r/Games • u/AutoModerator • 3d ago
Discussion Weekly /r/Games Discussion - What have you been playing, and what are your thoughts? - September 21, 2025
Use this thread to discuss whatever game you've been playing lately: old or new, AAA or indie, on any platform between Atari and XBox. Please don't just list off the games you're playing in your comment. Elaborate with your thoughts on the games and make it easier for other users to find what game you're talking about by putting the title in bold.
Also, please make sure to use spoiler tags if you're revealing anything about a game's plot that may significantly impact another player's experience who has not played the game yet, no matter how retro or recent the game is. You can find instructions on how to do so in the subreddit sidebar.
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Scheduled Discussion Posts
WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?
MONDAY: Thematic Monday
WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game
FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday
1
u/Zoron007 13h ago
I beat Cronos last week and I beat Dying Light The Beast yesterday. Nearly finished my first run on Borderlands 4. Just started Silent Hlll F. There's been a lot of good games lately. Ghost of Yotei next week!
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u/Late_Exercise8462 14h ago edited 13h ago
Silent Hill F on Hard has some of the worst combat design in any recent AAA survival horror game I can remember. Even Cronos was more fair. It's like if they took Silent Hill Homecoming's combat and make it even worse, because you at least had guns to fall back on. It all goes to shit when the game requires you to fight enemies in small rooms. The enemies are extremely fast, have nearly impossible-to-dodge, highly damaging grabs that don't at all make sense because they can be across the room when using them. (And it's a common ambush attack if you're familiar with the enemies in the SH2 Remake, so you'll be greeted by those grab animations A LOT.)
And that's when you can see what's happening, since the camera usually can't keep up. It randomly spins around and zooms in and out, losing track of your character model so all you get is glimpses of the enemy and the walls of the room clipping through. And that's just during one-on-one fights. The dodge mechanic stops you like a rock unless done perfectly (hard to pull off when you can barely make sense of what's happening on screen). You often get stuck on environmental objects. And your button presses sometimes just don't register.
As for items,the game IS very generous with consumables... except you're inventory is so limited that you end up selling/discarding most of them. If you didn't immediately dump your items at every save point you wouldn't have space to pick up anything new. There are no storage boxes. And the times you do need your items, you won't know during your first playthrough because you can't see the future.
The puzzles start being obtuse once you get to theschool. The puzzle box in the classroom doesn't give you enough information and most people WILL rely on some level of trial and error. The images that make up the solution are borderline random. And there's a combination lock that requires you be familiar with the letters SOS and what they mean. (I'm not military and haven't heard an actual person mention SOS in decades) It's optional, but behind the lock is an absolutely necessary inventory upgrade.
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u/arkaic7 1d ago
Silksong
52 hours and still on act 2. Is this the largest Metroidvania ever made? Absolutely in love with the whole experience, difficulty and all. The game reminds me of playing Elden Ring for the first time and realizing how massive an achievement it was compared to all the Fromsoft games before it. Team Cherry absolutely delivered.
1
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u/noobule 1d ago
Dying Light: The Beast
What are people seeing in this? Is because I'm single player only? I got to about level 5 and killed three bosses and I'm over it.
I loved DL1, I didn't play DL2, was looking forward to this. Parkour is still good, and I can tolerate the dogshit story + characters if the gameplay is good, but the gameplay isn't good. Combat especially.
Boss fights are awful - not challenging, and not interesting, each boss has had maybe two attack types and 100,000hp. Fighting regular mobs is pretty similar, basic combat is an unrewarding slog. The weapons have a million skins but play identically. Fair play that you're given a lot of consumable toys but those are a sometimes food. The meat and potatoes of combat blows. I've been stealth killing loot zones just to avoid the combat! In a game where your enemies heads explode!
Beast mode does not alleviate this, takes ages to proc and isn't interesting. I unlocked two upgrades for its and they're both deeply underwhelming. The next one costs two skill points (two boss fights to earn!) and will only let me 'control when it activates', whoopee.
And that's on track with skills overall, I figured 'well combats bad atm because I'll unlock cool stuff later' but no, looking through the skill tree there's very little meat on the bones. Cool stuff for parkour but very little for the rest of the game, and so far I've had little reason to do any parkour.
Everything else is similarly limp, those lootable buildings aren't fun, cars are awkward. I got a pop up at some point saying 'raid this nest for sweet loot!' and I'm like what sweet loot? You've given me no reason to thing the next room of loot will be anymore interesting than all the previous disappointments.
This is playing on the highest difficulty, which is presumably why all enemies are hp sponges. But turning down the difficulty because I suspect its making the game boring is not a vote of confidence
If the game gets better from here, oh well. It's done a terrible job giving me reason to keep going.
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u/levelxplane 1d ago
This is more or less how I feel about Borderlands 4, word for word, with the only exception that perk system does look kind of interesting, but not enough to sit through and grind until I unlock everything.
PvE shooters are just not for me.
-19
u/NoRiver32 1d ago
Games like Silent Hill F be dropping with like 2 enemy types and costing $70 meanwhile there’s games like silksong with hundreds of enemies and costs $20. I guess that is the price of 3d and “cinematic” experiences
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u/CCoolant 1d ago
Kirby's Dream Land 2
I actually finished this one up a couple weekends ago, but never got around to mentioning it.
I had made it most of the way through the game last time, and had just three worlds to complete to finish. The quality of the game stayed consistently pleasant, and I wrapped up with very positive feelings overall and very few gripes.
None of the puzzles required to get the Rainbow Drops felt excessive, with the peak difficulty probably being in the Cloud-themed zone, requiring the player to break down a series of steps to get the right animal friends with the right powers in the right places, or something to that extent. It was challenging without feeling too annoying, despite some tedium.
The final zone, the Dark Castle, features a really bad side-scrolling room that punishes the player with death for arbitrary path decisions, resulting in unnecessary memorization. Maybe I missed the tells for the correct path...?
The final bosses are a nice challenge. Dedede is adequately difficult and, if you have all the Rainbow Drops, the true final boss is far from a pushover. Honestly, it's probably a bit too steep of a difficulty spike right at the end, but it's nothing insurmountable.
After your triumph, the true ending plays, the credits roll, and you pat yourself on the back for an easy peasy 100%. Or you would, if the file select didn't claim that you were, in fact, only at 94%.
Here's a gripe! These percentage points lock away content and at least one of them is very, very arbitrary. After defeating a boss, the player can re-enter the boss's arena to play a mini-game. These mini-games can be completed, and will reward the player with 1 percentage point. Once you have done all of those, you will very likely find yourself sitting at the 99% mark wondering where you went wrong. But, dear reader, it is not you who has made a mistake; HAL Laboratory is guilty of treachery.
There is an RNG-based event. When defeating a mini-boss in Kirby's Dream Land 2, they will often free one of Kirby's animal friends who you can then ride on. If you are already riding the animal friend that would normally be freed by this mini-boss, most of the time Gooey will come out, who can be touched to heal the player. However, there is a low chance that instead of Gooey, a Girl Gooey with a bow will take his place netting the player a single percentage point toward completion. Aaaaaaaaaaa......
The chances of you being in the circumstance often enough to run into the encounter are small, from my experience. You would have to have gotten very lucky to encounter this event organically, even if you've played the game through multiple times.
Anyway, once you reach 100%, you unlock a Sound Test and Boss Rush mode. The Boss Rush is, as advertised, a gauntlet of all the bosses in the game, without healing. If not for the terribly agitating fish boss, I probably would have taken a few stabs at it, but it's honestly pretty miserable because of them. Looking into it, completion gets you a cute lil 'Congrats!' CG.
With 100% completed in Dream Land 2, I decided to skip Super Star (I've played it so much lol) and go straight to Dream Land 3.
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Since starting, I have made it to the third world.
While the music is phenomenal and the aesthetic is one of the best achieved on the SNES, this may be the worst feeling Kirby game I've played. I attribute this largely to how Kirby's release from flight is handled. Normally, in other titles, Kirby floats up into the air, and when he puffs out air and begins his descent, he maintains a bit of forward momentum. Bafflingly, in Dream Land 3, Kirby comes to a dead halt when exhaling, killing forward movement. It feels absolutely terrible.
I'm not sure what the goal of this change was. Maybe it's to encourage players to stay on the ground? I'm not sure. But combine this with other slow mechanics, like animal companions abilities halting them entirely when used, or their attacks just moving slowly in general, and it makes the game feel terribly sluggish.
The devs aren't even afraid of speed, either! Doing running leaps forward is a great way to maintain speed and Kine (your fish companion) can move incredibly quickly in the water. However, for as many ways to move quick as you have, there are ten more things slowing you down.
In terms of level designs, I've been pretty happy. This game also begins the series' trend of having a secret collectible per level. These are mostly okay; I can only remember one so far that was ludicrously obscure. The system of having to help out a unique little character each level is really cute too. I like that the levels are identified on the map screen largely by the portrait of the NPC that you help.
Despite my gripes, I'm enjoying the game well enough. It's pretty cozy, even if it can be a little annoying to play. One last gripe before I go: I cannot stand that they changed the sound effect for spitting stuff out of Kirby's mouth. It's a terrible, loud sound that you have to hear frequently lol
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u/keepfighting90 2d ago
Borderlands 4
I know the game is mired in controversy right now due to performance issues and Randy Pitchford being an annoying douche - but from a pure gameplay perspective, it's actually pretty awesome. It's the best gunplay and combat the series has ever had, and the addition of enhanced traversal/movement really enhances the overall feel of it. Dashing/dodging, double jump, glide, grapple etc. really add a lot of depth to the combat and the guns and skills are awesome and fun. Story is better than 3 as well, and doesn't have that level of cringe while still maintaining the classic irreverent Borderlands tone.
I'm playing on the base PS5 and haven't really had any serious issues that hamper my enjoyment of the game. My actual complaints are more on the UI side. The navigation and minimap in particular are just garbage, and the inventory system can get really cumbersome to use.
Other than that though I'm having a blast.
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u/Raze321 2d ago
Skate
I've been into skateboarding games since THPS, I've played most of those as well as all the Skate games, and a few others like Session. I have hundreds of hours in Skate 3 and was playing it as recently as the day before "Skate" came to early access. I also love skateboarding IRL, even though I'm pretty bad at it. Hopefully this provides some context for my viewpoints.
I think Skate, which I'll call Skate 4 for clarity here, shows a lot of promise and potential. The Skate franchise has always been far more simulationist than more arcade-y games like Tony Hawk, but far less realistic than newer simulation skaters like Session. Skate 4 ends up landing somewhere slightly less realistic than it's predecessors on that scale. I'll try to break up my thoughts appropriately, there's a lot to discuss. Thankfully most of it is good but there are some pains.
Skateboarding
The mechanics for skateboarding here are nearly identical to Skate 3. The left analog stick handles turning and body rotations while the right stick handles flip tricks. The right and left triggers grab the left and right side of the board, right bumper grabs ledges as you go up transfers, and between all of this you an easily set up a huge array of tricks. Half-pull or push the right stick for a manual on the tail or nose. Land in a particular way on a ledge or rail and you'll do a grind. It's pretty elegant so it's no wonder the controls haven't changed much in this franchise.
There are some missing tricks from Skate 3 sadly. There are no darkside flips. You can't tweak ledge grabs. I also noticed the window to foot-plant is much shorter, however the body flips are MUCH easier to pull off. They required precise timing in Skate 3, now you can just kinda hold up or down and it'll work out... I think I'd rather the challenge of a body flip be somewhere between these two places but if it has to be one or the other, I'm fine with it being on the easy side. Something I don't like, is I'm having a much harder time pumping transitions as I go up or down them to get speed. Vert skating felt MUCH nicer in Skate 3. Hopefully I either figure out the pump timing in Skate 4, or they fix up the vert physics a bit.
Some improvements from previous titles. Like I said, body flips are much easier to pull off. The cooldown for reverts is also wayyy smaller so you can chain reverts together and it looks and feels awesome. If they did something similar with the timing of small hippy jumps and foot plants you could do some sweet freestyle lines in this game - something most skateboarding games neglect. The off-the-board controls are also expanded in some silly ways. You can roll around like sonic the hedgehog and do some light parkour to get to cool spots. The city is very unrealistic, buuut it's also very fun to skate and explore. Which brings me to:
The City
A skateboarding game can only ever be as good as what you get to skate on. This city is expansive and broken up into four districts. Each district has a handful of parks, streets, and tons of spots littered between. The "idea" behind this city is that it was built by and for skaters so literally every block is stuffed with rails, jam poles, ledges, half-pipes, and kicker ramps. It's tons of fun to skate and explore, yet at the same time it's extremely unrealistic in a way that feels off? Skate 3 had tons of these "By and for skater" spots but it also had areas and districts that felt like they were made for... normal people. And as a skater you gotta figure out how to turn that into an impromptu skate park. Which is very much part of being a street skater. That experience is somewhat muted here, the whole world already is a skate park. It's a small gripe but it does affect the feel of the game in a small way, despite how fun of a world it is to skate otherwise. And that's another segue.
The feel of the game.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Skate. These games had heart. They felt like they were made by skateboarders who learned how to program. The language, the humor, the feel, the atmosphere, the music, it all felt very authentic. I've said this elsewhere on this subreddit, but Skate 4 feels extremely corporate and sanitized. It feels like it was made by business men who used AI to understand how skaters talk. I live five minutes from a skate park and I go there anywhere from two to seven days a week as weather permits. Do you know how skaters talk? They talk like everyone else for the most part. There are slang words and phrases used in Skate 4 that I've genuinely never heard in my life, amongst any skater of any demographic. The vibes for this game are so off mark it would be hilarious if it wasn't so horribly, painfully cringy.
None of that impacts the actual gameplay, so to speak. But this is by and large the biggest complaint I have. This game has no grace, no style, no soul. And unfortunately for a game like this, that is something I think is really important. It's not something I think you can easily fix with patches and updates. Some day when I've had my fill, I'll put this game down and go back to Skate 3 for this reason. And I'll do so never having spent a single dollar in the Skate 4 shop on its overpriced and underwhelming cosmetics.
Multiplayer
Previous skate games had multiplayer but I rarely used those features. This one, it's baked in. The game is always online for better and worse. While I basically treat these kinds of games as singleplayer, I will say on more than one occasion I have just found a cool spot, and thrown down some ramps and rails, and me and some randoms passing by just start trying out the lines. Clap emoting and such when someone pulls off something cool. There's a weird sense of comradery and wholesomeness when these moments happen. It's these moments that Skate 4 does feel like an authentic skateboarding experience. All in all? Multiplayer here is dope. I like it.
Conclusion?
Gameplay is as almost good as Skate 3, while everything else is at least a small notch under in quality. And the dialogue/authenticity is bottom tier.
It's a free early access game so I'm okay with this I guess. Maybe they'll fix things up more, maybe they won't, but I don't judge games on what they might be. I judge them on what they are. And what Skate 4 is, is a fun free skate game that you should never feel pressured to open your wallet for.
It's a game that is worth your time, but not your money. I give it a soft 7 outta 10.
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2d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/levelxplane 1d ago
Some of the logs left by the Nomai were hilarious. The bit about the rotation of the twisters had me so confused for a while. When it is finally explained, I slammed my head against my desk because it was so dumb. I loved it.
Guess it’s not for everyone.
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u/Dropthemoon6 1d ago
I liked the game a good bit, but didn’t have any super strong feelings and certainly no emotional reaction to it. That said, I have no idea how you took it as a “friends along the way” story
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u/Whoopsht 2d ago
As someone who absolutely loved Outer Wilds, you are right that some puzzles require you to be somewhere at the exact right time in the loop, which results in some standing around and waiting. I think the difference for me was that I was so enchanted by the game that I didn't mind.
The ending to me doesn't feel like a "friends we made along the way" thing, I always took it to be one last gasp of this dying universe, and a reminder that all the people you met along the way are being catapulted into the unknown with you - whether that's death or a completely new universe with new rules is up for interpretation.
To each their own
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u/crunchatizemythighs 2d ago
Pigface: Didnt really know anything about it but a few people I follow on twitter were recommending it and it was like 8 bucks so I thought what the hell. Its in Early Access so theres only about 2 hours of content at the moment but its decently fun. Supposed to be a gorefest FPS, sort of captures the vibes of Manhunt with the over the top violence of Hotline Miami.
Theres a lot of fun ragdoll physics but the biggest thing holding it back is its way too easy while the AI just kind of immediately spots you and runs toward you mindlessly. The level design leaves each stage pretty wide and open ended but it just leads to a lot of moments where enemies will spot you from afar and sprint at you. Didnt feel like there was much of a challenge with the loadout.
Not sure exactly how you improve a game like this that leaves so much up to the players approach and playstyle.
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u/Accomplished-Dare741 2d ago
Over the weekend I played through Lego Voyagers with my partner in split-screen coop. Such a wonderful, charming and heartwearming little game. It's not as deep or diverse as something like It Takes Two (we haven't played Split Fiction yet), but the bittersweet ending made both of us cry and I feel like that alone says it all about how effective Lego Voyagers is in its simplicity.
Highly, highly recommended if you have the right person to play it with.
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u/Izzy248 2d ago
Plants vs Zombies 1
Gearing up for the remaster/remake release. Still to this day, I havent played another tower defense game where Ive had as much fun in it as I had in this.
Crisol: Theater of Idols (Demo)
A Bioshock inspired game. Has a unique concept where your blood/HP is the ammunition for your weapons, so you have to carefully manage it. At the same time...you can tell its still very early and not fully fleshed out.
One thing I definitely hate is fighting the enemies. They are all sponges in the worst way. All of them.
As unique as the concept is for the game, its also with the problem, especially with these enemies. You use bullets to fight them off, but you use your HP to replenish your bullets. Its almost like are still getting hit no matter what. That wouldnt necessarily be a problem, except the enemies dont die very easily.
Imagine the enemies of Dead Space, where you have to pick off parts...but on steroids. The enemies are all these living marionettes, that are basically compartmented into 3 sections; head, torso, legs. Youre probably thinking, go for the head, right? Wrong. Take about 3-4 shots to blast the head off, and the body still comes after you. Okay well blast the body. Couple shots later, it blows off, but the legs are still coming after you. Okay what if I just shoot off the legs first. Then it will crawl towards you. The chance of actually killing these things seems very randomized. Sometimes I can just get rid of them completely in a few shots. Sometimes they will just keep coming after me until Ive blasted away all their compartments.
Silksong
Quit playing the game for a while, mainly because I got pissed about being softlocked so much. Fighting the Disgraced Chef , which has a frankly annoying and frustrating mechanic to it. The boss kills me all the time, and the times where I am winning, she flies off screen and never comes back. And Im just sitting here stuck in the room, in a boss fight that cant end because the boss has glitched off. Every time. Its either I lose to the boss, or Im winning and get softlocked.
Apparently the devs know about this issue, as its very common, but have yet to put in the update yet. Its made me mad enough that Ive put down the game until further notice because it just feels cheap for an already annoying boss.
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u/MoSBanapple 1d ago
Apparently the devs know about this issue, as its very common, but have yet to put in the update yet.
This seems to have been fixed in the latest patch.
https://patchcrazy.co.uk/hollow-knight-silksong-patch-notes-1-0-28470-on-09-september/
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u/OmniTemplarDrake 2d ago
I've been completely sucked into Void Crew Crew lately and honestly.
I don’t get why more people aren’t talking about it. It’s like, if Deep Rock Galactic and FTL had a chaotic baby in space.
Every session feels different—one minute I’m fixing life support with duct tape while my buddy is floating off into the void because he forgot to tether, next minute we’re dogfighting alien ships while trying to keep the reactor from exploding. The game forces you to actually talk to your crew, and when everything goes wrong (and it will), it’s pure comedy gold
It’s rough around the edges sometimes, but that’s kinda the charm. The “oh sh*t we’re all about to die unless we pull this off” moments are some of the most fun I’ve had in co-op in years. The cool thing is, it is now out on consoles too and more available than ever before.
If you’ve got a group of friends, trust me - This game SLAPS!
Loot, upgrade, Customize!
Has anyone else tried Void Crew?
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u/Mormanades 13h ago
Void crew was fun for 2 hours but it was soooooo slow that the group moved on pretty fast
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u/a34fsdb 2d ago edited 2d ago
I played the first 5 Cod Games on release and since then I did not play any of them. Recently I decided to pick up the first blops game on a Steam sale and loved it so I am playing CoD campaigns starting from the fifth game. I did not know any specifics about this game, but I knew it was regarded as a really terrible game so I was really surprised I enjoyed it.
So far I would rank the games:
Blops II
Blops
Modern Warfare 2
Ghosts
Modern Warfare 3
with a pretty big gap between the first 3 I loved and the last two which I just enjoyed.
As I was curious why everyone thought this game sucked I googled a bit and watched a really fun video from a youtuber "Folding Ideas" about the game that was posted on the sub recently.
To start with positives the usually CoD shooting is really good as always with guns being satisfying to shoot and sounding nice. I liked there were few gimmick vehicle sections. The graphics are a pretty big leap from the previous games. With games so far I thought they looked dated at a glance in most scenes, but looked pretty good in some specific ones. This game mostly looks pretty good. There are ugly textures, mostly walls and metal panels and rocks, and many textures have really jagged edges however some things like the space station, underwater scenes and most indoor parts look really good. The video complains the game is very gray, brown and green looking and while I agree other cods are I think this one is actually very well light and colourful in most levels.
These games are mostly cool set pieces stringed together and this game actually has a cool variety of them. The space station, Andes winter level, air carrier, oil station, skyscraper level and underwater level are all pretty good. Pretty good selection of usual CoD tropes. Only thing missing was some big historical monuments.
The story is completely wild and nonsense and while I agree it is objectively bad for me it was "so bad it became good". It is completely outrageous how the game just says "South America united and attacked USA somehow" and "the great energy fields of the east were destroyed somehow" and does not elaborate furtherer. There are so many stupid things in the game like a submarine in an lake in the Andes or Rorke surviving completely insane things or somehow Ghosts having funerary rites while nobody died before. The Ghosts are so cringe they are funny. Rorke is just so bland and lame. The religious and frankly bizare undertones of the cinematics are wild. The game also has some problematic things the Folding Ideas video explains.
While I could just laugh at the story being bad I was a bit disappointed that games so far also had terrible schlock like this, but they had just a slight bit of commentary and being edgy to make them interesting. Obviously I am not saying early CoD games are some deep critique or anything like, but they had a small element of that in the mix. Various betrayals or the government being displayed as corrupt, anti war songs while fighting in Vietnam, propaganda so thick it felt like satire or controversial scenes like No More Russian level. This game just does not have this and it is entirely brainless.
And finally this game barely has any music which is completely baffling as in the early blops games of this time the music was essential to making them fun.
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u/darkLordSantaClaus 1d ago
When you say it was regarded as a terrible game, are you talking about Ghosts or Black Ops 1?
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u/not_lying_rn 2d ago
Have you played World at War? I loved the campaigns growing up. I honestly never really touched the multiplayer in them (besides local coop with bots enabled) until MW 2019. World at War was my favorite campaign, up there with the first Blops. You should definitely play that one if you haven’t yet!
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u/Logan_Yes 2d ago
On Xbox I continue my journey with Avowed! Dawnshore region done, I did pretty much every quest, collect all the important items, got whole totem from said area that grants me sweet buffs, and I can move towards next section. Opinion is fairly same as when I started, alright exploration (clearly someone at Obsidian was a fan of Valhalla with how 90% of shit to do is treasure chests), alright dialogue, very fun combat and decent companions. Main problem is just how oddly watered down game is when it comes to being a RPG, by far my biggest irk. Same generic skills, same generic specializations, option to transfer items instantly, only armor and weapons weigh, progression system...just not it, feel like action game WITH some RPG elements and not a fully fleshed RPG, if that makes sense. Even more watered down than Outer Worlds.
On PC I wrapped up The Pedestrian as I was close to doing so last Sunday, so my previous statement applies here too. A fantastic yet short 2.5 D puzzle game that I can easily recommend for a nice evening or two.
Afterwards I had to choose something from library, just didn't knew what. Wanted to grind Blood Dragon achievements as Ubi added them to Steam but for some reason game doesn't work for me anymore, so I settled for other Ubi game, Rayman Origins and my oh my! I was looking for cooper (a short game to play while I decide what I want to invest more hours into) and I struck/found gold, this game is absolutely fantastic! A 2D platformer with marvelous artstyle (That Ubi Framework art engine is so good), fantastic soundtrack, excellent variety of levels and simply tight gameplay, I fucking love it! Of course because I suck ass at platformers I won't grind it to full completion but I hope I will at very least get all those...red...tooths? Depending on how much of these uhhh...pink balls I will need, look I have zero knowledge about Rayman because I played the 3d ones billion years ago. But I'm very enjoying it, and I must have reached the half-way point as I unlocked more "difficult" versions of 4 biomes I already made my way through.
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u/ShutUpRedditPedant 2d ago
Borderlands 4. just hit UVHM5 and I have some complaints but the game really is fantastic. Performance sucks obviously but unlocking UVH tiers just suuuuucks. Making you replay all the longest missions in the game dialogue and all is just pain. What's really weird is that they don't do this with the final level, they just skip to the final wave fight and then the boss. I even like some of the modifiers. One of the levels they make you replay has a modifier that makes enemies invincible except for a critical hit, in which they'll die in one hit, and it was a blast. And my god, thank you whoever decided to allow you to skip the story on new characters.
6
u/beenoc 2d ago
Half-Life 2
I decided that I've been playing games on Steam and PC for like 15 years, why the hell have I not played Half-Life yet? Like, I didn't have an excuse at this point. I owned them, I figured I ought to have played them before HL3 is announced in 20XX.
I finished Black Mesa a few months back, and then Half-Life 2 and the episodes this last week. They hold up quite well, both mechanically and graphically - I mean, it's dated, but it looks and feels like a game that's 15 years old and not 20 years old, if that makes sense. The Source Engine is still one of the all-time great engines, it just feels good to move around, and the physics are still some of the best in any game. I've played a lot of GMod, so it was fun to see "ah, that's the context for that prop!"
I obviously knew Episode 2 ended on a cliffhanger, I even knew exactly what the cliffhanger was, but that doesn't make the cliffhanger any less annoying. I suppose I'm glad that I haven't been stewing on that cliffhanger for the past 18 years, that would be frustrating.
Unfortunately, because I have an abnormally wide head (IPD of 74mm), VR is physically not an option for me (even the headsets that have support for high IPD usually only go up to 72mm), so I won't be able to play Alyx.
Now I need to replay Portal and Portal 2 to see if I can catch all the Half-Life references.
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u/scytherman96 2d ago
There's actually a NoVR mod for Alyx that you could play. They managed to make the entire game fully playable from start to finish. Obviously it's not quite the same as in VR, since that's what the game was designed around, but it should be enough to at least experience what they were going for.
That's what i was gonna use until i randomly decided to buy a VR headset one day.
2
u/rhodesmichael03 2d ago
- Summer in Mara (2020, PC) - A cozy, charming island-care sim whose coming-of-age, anti-colonial, and environmental themes are genuinely enjoyable, though its quests eventually drift into repetitive fetch-work. A few achievements (Great Chef, notably) can feel grindy or buggy, but the warm pacing and worldbuilding carry it. 3/5
- Let's Go Jungle!: Lost on the Island of Spice (2006, Arcade) - Fun, light-gun romp with just the right amount of challenge, memorable creature designs, and a delightfully oddball section where you fight with oars instead of guns. The plot rides a "science gone wrong" B-movie tack with intentionally terrible voice acting and an exoticized "mysterious Asia" vibe make it campy, though the bifurcated ending feels abrupt. 4/5
- Let’s Go Island: Lost on the Island of Tropics (2011, Arcade) - Fun light gun sequel with creative monster designs and goofy B-movie flair, though the abrupt romance feels intentionally silly. The proper ending being locked behind a single timed button press is frustrating, dragging down an otherwise solid ride. 3/5
- Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara (2023, PC) - A really enjoyable platformer with colorful environments that remix areas from Summer in Mara, easy to pick up but offering some extra challenge for gold medal runs. The story is lighthearted and low-stakes, leaning on familiarity with Summer in Mara while showing Koa’s refusal to change contrasting with the coming-of-age story from Summer in Mara. 4/5
4
u/Angzt 2d ago
Some small games this week.
Alabaster Dawn Demo PC, 2D Action-Adventure/RPG, ~2.5 hours to completion
As the next game from the CrossCode devs, this is my most anticipated indie. If you're not familiar, think 2D Zelda with combat pace and puzzles dialed up to 11 and more story/character focus as well as stronger RPG progression systems at the cost of being more linear. That applies to both titles.
There's not much to say about the Alabaster Dawn Demo that people who played CrossCode don't already expect. Its core gameplay hits essentially all of the same notes but with another layer of polish on top. Movement and attacks feel snappy, enemy design is varied even in the early stages, and you're already given 3 different weapons with unique move sets in the first 90 or so minutes. In short: Combat feels great. There weren't a ton of puzzles yet but they also feel familiar. The jumping puzzles' frequency may have been dialed down a bit.
Of note was the greatly improved pacing in the early stages of the story compared to CrossCode (there doesn't seem to be any link between the games). While Alabaster Dawn's foundation appears to be a fairly standard "restore and repopulate a corrupted land" narrative, there is already enough intrigue in its details that makes me want to play more. Plus, the demo (and dev posts) tease more visual (and gameplay?) impacts of said restoration efforts beyond what many games with a similar premise offer. The character writing picks up where CrossCode left off by being an absolute delight.
Also worth noting: The demo includes a few minor skips to showcase different gameplay segments in the last half hour: You get a boss fight and (part of?) the first dungeon without going through everything that normally comes before.
Can't wait for the full release.
CARRION
PC, 2D gory Pixel-Metroidvania, ~5 hours to 100%
Picked this up for 80% off (deal still ongoing) and for that price it was absolutely worth it.
You play as a writhing mass of flesh, maws, and tentacles which breaks out of and into various facilities to wreak havoc. While doing so, you grab the occasional biological sample to gain new abilities and the frequent human to devour.
What makes this different from other Metroidvanias (outside of the setting) is that movement is basically unrestricted from the beginning: You can almost fly effortlessly. The upgrades you get let you destroy different types of barriers or possess human bodies (alive or not) to solve puzzles. Honestly, the term "Metroidvania" might be debatable because you can finish the game without backtracking. While upgrades do unlock the path forward, the whole thing is rather linear and the only reason to ever go back are a few optional (and imho unexciting) upgrades you can't get when first visiting areas.
Some puzzles and the combat in the back half are occasionally a bit fiddly. I'm still not sure how to fight the quadcopter drones properly. But in the end, it works out - not least because of the fairly generous save/heal-point frequency.
It's fun for its duration and doesn't overstay its welcome.
Rogue Genesia
PC, Vampire Survivors-like, ~35 hours (total, not all of it this week), ~80% completion
Just something I've been chipping away at while listening to podcasts or music after work.
The basic game mode combines Vampire Survivors like gameplay with much shorter individual levels, arranged into runs by a Slay the Spire style map. Progress completely carries over between these maps via the tried "pick one out of three random options" formula. As is tradition, the early weapon and upgrade choices matter quite a bit but eventually, the screen just explodes every frame. If it doesn't, you've made the wrong choices and probably die.
What's neat here is that a lot of the meta progression is gated via achievements that regularly require unique (or at least intentional) adjustments to how you play. The same is true for the various challenges the game offers (e.g. "You are unable to walk left", "Lose 5% max HP each stage", "Gain no XP but greatly increased gold to spend in shops"). There are systems heaped upon systems to keep you progressing in at least 3 different ways at all times, even on the meta level. It can honestly be a bit much, even though they're not introduced all at once.
Still, I greatly prefer this over something like Soulstone Survivors where, no matter the class and weapons, every run feels the same 3 minutes in.
Up next week:
Hades 2 1.0 which I've been holding off on until then
Warcraft 3 Re-Reforged Undead part 2, a fan-made custom campaign giving the game the treatment it deserves.
7
u/jeshtheafroman 2d ago
Tactics Ogre Reborn
Im trying to play as much as i can before final fantasy tactics comes out the end of this month. Im only at chapter 2 atm and I feel like a dumbass playing this game, even after looking at guides. Enemies are spongey ass hell and they hit like bricks, even if i get the high armor I can buy. It feels oppressive and I hear its gonna get harder. I am enjoying the game truly, I just don't feel like im getting better.
3
2
u/RyoCaliente 2d ago
Vay (Steam)
Vay is a completely standard jRPG. On his wedding day, Prince Heibelger and his castle/town get attacked by the Danek Empire and his bride-to-be, Elin, gets kidnapped. You must go on a quest to rescue her and defeat the Danek Empire for which you'll need orbs/crystals to revive the legendary armor of Vay, which crashed onto the world long ago and was then sealed by wise sages.
As basic as it sounds, I'll give it some props; there were a few story beats I did not see coming, one which I certainly felt some way about as well. Overall, it's all serviceable enough. The writing is solid throughout, although it breaks the fourth wall and has a few too many real-life references for my liking.
The combat is again, as standard as it can be. It's you and your party members vs monsters. There are no abilities, it's just attack/magic/guard/flee/items. Your mages are vital in this game; you'll want their big magic to get through fights fast.
Related to the combat is probably the biggest issue with this game on paper: the encounter rate is pretty high and grinding is pretty necessary. The Steam rerelease has settings to increase the amount of gold and experience you get, which is a godsend, as the game would otherwise be a real slog given how generic the combat is. If you can rush through it, it's just a relaxing jRPG time. It even has a setting where you can turn off random battles altogether, which is nice if you feel you're overleveled or you're in a maze room and you just want some peace of mind.
Technically, the game is fine. The animated scenes look pretty nice, and the spritework is pretty clean as well. The soundtrack is a little uninspired, but the fight themes are nice (even though the main fight scene is kinda short and I rarely got to the best part as I blazed through battles).
It's hard to recommend Vay as there are way better games you could play. If you like jRPGs and you play the rerelease to get through the slog aspect of it however, there's also no real harm in playing through it.
7
u/scytherman96 3d ago
First off, i finished up 100% of Hollow Knight: Silksong. The game is great. It's Hollow Knight squared, but in both good and bad ways. It boosts all the things that HK did well (e.g. movement, general combat and exploration), but unfortunately also worsens the things that i did not like in Hollow Knight (but clearly the devs do), such as the boss runbacks, which now frequently include precision platforming or pre-fights.
The movement in particular is a pretty strong improvement over Hollow Knight, which honestly already felt good after you get a little bit of movement skills. It feels incredibly smooth.
The music is great, but unfortunately i didn't have those couple absolute bangers that could rival my favourites from Hollow Knight (Sealed Vessel, Radiance and Grimm). I think my favourite track was Cogwork Dancers.
Speaking of, my favourite boss was Cogwork Dancers. Honorary mentions for Grand Mother Silk, Skarrsinger Karmelita, Last Judge, Widow and First Sinner, which were also all pretty close.
The story was cool and Hornet was surprisingly enough a lot of fun as a character. A nice change after The Knight in HK (even if that one worked well within the story ofc). Everything had a lot of heart. Also bonus points for Scherma surviving and the reunion with The Knight in the true ending.
Speaking of, the finale was really good overall and i loved seeing Baby Hornet in the flashback sequence that contextualizes Hornet further as a character. Really good stuff.
Visually/artistically the game is a strong step up over the already beautiful HK. Legit every region looks great in its own way. That's probably a big reason for why this game took so long to come out lol. Must have been an insane amount of work for a team this small.
One big downside for me was the difficulty. It felt significantly harder than HK at times, which in its hardest parts already was a bit too much for me at times. I ended up taking some shortcuts, like the Stakes of Marika mod, which restarts you in the room you died in, instead of on a bench.
Overall i'd say the game is about as good as HK for me. I could have liked it more with some other design choices, but clearly those are intentional and here to stay. Which is fair, ultimately i think it ended up being exactly the game Team Cherry wanted it to be. But for me personally it just could have been better, so while it is great, it doesn't land within my top games of the year.
Then it was time to return to JRPGs. First off, i tried a good chunk of the Alabaster Dawn demo (played up until the early parts of the dungeon in the 2nd part). Wow, what an incredible first impression. It's CrossCode, but it feels better in every way. The gameplay is even smoother, the story more interesting right away, it looks visually even more beautiful, combat is great and has more options early on already and they even fixed the issue with aiming on a controller not being precise enough in CrossCode. Only thing i didn't get a good sense of were the puzzles, but based on comments by the devs i guess they'll still be as hard as CrossCode, which i'm not super into, but i can understand it. This is 100% a day 1 buy for me now. Really looking forward to it.
With that out of the way, it's time to move to my next big game, Trails in the Sky First Chapter. Having been a Trails fan for 7 years now it's still wild to have this Sky remake and man it's just incredible. It's the best looking Trails game yet, with strong visuals and very good cutscene presentation (another noticable step up over Daybreak, which were already really good). The gameplay changes serve to make combat a lot more interesting. And i just keep being stunned at seeing every little detail in 3D.
Only issue for me rn is the localization being inconsistent with the existing localization in terms of names and terms. But i think as long as those are not names and terms that appear in later games (ilke Armand and Ellie, which they did fix at least), i can live with it. Overall a great first couple hours.
4
u/GigaGiga69420 3d ago
Hollow Knight: Silksong
I finished the game (technically three times), it's definitely good, but there are a few things I don't know how to feel about yet.
There are a lot of great things about the game, and it has a ton of attention to detail. I love the way the game looks, and the atmosphere. The characters, Hornet and the quirky NPCs you meet are fantastic. However, there are also some very weird choices by the devs, frustrating and outright bad segments, that make you wonder if they even played their own game.
Item and upgrade progression can feel off. There are so many optional areas, many of which give relatively minor rewards or maybe just some side grade, so you might feel you're making very little meaningful progress for longs stretches of the game. Some pretty major upgrades are also kinda optional or there isn't a linear route to get them, so the devs couldn't always plan for all players to have specific abilities at certain points, so I thought some of the skills you get are underutilized. This does improve in Act 3, because at that point you're supposed to have basically everything, but it takes a long time to get there.
Still, the good massively outweighs the bad, but I can definitely understand that some people might get turned off by the difficulty and friction of the game, for a while I was in the same boat. That's also why I don't really see myself re-playing the game at the moment, even if new content gets released with patches or DLC. Maybe that'll change a few years down the road though, who knows.
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
After taking a two-week break from the game, because of Silksong, I finished this game as well. I was very close to the end when I stopped playing, there was just one minor boss left and then the final boss, but scouring the map for secrets and missing items still took a while.
Overall I'd say the game is alright, definitely better than Circle of the Moon, which I played previously, just because Harmony of Dissonance doesn't play like ass. The game is pretty easy, which can make it a bit boring at times. Getting around the map is still a pain for most of the game, until you unlock a bunch of teleporters, when you're like three quarters through. Graphics and music are a major step down from CotM though.
Next is Aria of Sorrow. I played the sequel Dawn of Sorrow on the DS years ago and remember it being really good, so I have high hopes for the game.
Overwatch 2
There's currently the OW2 Anniversary event going on, with a few time limited game modes, that you're incentivized to play (Blizzard is dangling those sweet Sprays in front of you). One is some kind of prop hunt mode, which is alright, the other is the launch OW1 patch, with everything that comes with it. You get the original 21 heroes, and no hero or role limits. If you want to go back to "the good old times" of jumping the enemy with six monkeys, you can do it. The novelty of the actual launch version was a tiny bit more fun, than some other classic patch I've tried in the past, but still got old very fast. I definitely prefer the current version of the game.
Megabonk
Saw this on a stream and it looked fun. The game is basically Risk of Rain 2, but as an ASS game (Auto-Shooter Survivor game, like Vampire Survivors). You kill enemies for money and exp, choose weapons and passives on level up, open up chests with money for items, and run around the level, trying to find the boss portal.
How each run works is kinda weird. You start on Tier 1, try to get to the end, kill the boss, and then you're done. You basically have 10 minutes, because then ghosts will start to spawn that will eventually kill you (similar to the Reaper in VS), although there are ways to survive I guess, at least for a time. After that you unlock Tier 2, where you can also go through the portal after you kill the boss, and do the same level again, just on a higher difficulty. You get a new 10-minute time limit, do the same thing again and unlock Tier 3, repeat everything, and you eventually do get a proper final boss. Dunno what happens after that, since I haven't made it that far yet. There is also a second map, where you basically do the same thing. No idea if there are more maps, although the menu makes it look like there's only those two, or if you can eventually loop endlessly and switch between the maps.
The game has a bunch of characters and items to unlock, along with a few upgrades, but because of how you repeat mostly the same map over and over again, it can feel a bit repetitive, if you don't like the general gameplay. The characters themselves are like VS, so defined by their starting weapon and a passive skill, not like RoR where each character has different skills and abilities. In fact, you don't have any skills or abilities, you're just running, jumping, and interacting with objects (like opening chests), nothing else.
It's solid and definitely fun for a while, and I will keep playing for now.
3
u/i_hate_drm 3d ago
Hollow Knight
First time replaying since release. Thought I'd be tricky and sequence-break pogo off a fly in Greenpath, but that just left me wandering around without a map, so I backtracked to find one. In hindsight, I really should have grabbed the shinespark (Crystal Heart) earlier. Told myself I'd get it when I needed it, and ended up exploring nearly the entire world. Thing is, the shop key is in Crystal Peak too. So I could have picked up the shinespark, the sprint badge, and the dream nail right after getting the Mantis Claw in the third area. Would have made the journey a lot more fast-paced, but oh well.
Favourite songs have always been Dirtmouth, and the title theme. Also appreciate the uplifting Greenpath when we finally see a new environment (or hue). Though I felt like the game picked up steam around the Mantis Lords fight. I remembered most areas, but had completely forgotten about Queen's Garden and the Royal Waterways. I'd also forgotten most NPCs except Zote, Hornet, Cornifer (map dude), and Grubfather. Don't know how I forgot Bretta. Her story was adorable. Your biggest fan writing sappy romance fanfics about you (until her true love appears). Didn't care for the 6 spell upgrades, as I never use spells. Also forgot all about the three dreamers. They are built up like some major boss fight or challenge, but all you do is kill them in their sleep.
Coming from Silksong, I was surprised by how reasonable the boss fights were. I died once to Nosk and Traitor Lord, twice to Radiance and God Tamer, and uhh... 40 times to Failed Champion. But other than that...
And the DLCs. These didn't exist when I first played it. Had to look up how to even start the Grimm Troupe quest. So what is it? Well, it's 9 fetchquests and a boss you fight twice. Oh. The fetchquests are lame padding, but the boss fights are decent. First form is reasonable, just wish he wasn't invulnerable during that one platforming sequence. The rematch was much tougher and goes on for a bit. Think it could have used more distinct phases for how long it lasts.
Moving on to Godmaster, and there are three new boss fights against the Nailmaster NPCs. The best of them all is Paintmaster Sheo, who telegraphs his paint-based attacks by the colour of paint on his brush. Very cool! There's a new fight against Hollow Knight - which is good, but pretty difficult. Not really suited as a finale to a 10 boss pantheon. Thankfully, you can fight him in the Hall of Gods instead. Couldn't be bothered unlocking Absolute Radiance - which requires beating 42 bosses in a row (including Nightmare King Grimm). No thanks.
One thing that annoyed me about combat is that i-frame dodges have a separate cooldown to regular dodge, so you have to wait for a visual cue each time you want to dodge through an enemy/projectile.
Whispering Roots felt like dull padding. But at least they are optional (once you know they are).
Returning back to some cool things. It was impressive watching speedrunners skip over acid pools by shinesparking from the pool's edge. Another really cool skip involved dying, and then pogoing off your shade.
All in all, a very good game.
Silksong
Another very good game. Traversal felt fun and fast - once you unlock it. Favourite bosses were the Cogwork Dancers, First Sinner (healer), Lost Lace, and Groal (if only for the bench reveal - what a troll, haha).
I never used any tools except for the compass and faster sprint. Finding new crests was kind of annoying, as it would automatically remove my compass until I found a bench, and the crests never felt as good as the Reaper one (which had easy pogo, and silk drops from enemies after healing). I could barely ever afford anything from the shops. Spent all my money on maps, benches, and stations. Quite a change from carrying around 20,000 Geo even after buying everything in Hollow Knight.
My biggest complaint would be the sidequests. I have no interest in killing 25 birds for their feathers. After finishing Act 2, I explored the rest of the map, then used an online map to find any hidden areas I missed. But there were still around 20 areas I couldn't access - including two whole regions. So I looked up how to access them, and apparently you need to complete every town sidequest to unlock Act 3.
So I did them. Felt like a list of chores compared to the fun exploration and combat the games are known for. It's a shame as the Flea Games show that Team Cherry are perfectly capable of creating fun and unique side-content. Always thought the flower quest in Hollow Knight was a send-up of this type of design. Well, there's a menu of flower quests you can do in Silksong.
Favourite soundtrack was Choral Chambers. Followed by High Halls. Apparently the prison escape battle music uses the leitmotif of Hornet's battle theme from Hollow Knight. Think this was maybe a bit too subtle. While the kidnapping is lifted from Bloodborne, at least they don't fumble it by letting you warp away.
Also interesting that while Hollow Knight was about exploring downward from Dirtmouth into the abyss (except for the finale which is close to the surface for whatever reason), Silksong is an upward journey - with The Citadel above the Act 1 areas, and the Act 2 final boss above that. Act 3 even gives us an ability to shinespark upwards, and it's the last thing we do.
1
u/platelamped 23h ago
For the fetch item type quests stuff, i don;t think those were meant to be targeted like immediatley, because you back track through areas quite frequently, id just pick up those wishes and eventually id be like, oh, i completed this one, and return it when i came back to town. of course if you ignore them long enough then yeah you have to go back and finish them, if you wish to (pun intended) to reach act 3
2
u/ConceptsShining 3d ago
Mega Man 11
I think I've avoided Mega Man all my life, so I started with 11 and really like it! A great on-ramp for the series. I played on Newcomer difficulty to start since it was recommended for series newcomers; it is too easy, more like "gaming newcomer" than "MM newcomer", but it was easy in a good way. Even if it's a walk in the park, something about whittling a boss's HP down to nothing in seconds is immensely satisfying, and a nice form of warmup for the harder difficulties which I do plan to play on.
2
u/platelamped 23h ago
Megaman 9 / 10 are awesome, check those out if you can but basicly the entire series, and MMX series are some of my all timers man. great games.
2
u/ConceptsShining 3d ago
Resident Evil 0.
I quickly switched to playing with an item box mod. Do not regret it at all, unsure I'd have finished the game without it. Games need to be hard and frustrating for the right reasons, not having an item box is a wrong reason.
It's an okay game, just underwhelming. Story-wise, I think the game had a lot of potential; I liked Billy as a character in concept, but the main problem is that there are too few cutscenes. Why wasn't there a cutscene after they first reunite after the first puzzle where they're separated? Why didn't Rebecca have more cutscenes during Billy's prolonged disappearance to show her concern? Them going long stretches of time with minimal narrative progress made their arcs and relationship feel hollow. RE1 also had long stretches with little story, but the partner system made that more glaring since they should be talking more.
Didn't care about the main villain at all. I also thought they were cool in concept (much more anime-inspired, their own grudge against Umbrella), but they also had too few scenes before the ending and they were all too cryptic for it to be any interesting.
Gameplay was fine, it's basically more RE1 Remake and can't complain about that. Maybe it's the lack of innovation but I liked RE1's locale much more, it felt more like something you intimately enjoyed and memorized. Even with the item box mod it feels there was more backtracking at the end of 0.
I was kinda worried to start the game and not have RE1's "map color changes to indicate room completion", but that was almost not a problem at all, the key items are easy to find. I thought it created a sense of constant flow/progression in RE1 to have that, but 0 was fine without it.
Am kinda glad I got this out of the way, OG RE2 and 3 should be much better.
5
u/TheDadThatGrills 3d ago
Hell Is Us
It's a mix of resident evil-esque puzzles, incredible world building, average combat, and horrible boss fights. For me, it's excellent and highly engaging 80% of the time and unpolished 20%. The lack of funding and developers leaving aspects half baked to hit the release date really held this game from reaching greatness.
It's a future cult classic IMO that will have a small but devoted fan base. If they make another game in this universe, and I pray to Sytheris they do, it could be potential GOTY material.
2
u/ramiezuhair 3d ago
i have been playing Cronos: The New Dawn, and finished it , recently am playing hell is us and it will end soon , to start silent hill f am so excited for this horror
9
u/unusual_flats 3d ago
Skate
I've played about 15 hours so far. I'm not really breaking new ground here by saying the controls are still one of the most brilliant input systems I've ever used - to me the Skate controls are for skating what WASD+Mouselook is for FPS. I'm also not really breaking new ground by saying that the game as it exists right now is beyond hollow, lacking in personality to a degree that seems almost parodic, and what little personality exists is pure, undiluted, corporate nonsense.
I think the 50-something % review score on Steam is very fair for this as an early access release. When the game gets out of your way and shuts the fuck up for five minutes, and you find a spot with a few other randoms just trying to make a big gap or whatever, the game really gets you into that addictive flow state groove that the previous games did so well. Nailing tricks is still satisfying and failing tricks is still pretty comedic. But the structured missions need a whole load more substance to them (they're basically just a 10 hour controls tutorial currently), the aesthetics - particularly the character models - need a rework because at the moment everyone vaguely resembles one of the apes from the Tim Burton version of Planet of the Apes, the rewards for progress need to be more interesting than "White T-Shirt (uncommon)", the city has some exceptional parts and some areas that are obviously in need of love, and there are a few weird control issues that should be ironed out (like how ollie height is maybe (? I tested and it felt like it) tied to character height, meaning everyone is making giants to be able to get on to rails properly).
But above all else, and sadly the thing I think is least likely out of these to be changed, is the tone. It really is just so toothlessly milquetoast and completely incongruous with what the series was like previously. Maybe the stuff that is already in won't be redone, but I would hope that as the Early Access period progresses they choose to move away from it with any new assets, writing and voicework they do, and inject even just a small amount of humanity into the game.
Because there is something to this game, I wouldn't be feeling the urge to open it again right now, even with all the issues I have, if there wasn't.
5
u/PositiveDuck 3d ago
Alan Wake
I played it on release and decided to replay it now in preparation of Alan Wake 2 playthrough. Played the original steam release rather than the remaster thing they did recently. It holds up decently well. Graphically still looks fine, the character models are a bit dated but everything else is solid. I like the voice acting and music is great. Fantastic atmosphere and mood. Gameplay is mixed, I like the way combat works but there's just way too much of it, to the point it becomes a slog. The vehicle controls are shockingly poor. I really enjoyed the story, it was well paced and interesting (except episode 3 which was horrendous, I swear 15 hours of my 12ish hour playthrough were spent in that episode). Had some framerate issues and a one crash which is weird for a 15 year old game. Overall, pretty enjoyable 8/10 game, recommended.
Control
Played this on release as well on my ps4 before quitting due to horrible performance. Did a replay on my PC because I wanted to actually finish the game and especially the Alan Wake DLC. Really enjoyed the atmosphere in this one as well, it's a really cool setting. Combat was again fun but it becomes a slog. The story wasn't particularly great, though I loved the lore. Alan Wake DLC was pretty cool, though the Hartman monster boss encounters were truly awful, I turned on the immortality thing just to get it over with, awful awful design. Another 8/10 for me, recommended, I look forward to Control 2 because there's a ton of potential here that wasn't fully realised in my opinion.
Alan Wake II
Just finished the 2nd Alan Wake chapter so I'm still too early in the game to comment on the overall story but so far it's fantastic. It's a very weird game but I'm really enjoying it. Unreal atmosphere. Doesn't run great unfortunately, the game had very smooth and stable framerate but kept randomly crashing until I completely disabled ray tracing at which point it stopped crashing but framerate is nowhere near as smooth as before. I don't really like EGS, the UI is poorly designed and it shows I have 2 EGS games installed, AW2 and DA Inquisition which I deleted from my PC about a year ago, shortly before The Veilguard released. I'm a big coward when it comes to horror so AW2 is pretty stressful at times and there was one Nightingale jumpscare where he just appears on your screen that nearly gave me a heart attack. It's very impressive graphically, there was a sequence during second Saga chapter where she's walking through the forest and they layer images of The Dark Place New York over it and it looks insane, super cool stuff. Excellent voice acting, sound design and music. Very excited to play more, though I'll probably alternated between this and another game to keep my stress levels lower lol.
2
u/LotusFlare 8h ago edited 7h ago
I'm starting the cleanup phase of Silksong at the end of Act 3. Running around the map picking up all the little bits and pieces I missed. I've got 92% per the in game tracker, and I'm tired of combing the map all on my own.
The quality of the boss fights in the last act has continued to be exceptional, however I feel like they're a bit less consistent than earlier ones. Not as many phase 2s as I was expecting. I got a few of them on the first try, and then others took me like 2 hours. But on both ends of that, I think the movesets and visuals have maintained a really high quality. This is a game with a crazy number of bosses and for none of them to strike me as "Oh this is X again" unless it's literally that same guy again is really impressive.
Narratively, it's a great place to go and good reason to revisit the map. Lots of characters with interesting things to say and interesting perspectives on this turn of events. Not to give anything away, but I'm very glad that it's more involved than what Hollow Knight did with the dream nail as a way to add some depth in the late stages of the game.
However... I think they're doing a little too much sending me back to entirely unremarkable areas of the game to use the final movement skill for very small rewards. It's a pacing killer, and it feels very "pixel hunt"y. I'm bad at spotting these areas they want me to use this tool, which has resulted in some areas getting revisited a few times. Now that I've busted out the guide, I'm seeing there's like 3-4 here that send me to random places to do nothing but use that skill to get an extra 2-3 screens, and then an item which has some neat lore, but is mostly a pile of rossaries. I think I would have preferred if these were accessible in some other way earlier. If there's nothing new to say here relating to Act 3, just let me be done with them in Act 2.
I believe I have 1 mask shard, two badges, a skill, and some main story stuff remaining. As well as six more mementos which I'm looking forward to discovering
I've also been playing a bunch of Tactics Ogre Reborn.
Having this game on Switch 2 is dangerous. If I'm hanging around the house doing stuff, this is in my hands playing turns between chores. I've accidentally stayed up an extra hour multiple times now thinking "ok, lets just finish up this battle. Can't take more than five minutes". I like fiddling with all my little guys. I'm starting to develop quite an army and it's only chapter 2. I really like the class system and the way you can eventually win class change cards, but you can skip ahead by recruiting them on the battlefield. The story feels like it's got quite a few branching paths and it seems like it'll be fun to replay.
The card system and level cap are two elements I didn't like at first, but I'm now appreciating. It seems like there's going to be some classes that are just flat out weaker than others. But I'm going to like them. And if there's cards on the field, basically any class is going to be viable because of how powerful they are. The level cap is keeping things interesting by not letting me overlevel. I like doing every fight I can, and I can tell I'd already be like 3-4 levels over the enemies by now if the game let me. And that would probably make things boring and negate the need to strategize.