally fell head over heals in love with DS1, and then DS2 simply couldn't live up to their expectations; this happens all the time with videogames. Don't ever suggest that DS1 is anything other than a flawless gem to the fanbase, though, because they'll bite your head off. To which:

Oh and the funny thing is that the bloodborne fanbase on one of the forums I read doesn't make things better for the image of the game to "outsiders", for them it's not enough to like the game, they have to push the game on other people and convince them that apparently it is the greatest game ever.

The Souls games communities are all like this, and it kind of amuses me. Even by gaming nerd standards, the degree to which they oscillate between being insanely knowledgeable, friendly and helpful on the one hand, and utterly toxic on the other, is remarkable to watch. They're definitely their own worst enemies when it comes to selling the series to others (and there's nothing like an endless stream of "git gud scrub"-style comments to put off a newcomer), but they're so myopic in their obsession that they can't even see it.

[sol-alpha]

I'm one of those "give the the original dub or nothing at all" kind of arseholes so that didn't bother me, but that is interesting that you found it broke the immersion for you. Which way do you go with anime, generally (if you watch it at all)? I promise I'm not about to start droning on about the superiority of sub over dub, just curious.

I do watch Anime subbed so yes I do prefer Japanese Dub anime over the English Dub anime because I don't think it makes sense anymore with english dubbing most anime when you factor in all the Japanese cultural stuff like honorisms/formalism or whatever it was called etc. Although some people who work in the gaming industry I heard will tell you that dubbing the game to the local language increases sales so it's usually the reason why some games don't keep dual-audio... although that's for either lack of space or licensing VA's works.

Moving on, the context is when you play the first game Zero Escape: 999, it doesn't have voice dubbing which is why as I said it is a visual novel style game that I would be immersed when reading it.
When I moved onto Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, the European version has the Japanese VA in it. The game does not play like an anime, so it's not going to show subtitles at each line that they speak. So while I am trying to read a load of text that is out of order with what they are saying, it breaks the immersion for me. I got used to it later on but again, its not like an anime where I can understand some phrases being said because it's in time with the subtitles appearing whereas when I am playing this game I couldn't understand what they are saying at all.

--------------------------

Randomly, I spent time yesterday watching some guy on twitch called happy hobbit beat dark souls with "0 hits, no deaths" (fall damage is okay), he didn't kill all the bosses, just the ones needed to finish the game. Just like as I said earlier about breaking linearity, he used the master key to get to Quelaag(?) first.

--------------------------

Also on the main topic of this thread, I am still playing so many RPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles X was back in December, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (steam) was January, this month I have Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight (3DS), Project X Zone 2 (3DS), and at the end of the month I will have Bravely Second (3DS) if I had more money I would probably get Legend of Legacy (3DS) and Stella Glow (3DS) and I am still waiting on the European release date for Fire Emblem Fates (3DS) and Genei Ibun Roku #FE (Wii U) and who knows. maybe I'll get Persona 5 (PS4) if it comes out this year (Same for Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final (3DS)). Oh and I almost forgot about Dragon Quest VII (3DS) and Dragon Quest VIII (3DS) which come out this year.

That's pretty much an RPG for every month. Hah

[KawaseFan]

at the end of the month I will have Bravely Second (3DS)

How's that going?  I don't have it yet and probably won't for a while, but I'm interested to hear what you think of it.

[sol-alpha]

at the end of the month I will have Bravely Second (3DS)

How's that going?  I don't have it yet and probably won't for a while, but I'm interested to hear what you think of it.

I finished it, although I haven't looked at any post-game stuff to do because I had other games to move onto. Assuming you played Bravely Default this would be easier to explain.

I think Bravely Default had a better story compared to Bravely Second, it doesn't mean it was bad and that's as far I would say about it.
The gameplay did improve with for example, in battle if you kill all enemies on your first turn you get to vs. another wave of enemies and get bonus exp, jp, pg out of it and the more you can keep killing enemies in one hit, you vs. more waves and get a bigger bonus so it makes grinding not feel like grinding because you have you something you can try to challenge with.
Another one was because there are so many jobs, you can save party setups if you had changed things to get abilities or whatever from other jobs.

The only downside is that this game was developed around the time Square Enix didn't bloody know what it was gonna do with its games (As in long before say last year's E3 where they announced they were having a resurgence or something developing new RPGs and announced that Tokyo RPG factory that made that new game (project setsuna) that came out recently.... like seriously there's a new one called Bravely Second and they screwed it's potential), so for the first game which did well in Japan (Bravely Default), they decide to give a crap budget to the developers (for Bravely Second) which means you pretty much explore the same world with a lot of reused assets from the last game and only difference is there are a few new towns and dungeons. That's about it. There are new jobs as well but, you also get a lot of the old ones too.

So because that this game (Bravely Second) did much worse than the first game with regards to sales in Japan, the producer or director even mentioned before the game's japanese release that he has the script or ideas ready for the next game but he needs this game to sell well to convince square enix means that it would have to sell really well again in the west like the first one. For reference, I remember Bravely Default sold over 500k in the US because it was announced but I don't know it's LTD sales (Life to date).

I went off on a tangent there because the idea was, the game improved some things like gameplay but it is not significantly better than the original for some aspects like story. That the above mentioned is the reason what happened to its development and that there may not even be a Bravely Third unless square enix has changed their minds. I really liked Bravely Default so I still enjoy the gameplay in Bravely Second.

Oh, one more thing is, I'd need to get around to comparing the soundtracks of Bravely Default to Bravely Second, some people mentioned the first one was better because the second wasn't done by REVO(?) because they were busy with something else at the time during development however, it seemed like when I played Bravely Second they reused some of REVO's songs from the first game. I still need to compare to see how they sound.
------

Keeping up with the topic on my current gaming progress. I was in the middle of Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess HD after beating Bravely Second but then I moved onto Pokken Tournament when that released but now I am taking a break from it because of losing to people online. Thankfully Nintendo did a second wave of pre-orders for Fire Emblem Fates Special Edition so I just pre-ordered that because I wanted all 3 games in the one cartridge.
Next month, I will get Star Fox Zero and later on I will be getting Genei Ibun Roku #FE which is now Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE which for people who have played SMT (Shin Megami Tensei) would notice that Tokyo Mirage Sessions abbreviated is SMT backwards (TMS).
The only other game to wait for is Zero Escape 3: Zero Time Dilemma which is thankfully coming out at the same time as the US in June 28th, just unfortunate there won't be a physical version of the game but I've definitely been waiting for that game for a long while.

[KawaseFan]

I like that ability to save party setups, that would be very useful.  It still sounds like it's worth getting, despite some of the issues you mentioned.  I may have to leave it until later in the year, though.

The only other game to wait for is Zero Escape 3: Zero Time Dilemma which is thankfully coming out at the same time as the US in June 28th, just unfortunate there won't be a physical version of the game but I've definitely been waiting for that game for a long while.

Hey, I'm just glad I won't have to dodge spoilers everywhere for weeks this time!

[sol-alpha]

I forgot to mention for Bravely Second that another thing it can memorise is that you can setup attacks for Auto-Battle. So in games like Shin Megami Tensei, there's always an auto-battle option to attack all enemies with just regular attacks.
However, in Bravely Second, you can have your 4 characters do a command in one turn whether it's braving 4 times to cast spells or defaulting etc and then save that command set to use for auto-battle. You can save up to 3 sets and it's useful for grinding so that you don't have to keep setting up everything over and over.

Hey, I'm just glad I won't have to dodge spoilers everywhere for weeks this time!

I was late to the game, I think it was around December 2013 I played Ghost Trick (unrelated) and then moved onto Zero Escape: 999 (Because I am sure I imported this and Ghost Trick at the same time) and then I am sure I played Virtue's Last Reward in early February 2014.

[sol-alpha]

I've been a little busy so I haven't been able to play through a lot of games that I got and will get.

Got Star Fox Zero, only finished one playthrough. Need time to play the other stages.

I ended up getting Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code when it launched on Steam. It's a niche fighting game that has been around since PS2 era but didn't have its first overseas game release until now. It pretty much had its own western niche community similar to this place with how it's taken years for the game to be released officially overseas.

Here's a video of just me practising basic combos against the CPU, it is a match, not training mode. I like the way the game plays because it does have its own distinct style for fighting compared to other fighters I've played.
https://youtu.be/GNZ1zX5DcCM

Then it was shortly after that that Corpse Party came out on Steam. I only just finished the game yesterday as I said due to being busy. I haven't 100% completed it, but I want to get back to that to do it and then find out what was censored in it's PSP remake.
(The Steam version is the original uncensored version.)

I also bought Arcana Heart 3 Love Max, I already had the predecessor on the PS3 but Steam is more convenient. I still suck at this fighting game though, I really can't grasp it well compared to other fighting games I've played. The only reason I bought it was to vs. this character again called Parace L'sia

Here's a video that this guy explains this character  and you'll get why I wanted to vs her. (Keep in mind he's using annotations.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOwn2ec4CnU

I defeated her once in the predecessor but if I remember hearing correctly they made her harder in the new version and that felt likely the case when I vs her recently.

I also remember buying Code of Princess on Steam, I already had the 3DS game. Part of the reason was to enter that competition on Degica but I have no clue if they already decided the winners, one of the annoying things I noticed was that I didn't notice that their
advertisement emails were ending up in my junk folder so they got deleted without me knowing if I could have won anything.

I am waiting on two games to arrive. One being Infinite Space for NDS and Stella Glow for 3DS. Fire Emblem Fates comes out soon and I have the pre-order for the special edition and then June/July is going to be tough with having commitments and lots of other games I may want to play during that time.

[sol-alpha]

It's been a while.

I have barely been playing Fire Emblem Fates, I have the special edition so I have all three games in one. I am just taking my time with it so I don't think I'll be finished with the game until August? It's just I got other things coming up so there's too many distractions.

So because of these distractions I was playing other games that are shorter/pick up and play. First, I was playing Pokemon Puzzle League on Wii Virtual Console, it's just another version of Panel de Pon which I mentioned before but, I'd rather have had the Nintendo Puzzle Collection Panel de Pon game from Gamecube since the game has a much better soundtrack and lots of characters. Of course, who knows if Nintendo would ever localise that overseas or at least make a new successor which is better.

Oh I probably never mentioned in the puzzle games I play but, I have been playing Puyo Puyo 2 for quite a while, just not enough to actually be good at the game.

Other than that, I finally got around to beating Wonder Boy in Monster Land for Arcade (Wii Virtual Console). Keep in mind the Arcade version of this game is way harder than the Sega Master System version but, the Arcade version has better graphics, sound, larger sprites and I think more enemies on screen in comparison to the SMS version.

One of the reasons I wanted to play Wonder Boy in Monster Land to finish it even though it's not Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap which I already beat as a kid, it's because of this
https://youtu.be/ibKf66tVoFw (trailer)
So the trailer there is pretty much confirming a remake of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap title Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is coming and it is awesome because who knew that something from my childhood that wasn't that popular in Japan would be getting remade. (In Japan, apparently Monster World III known in the west as Wonder Boy in Monster World for Sega Mega Drive (not to be confused with the above titles) is the most popular title of the series.)

So if they don't get delayed, not one but two wonder boy games will be coming out this year. The other being Monster World and the Cursed Kingdom which is a spiritual successor based off of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap but couldn't get the Wonder Boy name.
https://youtu.be/Mjg1s6A6VJ8 (trailer)

Note: Both these games mentioned coming out in 2016 are being developed by indie studios and have collaborated with the original creator of the series.

[Alc]

So I ended up doing silly challenge runs in Bloodborne, like playing through the game with the HUD disabled, and then I started again in Dark Souls and finally wrapped that one up (I'd dipped my toe a couple of times previously but never quite made it over the hump to completion, I'd got just past 4 kings the previous time but got distracted after that), revisited Demon's Souls and finished that, completed Dark Souls 3, and for good measure another playthrough of Dark Souls 2. I can feel my lizard-brain gaming subconscious currently concocting bullshit excuses to replay DS3, or possibly even DeS, instead of, you know, playing something else. I have bought and enjoyed the Design Works art collections for the games, along with "You Died", a Dark Souls retrospective that got printed a couple of months back, I watched the Making Of that came with the PS3 version of DaS, etc etc etc.

So basically I've become one of those people. I've tried playing other games, and this is a cliche but damned if it's not true: my brain seems to spend half the time saying "what? This isn't a Souls game. Why aren't you playing Souls?". I have played rounds of FTL and Spelunky and Tetris here and there, but they're sort of gaming snacks; off the top of my head, I can't remember the last proper meal I ate that wasn't by FromSoftware.

[sol-alpha]

Did you at least try out the Nioh Alpha demo? I thought it was interesting but because of the planned changes they're making, like removing durability from weapons instead of making them more durable or, changing the stamina mechanics they originally had could make the game worse. Have to wait and see.

Oh and probably to get your mind off Souls, either take time off from playing games for a day or two or find something more complex than the games you said you played. If you were playing fighting games that have combo systems are usually something you have to spend time learning. Or Monster Hunter is another example because it has complex mechanics for combat. Or even Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen is a another choice if you have Steam but not a 3DS.

I seriously can't remember but I hope I wasn't one of those people that said I can't play a game because it isn't playing like Dark Souls after I had finished Dark Souls. lol

[Alc]

Yeah, I tried out the Nioh demo for an hour or so. The combat felt insubstantial, somehow, though it's obviously quite deep and admittedly I barely scratched the surface. Other people seem to really dig it, which is great, but it's got scratched off the list for me. That's one of the weirdest things about my Souls addiction; I really don't get on with 3D brawlers, typically. I have played and failed to make any headway on the DMC games, God of War, Ninja Gaiden - the big names, just didn't grab me. I should give Bayonetta a proper go. In terms of Souls, I've been weaning myself off by playing a lot of FTL; it's doing the job.

I have been tempted by the tarted-up PC port of Dragon's Dogma, waiting for it to hit a sale on Steam.

[sol-alpha]

I'll still won't probably be posting that often for a while, going to be really busy until the end of the month.

Couldn't think of anywhere else to post this but wow, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild https://youtu.be/1rPxiXXxftE

I didn't expect them to do so much with the game, as mentioned, they wanted to return to its roots by playing as though you are playing Zelda 1. It is so open world that you can go to the final boss from the beginning of the game.
Apparently its world is a bit smaller than Xenoblade Chronicles X, which means the world is damn huge. I wonder if they'll reveal any flying mounts.

The one thing I love is they brought up a lot of new conventions for playing a Zelda game. Link now wears more varied gear, weapons have durability, there are lots of materials to find, there is cooking, there's a temperature gauge for body temperature which I mistook for a fuel gauge because it was in Farenheit, there is a sound gauge, he can climb almost anything! (which is a big deal for me because I loved climbing monsters in Dragon's Dogma but you couldn't climb terrain) so yes, he can climb terrain and large monsters.

They made it so you get lost when you start, there's supposedly no arrows to guide you where to go. I could be wrong who knows although that's why you have beacons so you can mark out places you want to go on the map.

There are 100 shrines aka mini dungeons and some amount of main dungeons.

There are physics-based puzzles, one example is an item you can get that can freeze time on objects, what you do then is say for example: freeze time on a boulder, hit it with your weapon a few times and it gives the boulder potential energy, as soon as time runs out that potential energy is instantly converted to kinetic energy and the boulder flies off. Someone was wondering if you could climb it before that happens, possibly but i haven't seen it happen yet and if it does work, it would help traverse the large map.

Also, they manage to outdo themselves with having new soundtracks for each console zelda game. The skyward sword theme was great but this new theme for Breath of the Wild is amazing because they still manage to come up with a melody using an orchestra when usually on most other games I would hear an orchestra but I forget it because there's no sequence to it that makes me remember it.

I'm referring to something like this explained in the video: Extra Credits: Video Game Music https://youtu.be/CKgHrz_Wv6o

Anyway, just me trying to describe the game won't do much. It's best to either see the hours worth of footage on the Nintendo Youtube channel or elsewhere.

[sol-alpha]

I'm still waiting for my home internet to be reconnected. It's frustrating, I thought all the things that are in my way would be over but now I am getting less time for things.

So, I used my mobile to purchase Zero Time Dilemma on Steam but I don't have the data cap to download the game to PC. So I have to wait for the internet to reconnect.

I also have Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE to play on Wii U but similar situation regarding internet, just need to check if the DLC isn't much in size.

I still haven't even finished any of the campaigns in Fire Emblem Fates, its because I am spending my time trying to do the optional stuff before finishing the game so it takes extra time.

I just downloaded BoxBoxBoy for 3DS which is a sequel to the original BoxBoy for 3DS. (Yes I had data for that, 100MB vs approx 4GB for Zero Time Dilemma)
A reminder that the game is a puzzle platformer.

I did have a look to see what was on the Summer Sale for Steam but I only bought one thing, don't really feel like spending much until December since I didn't have much money saved up.

Plus my priority is usually buying games that I want to play on Steam as opposed to collecting lots of games for cheap.

So in saying that, I mentioned I bought Zero Time Dilemma and in 2 weeks another fighting game from the guys that did MeltyBlood will come out called Under Night In-Birth Exe so I am waiting to play that too.

[KawaseFan]

I'm seven hours into Zero Time Dilemma and enjoying it so far.

I bought a few games on Steam during the sale; one of them being Spelunky.  Alc, if I get hooked to the point of playing more than six hundred hours, I'm blaming you!

[Alc]

I bought a few games on Steam during the sale; one of them being Spelunky.  Alc, if I get hooked to the point of playing more than six hundred hours, I'm blaming you!

It's a great game. If your ability at Umihara Kawase is anything to go by, I dare say you'll rip through the game's challenges and be beating my PBs in no time.

[Princess Rescuer]

Here are mine:

Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels
My favorite 2D Mario game. I've beaten it enough times to fill out the 24-star grid on the main menu. I've even beaten the Letter Worlds numerous times as well. It may not have the ambition and playtesting quality of the other classic Mario games, but it marked a significant change for me as a gamer. After beating it for the first time, I felt like I had become a man. It also got the ball rolling on me taking an interest in import games, which are my main games of choice these days. If I didn't commit to getting into this game, I might not have taken an interest in Umihara.

Pilotwings
The first Super Famicom game I ever got and played start to finish. Even in 2011 with more advanced consoles out, I was still spellbound by playing a real Japanese game on a real Japanese console. Great-looking art style, a good cross between realism and technicolor. Great, relaxing soundtrack too. Skydiving and hanggliding sound relaxing, light plane and rocket belt sound adventurous, and helicopter and ending sound inspiringly heroic. This game is what made me buy a Super Famicom, and led to me discovering Umihara.

Mr. Driller
The definitive example of how console versions started to become better than arcade versions in the PS1 and Saturn/Dreamcast era. Contains a substantial number of modes and options, an amazingly varied and artistically produced soundtrack, 2D graphics that are still pleasing to the eye today, and some of the most addictive and eminently replay able gameplay I've ever seen. The amount of randomness is perfect- it keeps the game new and exciting, while not being unbalanced in any way. The risk/reward gameplay of getting the air vs not being crushed is impeccably well balanced. And, it's cheap no matter which version you get.

Pink Pong
The game that got me into PAL gaming. I had imported many games and consoles from Japan, but never the PAL regions. Yet, this PS2 budget game has me convinced. It stars a number of attractive (by PS2 standards) women who you dress in a variety of costumes and accessories and play ping pong with while listening to amazingly catchy music. Each player character has a special shot you can activate by pressing the R1 button along with the button of your choice as long as you have at least one red power meter. Light on content, but heavy on inherent replay ability due to fun factor. I've mastered the game on Hard mode and am the only one to have done so as far as I know. Also makes for some super entertaining multiplayer, as long as someone's okay with being on the back side. Only available in PAL and NTSC-J, but the Japanese version is native to NTSC and the PAL version has a built-in NTSC option you can select before the first developer logo shows up.

[sol-alpha]

I'm 15 hours in for Zero Time Dilemma (Steam version) I should be at the turning point because I'm now having to figure out how to unlock particular things in the flow chart.

Once I'm finished with that I am also playing at the same time Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE on Wii U. Then I still have Fire Emblem Fates all 3 versions, Stella Glow and Kirby Planet Robobot to go through before buying any new games coming out soon like Monster Hunter Generations.

Going off-topic here since I didn't want to waste making a thread. I just finished my Bachelor of Science with a double major in Physics & Financial Maths/Statistics. I'm pretty elated since I am finally done with university for now.
I'll also mention that if I could have done another major it would have been Mathematics because I had the 3rd year units available to do them but I had my reasons for picking financial maths/statistics.

[KawaseFan]

Going off-topic here since I didn't want to waste making a thread. I just finished my Bachelor of Science with a double major in Physics & Financial Maths/Statistics. I'm pretty elated since I am finally done with university for now.
I'll also mention that if I could have done another major it would have been Mathematics because I had the 3rd year units available to do them but I had my reasons for picking financial maths/statistics.

Ohh awesome, congratulations!

[sol-alpha]

Ohh awesome, congratulations!

Thank you.

[yangnw]

This is a great post. Are there any follow-ups?

I've tried playing other games, and this is a cliche but damned if it's not true: my brain seems to spend half the time saying "what? This isn't a Souls game. Why aren't you playing Souls?".

I played through Dark Souls 3 first and loved it, and then I picked up Dark Souls 2 and hated it. It might have something to do with the atmosphere not being so comfortable. I wasn't addicted to the actions, probably because I had my share of addiction back with Monster Hunter (P3?) on PSP. I'll try Dark Souls 1 later, see how it works.

[Canvas]

Quake is arguably my favorite game. It is a first person shooter with cool enemies, great movement which makes getting around fun, satisfying weapons, and my favorite arena shooter mechanics. I think singleplayer is great, in fact Quake 1 is my third favorite singleplayer fps (first being Doom, second going to Descent), but as I have gotten better, multiplayer has become a much more fun experience to me. The sequels are great too but so much changed from Quake 1/World to Quake 3/Live that both are worth a try. For example, the first Quake game had air control, which was only very recently readded with Quake Champions to specific characters which my toaster cannot run. The first game did not have weapons such as the rail gun, which I actually rather like because railgun slowed the pacing of games. There are other small changes too such as how items work, armor for example does not stack, each different colored armor blocks a percentage of damage (red armor will not only give you 200 armor, but protect against 4/5ths of all incoming damage, while green armor will only give 100 armor and protect against 3/10ths), mega refuses to start the respawn counter until the holder completely loses it, there are no footsteps or crouching to slow the game down, and so on. As I have mentioned level design is tighter, the only bad part about this is spam is a very viable option outside of maybe dm6. Anyways all of this and more are why I love Quakeworld. For singleplayer I recommend the source port Quakespasm, while for multiplayer(ded) I recommend nQuake. Since multiplayer is dead you will have to compromise in which case I recommend you play Quake Live or Champions as both have a decent playerbase by arena shooter standards

Civilizations Revolution is easily my favorite turn based strategy. It is exclusive to consoles, and it's sequel is pretty much the exact same game but exclusive to phones instead, with no option to sell units or multiplayer as far as I know. It IS casualized compared to pc Civ, but in my opinion only things I found frustrating were removed, such as revolts, starvation, units disbandoning, workers in general, tile attributes affecting movement, things I am not sure why are in any of the games to start with. I consider many things exclusive to this title great improvements; roads can be instantly built rather than spend 50 turns building roads one tile at a time (obviously the price being gold, don't worry there aren't even microtransactions in the mobile game i dont think, this is ingame), roads count as a single movement square whereas in pc Civ they usually just make you move twice as far (this is significant at much further distances), if a unit can move two tiles it can do that over ANY tile yes that includes mountains there are no movement debuffs, and thats ONLY touching on movement. The actual level generation is tighter than other Civ titles which contributes to this speed, no managing food/gold means you can specialize cities which makes the game even faster and riskier, for reference a game of Civilizations 5 could last 30+ hours, while at most Revolutions will go on for 4 hours. The UI is easier to understand, the controls are great, the rules are so much more simple, I love it. This game isn't perfect however, obviously it isn't on my main platform which sucks, and on Xbox 360 the game has horrible slowdown late game. Not only that, but the Xbox version has very, very long animations, and this makes the game unfun online as you will find you wont be able to manage your cities if you happen to be winning as 60 second timer is not enough. The DS port does not have this animation or slowdown issue (if you have a DS i recommend this its a great port with great controls, if you don't i wouldn't bother emulating as its a pain in the ass without the touch screen) and the mobile sequel Revolutions 2 doesn't suffer from slowdown at least (you can also emulate android which this plays okay mouse and keyboard, i prefer controller but anyways, bluestacks sucks with ads but is the best option you really have as far as playing this on PC, the others emulators are even worse). Finally the one feature I absolutely miss is the ability to destroy my cities, as often they are pretty bad and you don't want them dragging you down which bad cities definitely will.

These are really the only two games other than Umihara Kawase of course that I feel strongly about, I like them both a lot and highly recommend them to anybody

[Alc]

I played through Dark Souls 3 first and loved it, and then I picked up Dark Souls 2 and hated it. It might have something to do with the atmosphere not being so comfortable. I wasn't addicted to the actions, probably because I had my share of addiction back with Monster Hunter (P3?) on PSP. I'll try Dark Souls 1 later, see how it works.

My guess is that you won't like it either, since it's even more clunky mechanically and more obtuse in its level design. If you've got access to a PS4 I'd recommend Bloodborne as it's much closer to DS3 than any of the other Souls games are.

Quake is arguably my favorite game.

Definitely up there for me too! I dread to think how many hour I spent playing that game as a teenager. Lots of LAN parties. We played a lot of Quake Rally and the skate/snowboarding mod (the name escapes me now). It was a surprisingly versatile engine.

there are no footsteps

Technically not, but as I'm sure you remember players make grunting noises when they hit the ground from a relatively small height. I used to be able to tell where people were in some levels, DM4 in particular, pretty reliably just from sound alone... and then put grenades on tele exits, then spawn points, and then none of your friends want to play Quake DM with you any more. Later dipped my toe into the world of Quake online and realised that actually, no, I wasn't that good at Quake DM. The people on there were nuts.

Last I checked in the Russians were still playing it pretty solidly and both QuakeWorld and Netquake were still somewhat active, but I guess in retrospect it was clear it was dying. Would've been about a decade ago so no big surprise.

Lot of love for Doom as well, but never got into multiplayer in the same way. Still love blasting through the first episode, still remember all the secrets. Another one I'd rather not know how many hours I spent playing as a kid...

[Canvas]

Last I checked Quake gets some players on the weekend but really only for mods such as Team Fortress which I rather dislike. In Europe though you are right, you might always see some match going but for US you would only be so lucky as to get anything going. You can sit in a duel server for two hours and not ever get a game going, I think people just dislike the gametype now

[Alc]

These days I'm not that fussed with most first-person shooters, but I imagine there's still a scene for twitch-based shooters (CS:GO is still pretty popular, right?), but time has not been kind to early 3D games and without my nostalgia goggles Quake would probably be no exception - it was a bit inconsistent aesthetically, with the mishmash of sci-fi and dark fantasy. To an 18-year-old today I'd guess it looks a mess. Add in that you need a source port and presumably still an understanding of IP addresses for servers, etc. and it's actually kind of amazing that anyone's still playing it regularly at all.

I'm surprised to hear it's more dead in the US than in Europe though, would've assumed that was the other way around. And yeah, back ten years ago everyone was playing game mods, including TF, which I never cared much for either. It makes sense, nobody's going to regularly play DM1-6 on rotation forever, but for someone like me who just wanted to relive the good old days it was not particularly satisfying (and god help you if you did play someone on one of the regular DM levels, they'd been so thoroughly mastered by anyone still playing that there was hardly any point).

[Canvas]

CSGO is majorly popular, but Quake isn't a twitch shooter like CSGO which is where I feel it falls short. There is so much of an emphasis on items rather than aim, you can hit 100 percent of your shots and still lose if the enemy manages to have better items than you. The mods Team Fortress and Rocket Arena "fixed" this, they made item control secondary or nonexistent. Quake Live officially considers Rocket Arena a gametype with Clan Arena, and that is all anyone plays (other than a bastard child of ffa/freezetag where, you guessed it, players spawn with all weapons) because they don't want Quake they want a twitch shooter like CSGO. True people who play a lot of duels are good at dueling, but I think that is just because they learn skills that most fps games don't teach you. Those experienced players have shortcomings of their own which a new player who just expected a twitch shooter wouldn't understand and that would frustrate them. A great Quake player could play a game such as Blood or Painkiller online and do well is my proof of this, they would be able to apply their skills to maps they have never even played before. Players just give up too easily, item control is an abstract concept and hard to understand because it is not first nature like twitch shooting, you have to actually take time to learn it. The players remaining aren't even very good they just have some grasp that gives them a huge advantage over a player with no idea how to play. I got into Quake (specifically Quake Live) around four years ago while I was 16, but I played nothing but Clan Arena. After three and a half years I still couldn't play duels, but after three days of simply playing a botmatch in Quake 3, focusing on timing items, I learned how important it was, and suddenly I could win most matches I played and at least contest in the others. I am not the best but it isn't hard to get into. I hope more players give it a chance and don't just think the only people left are Cypher and HAL9000

[blobeee]

One of my favourite PC games of all time is the Quake 2 mod, Digital Paint Paintball 2. Being a Quake mod, you can fly around at super fast speeds by bunny-hopping and "surfing" while trying to avoid paintballs which are one-hit KO.
Depending on your air-strafe skills in Quake, you may have a tough time dying to the pros until you've masted bunny hopping.
If you're not so keen on shooting foes with paintballs, there's also a "Pong" mode where you play soccer by running and jumping into a ball to kick it at a goal. I hope football in a player's perspective gets further explored by the gaming industry, since I find this kind of football game fun and easier to control than in the FIFA games.

Usually there are only at least two servers being played on by a small but friendly community. I recommend any First Person Shooter fan to give it a try as it's free to play (no microtransactions or any other purchases at all  ). You can visit http://digitalpaint.org/ to download the game and for more information.

[Zera]

I play a variety of action and strategy games. My favorite developers are Nintendo and Treasure.
The Bangai-O series is my favorite. It's a lot like Umihara Kawase in that those patient enough to survive some difficulty spikes are rewarded with mastering a gameplay system unlike any other.
Bangai-O HD is only $10 on the XBLA, so give it a try if you get the chance.

[KawaseFan]

I play a variety of action and strategy games. My favorite developers are Nintendo and Treasure.
The Bangai-O series is my favorite. It's a lot like Umihara Kawase in that those patient enough to survive some difficulty spikes are rewarded with mastering a gameplay system unlike any other.
Bangai-O HD is only $10 on the XBLA, so give it a try if you get the chance.

I have Bangai-O for the Dreamcast.  I'm terrible at it but it's great!

[Canvas]

I have been playing a lot of Breakquest. Its a fun freeware breakout game. Whole lotta variables and I really like the graphical/music direction. I play it with a trackball (logitech trackman) which works great

[sesto]

My strong recommendation would be Magic:Duels of the Planeswalkers.It's a trading-card game and can easily take you hundreds of hours.There're several different versions on Steam,all of them are worth playing.But be sure not to buy the deck keys because all addtional deck cards can be unlocked throughout the gameplay and it'll somehow ruin your experence if you unlock them at the beginning.Here's all the steam links:
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/15148/
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/26465/
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/42756/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/255420/Magic_2015__Duels_of_the_Planeswalkers/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/265140/Magic_2015__Garruks_Revenge_Expansion/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/316010/Magic_Duels/
Also,there's the newest game called"Mtg Arena",which can be downloaded fromhttps://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena,but its in-game purchases are rather expensive.


Other games worth mentioning:428:Shibuya Scramble,which is the best of visual novel games so far;Super Hexagon,which is also a very addicting hardcore action game.

[Zera]

I hate collectible card games because they can never be competitive unless you own all the cards, which is usually impossible.
On the flip side, Prismata is the best CCG-inspired game I've played, and it's free!

[Alc]

Been playing Sekiro and getting knocked around by its difficulty. I've always said that the Souls games aren't that hard from a mechanical perspective - they're just stubborn in design. Well, Sekiro ramps up the mechanical challenge quite a bit. I think I prefer the more cautious, calculated approach to combat required in the Souls games (and I definitely prefer the setting) but Sekiro is still a quality game.

I'm also trying out Hollow Knight. I've bounced off it twice before but people keep saying it's the best metroidvania so here goes.

[Whendaleksattack]

Alrighty, I'd thought I'd like to share some of the games I've been playing recently:

As I mentioned a few times in my other posts, I've been playing some Street Fighter games recently, especially the Alpha series. While I'm admittedly poor at playing SF (due to growing up with Smash Bros), I still enjoy playing online with other players through FightCade. However, I think the standout title in the SF series imo is Pocket Fighter/Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix (not to be confused with Puzzle Fighter). I don't know why, but I just dig the chibi art style of Puzzle Fighter mixed with regular SF gameplay, combined with the absolutely absurd storylines and special moves for each character. It's a game that I would recommend checking out, though it hasn't been rereleased in a while (since 2006 apparently).

I've also been playing some King Of Fighters 2002 recently, though like SF I'd probably not recommend it as it does take some time to get used to its controls and gameplay. I still love this game either way, though the final boss (Rugal) can definitely go fuck off.

As for more modern games, I haven't been playing many of those recently, probably due to my weird fascination with older video games. I'd like to probably pick up River City Girls one of these days for my PC, along with maybe the Ace Attorney Trilogy as well. In the meantime, I've been playing some Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and a bit of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy on my Switch. I also got Batman: The Telltale Series as a gift for Christmas from my relatives, but I've yet to try it out (mainly due to being busy for a few months). I'll definitely give it a try when I get the chance. 

[Princess Rescuer]

PSVR games. They're good. Don't know if they're worth the price of the PSVR yet though.

[Alc]

PSVR games. They're good. Don't know if they're worth the price of the PSVR yet though.

You played anything of note? I dived pretty deep on Beat Saber but have to admit that most of the rest got little more than a few hours. Honourable mentions to REZ and Tetris Effect.

Fromsoft's Déraciné was a particular disappointment.

[KawaseFan]

I'd like to probably pick up River City Girls one of these days for my PC

30% off on Steam at the moment.  I bought it during the holiday sale, played through it a couple of weeks ago and thought it was great.

[Whendaleksattack]

30% off on Steam at the moment.  I bought it during the holiday sale, played through it a couple of weeks ago and thought it was great.

Sweet, just bought it earlier today, and I'm just giving it a go now. After seeing some footage of the game through Steam, I kinda want to get back into playing some more beat-em-up games now after playing a lot of fighting games recently. Should probably give The Simpsons Arcade Game and Turtles in Time a shot again once I've finished with River City Girls.

Also, I've revisited Super Paper Mario recently, mainly just to complete it after about 8 years since I got it for my Wii. It's a great game and a bit overlooked, and I just love it to bits, especially the soundtrack. Shame the Nintendo Power strategy book I got with it is mostly gone now...

I also tried out Wonder Momo again, a fairly obscure Namco arcade game that I find a bit... interesting to play. The game is actually pretty solid (minus your pathetic standing kick), though probably not a good recommendation as Momo herself feels off to control. Just thought worth mentioning.

[Alc]

I think I remember watching Wonder Momo on Gamecenter CX. I did a blitz through that show back in '14 when I got laid off with health problems, must've watched ~150 episodes.

I picked up Nioh 2 just before lockdown. I didn't get on with the first one, but this one's got its teeth all the way in now. To my tastes it's the best Soulslike yet, and the only one that's come close to being as good as From's games. The presentation is excellent and it runs at a mostly smooth 60FPS on the Pro.

There are minor irritations. The controls are different for the sake of it - the run/roll button is the main one I'd want to change, to match the Souls games where it's O, but it's locked to X (despite everything else being remappable), which lead to unnecessary deaths early on. There are actually too many item drops and I'm spending quite a while dealing with the hundreds of items that I'm finding. The combat system really front loads its complexity, even as a Souls veteran it was a bit too much - it could've done with a gentler start.

Still, it's excellent.

[Alc]

When I moved house last year I had to sell my two broadcast monitor CRTs that I was using for retro gaming, and knowing that I wouldn't have an appropriate display, I also sold my entire retro collection - anything without a HDMI port went to ebay. We're talking 10+ consoles and maybe a thousand games, the culmination of 20 years of retro collecting. This was a painful process, but the hardest part was the Umihara Kawase stuff, particularly because it went for a pittance.

I lasted six months retro-free, but I must confess that I have fallen off the wagon. I found a nice old CRT on Gumtree that I just couldn't pass up, nabbed a boxed Gamecube from a charity shop for £15, then a Super Famicom for £20 from a game shop locally (not officially open but happy to trade through a doorway) and a backwards-compatible PS3 for £30 on ebay that just needed a bit of fixing up. So my lockdown has been pretty damn retro.

On the Cube I played through Super Mario Sunshine, which remains a wonderful game, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well Timesplitters 2 holds up. I tried getting into Metroid Prime (beat it back in the day) but that game has a remarkably cramp-inducing control scheme so I had to pass.

A further confession: I suck at Umihara Kawase on SFC. I used to be able to reliably beat that game on any route with 10+ lives, and wow, that is not the case any longer. Finally managed to pull off the rope skipping trick with the sprat yesterday, that was fun.

I'm at the end of Chrono Trigger, which has been a massive nostalgia injection as I've not given it a serious play through in ~20 years. I think it's my favourite JRPG, though I'd be the first to admit that I'm not a connoisseur.

Finally got around to playing through the translation of Policenauts. Hey, I'm only ten years late to the party. I'm happy to have played it, it was worth seeing, but the buddy-cop thing doesn't do anything for me and I was ready to move on to something else by the end. On a related note, a friend is willing to lend me a Megadrive + Mega CD + Snatcher once this lockdown is over, so that is going to be sweet. That's another one that I haven't played in 20 years. Looking forward to it.

Also fired up Beat Saber the other day, good lord that game is compelling. It really is VR's killer app, IMO. Good workout, too.

[KawaseFan]

On the Cube I played through Super Mario Sunshine, which remains a wonderful game

I'm looking forward to playing it again on the Switch!  Though I've gotta say the main attraction in 3D All-Stars for me is 64 -- I'd never turn down an excuse to replay that.



Also, I meant to post this a couple of months ago, but I've been chipping away at the Ys series (specifically the releases on Steam) over the past year and a half, and I finished Ys VIII in July.  I'm not really sure why I waited this long to play them but it's an excellent series, and I can't wait to play Ys IX next year.

[Alc]

Yeah I've got that collection ordered. As mentioned I finished Sunshine earlier this year, but I haven't touched SM64 or Galaxy in a decade or so, looking forward to working through them in the coming months.

How do the games expect you to pronounce Ys, by the way? I've often wondered, it could feasibly be 'wise' or 'ease' or 'is' (or more besides)...

Recently I upgraded my PC, and took out a sub to Microsoft's PC Game Pass. I know game tastes around here skew East by default, but if you play Western games I'd have to say that the value for money on this thing is absurd. I've been meaning to pick up Ori and the Will of the Wisps for a while now, I think it was £16 on sale on Steam around the time I subbed to Game Pass, which is £4 a month, so saving the cost of that one game means I'll be quids-in for four months (not even taking into account the reduced rate £1 for the first month). There's a decent range of titles, big and small, but most importantly there's nothing on there that's obvious shovelware crap. On that note I've been getting a bit tired of poking around the Switch's store, there's mountains of lazy mobile ports and wading through trailers and whatnot to find the quality has long since lost any novelty.

In the next few hours Spelunky 2 will drop and I have a feeling that's going to dominate my play time for quite a while to come. Plenty of reviews are up and by all accounts it's a great game. I somehow doubt it'll take quite as many hours of my life as the first, but I guess we'll see.

[Immediately after I posted the above, Microsoft announced that they're doubling the price on Game Pass for PC. Damnit! Also, Spelunky 2 is excellent.)

[KawaseFan]

I think it's pronounced like 'ease' but with a harder S.

Glad to hear Spelunky 2 is great -- I really should get around to the first game one of these days...

[Tooro]

According to its Japanese spelling "イース", "Ys" sounds like "peace" or "lease" without the first "p" or "l"  (I mean, "s" in "Ys" does not sound like "z").

(By the way, I played and loved Ys I, II, III on their original platform PC-8801SR.  They accomplished amazingly smooth graphics and beautiful sounds on such poor machine.  I'm happy with today's high-performance PCs but misses such kind of surprises I experienced decades ago.)

[Alc]

According to its Japanese spelling "イース", "Ys" sounds like "peace" or "lease" without the first "p" or "l"  (I mean, "s" in "Ys" does not sound like "z").

That's interesting, thanks guys. Hard to anglicise, actually.

By the way, I played and loved Ys I, II, III on their original platform PC-8801SR.

Do you have any photos of the computer? I love these retro platforms.

They accomplished amazingly smooth graphics and beautiful sounds on such poor machine.  I'm happy with today's high-performance PCs but misses such kind of surprises I experienced decades ago.

The pace of change has slowed right down, huh. One of my formative memories is getting an original 3DFX card back in the Quake days, and going from chuggy, ugly 320x240 to a silky smooth 640x480 with the beautiful bloom-like softness that those early GLIDE cards had (a consequence of the analogue VGA passthrough? I never did figure it out). I'd never seen such a leap. I probably never will again - DLSS and ray tracing are all well and good, but the fact that they're the big selling points of the newer GPUs really does press home to me that we're in a place of diminishing returns.

Same with the new consoles, the games look better and I'm excited to see how they make creative use of the massive bandwidth on the SSDs, but in aggregate the result isn't revelatory. There's a Demon's Souls remake so of course I'm hunting around for a PS5 for day one, and I missed all the preorders so far, boo. I feel like the scalpers have got these preorder launches down to a fine art, I hear people use automated scripts and VPNs to make multiple orders on a dozen credit cards, and this sort of thing. I guess if there's money to be made then people will do it, but it really doesn't seem right.

Yeah I've got that collection ordered. As mentioned I finished Sunshine earlier this year, but I haven't touched SM64 or Galaxy in a decade or so, looking forward to working through them in the coming months.

This arrived. Fucking Nintendo, man. It's their typical "our way or the highway" behaviour - they've inverted the controls on SM64 and Sunshine and not put in any way to return them back to the original. I'm not even saying that they should be inverted by default, just that the option should be there. So it's off to ebay for this one.

[I can't stop playing Spelunky 2. Send help.]

[Tooro]

Do you have any photos of the computer? I love these retro platforms.

To my regret, I took no photos.  This blog has photos of the same model as I owned.  Its graphics was very clear but very slow.

https://lancelot2.blog.ss-blog.jp/2012-11-22

we're in a place of diminishing returns.

I agree.  I'm eager to see real-time ray-traced games but I'm not confident that I can tell whether a given game is using ray tracing or not.

[Alc]

Its graphics was very clear but very slow.

I notice that a lot of the older East Asian PCs are surprisingly high resolution. I guess that's because they need to have clarity for logographic writing systems? They also tend to have limited colour palettes, which results in lots of creative use of dithering and so on.

I'm eager to see real-time ray-traced games but I'm not confident that I can tell whether a given game is using ray tracing or not.

Yeah. Just last night I was showing Control to a friend with ray tracing enabled/disabled, and going back and forth he repeatedly mistook "on" for "off" and vice versa, which is pretty damning, really.

[Tooro]

I guess that's because they need to have clarity for logographic writing systems?

I think so.  Kanji fonts in ROM used to have 16x16 size (while ascii characters were 8x8) and thus finer resolution was required.  (PC-8801 series, however, only had 640x200 resolution for color mode, which was unsatisfactory vertically, resulting in peculiarly tall rectangular form of kanji characters.)

They also tend to have limited colour palettes, which results in lots of creative use of dithering and so on.

You know well! PC-8801 series only had 3bit colors per pixel.

Some games used more restricted colors (only five) for the sake of performance.  I feel strong nostalgia when seeing their coloring scheme.  Among them, I want to name my most favorite ones (to conform to the topic of this thread).  Out of eight colors in the pallette, two were used for background colors and six were assigned to three foreground colors.  This eliminated, when drawing foreground objects, access of VRAM region for background colors (each color bit had its own VRAM region).

Alphos (1983): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKuuSV0UjlU
Xanadu (1985): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcQpec98nCA
Silpheed (1986): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVwAfy88NE

Just last night I was showing Control to a friend with ray tracing enabled/disabled, and going back and forth he repeatedly mistook "on" for "off" and vice versa, which is pretty damning, really.

It's me, lol.

[Alc]

Thanks for the youtube videos, digging through these old games is fun. I have Faxanadu on NES, I need to give it a proper look.

I think so.  Kanji fonts in ROM used to have 16x16 size (while ascii characters were 8x8) and thus finer resolution was required.  (PC-8801 series, however, only had 640x200 resolution for color mode, which was unsatisfactory vertically, resulting in peculiarly tall rectangular form of kanji characters.)

Yeah. Still, I suppose 640x200 would've pretty stunning back in 1981.

You know well! PC-8801 series only had 3bit colors per pixel.

Hah, I have to admit I only really know this much from staring at screenshots on Twitter, Mobygames and so on. I've played a few fan translated VNs, but otherwise games need to be pretty light on text or I get stuck (generally that means sticking to console games and avoiding RPGs).

I feel strong nostalgia when seeing their coloring scheme.

I know exactly what you mean. With the right pair of eyes you can look at a screenshot and say with certainty which platform produced it. C64 games look different to ZX Spectrum games which look different to Amstrad CPC games, I can spot each one a mile off.

Anyway, OT, I picked up a PS5, ripped through Demon's Souls (a very pretty if somewhat overly-conservative remake of an absolute classic), did the achievements and whatnot, and then boxed it all back up and sold it. The price on ebay for PS5s is absurd, I just couldn't justify keeping it. I'll get another one when things have calmed down and there are a few more exclusives that justify it, I guess.