What games have you been playing recently?

[Missing? NO!]

In the vein of the thread in the Multimedia Discussion board, what games have you been playing recently? Feel free to post your opinions on whatever games you've been playing through recently -- maybe we can all help each other enjoy some new titles.

I haven't played much as of late -- just been doing stuff with Smash Bros. while I wait for some games to come out this summer. The next game I'll probably play through will be the next Wolfenstein game on the Switch. I played through The New Colossus this past summer and really enjoyed it -- really like the concept of the whole Wolfenstein game in general. Alternative realities are super fascinating to me as a "what if" scenario plus shooting Nazis is hella fun lmao

[Sherkel]

I never was one to play too many different games in general, but this past year was definitely an exception to that. I'm actually worried I'll run out of ones that interest me by now, but seeing how much is out there I might not very soon. In no particular order:

Professor Layton series: I started with the Phoenix Wright crossover because it was a Phoenix Wright game I hadn't played, but I enjoyed the Layton aspects enough that I decided I wanted to try that series too. To be honest, I don't like it all that much: the lines of logic you're expected to follow in the puzzles make no sense sometimes, the illustrations are unsettling despite seeming to want to be the opposite way, the narratives could maybe fill one episode of a TV show per game even with how much talking there is, the music is unique but nothing to write home about, the save and reset cycle is tedious...but I still like it, for some reason. I've completed Curious Village and Unwound Future, and decided to try Mystery Journey next to see the differences on the 3DS (which are big improvements to me). Maybe it's the fact I can just jump right in whenever I feel like it?

Dai Gyakuten Saiban: Speaking of Phoenix Wright, there was technically a new one this year for those playing it in English. Definitely worth playing, with enough to set it apart from the rest and to make it the breath of fresh air the series needed after Spirit of Justice (or Dual Destinies, for the Japanese). Unfortunately, aside from setting a new tone and introducing everyone's favorite modern rendition of Sherlock Holmes, it doesn't accomplish anything else. This game and its sequel were originally planned to be a single entry, and it really shows every time a plot point is introduced in grand fashion only to be set aside for later. The last case got the introduction of a climactic episode, but ended up resolving about as much as a second or third case. Personally I'm a huge fan of sequel hooks, but this wasn't that. It was only half of a story, packed into one game due to poor planning. Not what anyone wants from a mystery series. But there's enough for it to be worth playing so long as you keep that in mind.

Etrian Odyssey series: I played the two "Untold" ones on 3DS, and really enjoyed them. I thought to myself for months "those old-school RPGs translated really well to the 3DS", thinking they were early ones from the 80s or 90s that helped set the standard for others, with some elements catching on and others discarded, but then I found out that the originals were...for the DS! I didn't expect that an RPG with such a distinctive system would come onto the scene that late down the line. Maybe I haven't played enough to be able to say what's different from the norm. The super-difficult bosses that the series is known for aren't my cup of tea, but luckily those are all exclusive to the post-game, as they should be. I've been slowly plugging away at the fifth game lately, but seeing that the formula is nothing but more of the same has put me off from being too gung-ho about it. As a Pokémon fan, I certainly can't fault a series for repeating itself, but I want to leave it to rest for a bit longer before coming back.

Undertale / Deltarune: I was late to the party here, having only started looking into the former once Deltarune was revealed. I had seen Dundertale some time before, but that was it. Let's just say I quickly saw why it was so ridiculously popular and agreed completely with the reasons. I don't know how many hours I spent watching analysis videos afterward, but even with all of those embedded in my mind I still click on any one that I see. If you're interested at all, just try it; I was pleasantly surprised how short and to-the-point it was. So many different things about it appeal to so many different people, and I'm always interested in what stands out to a particular person. There's also no way to talk about Toby's work without mentioning the music, which demands respect for its compositional inventiveness, use of leitmotifs, wide selection of soundfonts used to fit each situation instead of sticking to just one boring (sorry, "modern") one to fit the industry standards, and much like the game itself, concision (not the same thing as shortness,) something I struggle with a lot myself. I can and will insist on it being absolutely essential listening whether you're just a listener or a composer, even though...I actually don't like it that much! There are a handful of tracks which I like, but I could easily do without them in my life as well. My biggest complaint is probably the difficulty of the Genocide route, my favorite of the three by orders of magnitude. Yes, I understand why it's supposed to be that way and could write an equally long post about why that's good, but I still disagree and would prefer if my favorite part of the game wasn't hidden behind hacking or uncommentated playthroughs. I'm not going to spend that much time retrying a boss on something that's supposed to be a game. To end on a positive note, after going through Undertale, Deltarune is the best possible "what the f**k" experience in countless ways both blatant and subtle, and like its predecessor, nothing intentionally meant to freak the player out (okay, maybe one thing in each, but neither for the sake of being shocking,) just a genius developer putting down what he actually wants to. If I have to wait till I'm an old man to see the rest of it because he couldn't assemble a big enough team he could trust, then so be it.

Ogre Battle: Too hard. Might pick it back up sometime later, maybe with a guide, but with all it has going for it it's still very clearly a first attempt at a formula. It's a really special and immersive one when I'm not dying nonstop, though, so maybe I'll have more to say if a guide does help me push through!

Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists: Nonstop delight. I'm fanatical about the Salburg subseries, so I guess that's no surprise, even if a lot of "veterans" seem to dislike it for taking away the pointlessly convoluted ("intricate") elements of most of the recent entries. The lively town environment, the illustrations, the straightforward time management, the visual novel cutscenes...it just does everything right. What more is there to say? ...Well, actually, I don't know how it all adds up in the end (if it's too difficult, too easy, etc.), because I've only been playing it in short bursts! But given that there's only so much that can be maxed out, I'm not too worried. Not that I'd mind any amount of additional playthroughs in the first place.

Oriental Blue: Ao no Tengai: By far my favorite game I've discovered in...I don't even know how many years. I'm a bit lost for reasons, unfortunately, as a lot of it is probably sentimental: it was developed by Hudson with a score by Ichiro Shimakura, so between the artstyle, designs of the towns and overworld, and some of my favorite music I've ever heard in anything (I go through about 50 soundtracks for every game I try, most of which I drop after a few minutes), it's the closest we might ever get to a Pokémon TCG 3. I kind of wish I could gush with praise about it as I did with Undertale, but I guess I like it on a personal enough level that I don't have to. It's a straightforward RPG...not much else to say. There are some non-linear elements, but I don't especially care about those. I'll definitely be going through it many times, but the matter of finding an appropriate time to is no simple task with something on this level.

Pokémon Vega: Yep, it's only recently that I finally decided to give the English patch a go! You all know what Pokémon is here, so there's no need to explain the deal with this game. For a ROM hack to receive a full localization, and for it to be amongst the hundreds of GBA ones, it would have to be the best one out there. And it is. You won't be disappointed.

[LanceAndMissingNo.]

I don't play video games so much recently, but in this week I have been playing...

Pokémon Y (emulator): I let this game in the 7th medal and today I won the 8th medal and the Ligue. Very easy...
GTA V (PS3): Trying to complete the game (87.9%). Today I received the trophy of all Los Santos's map completed 
Pokémon Yellow: Meh, doing some things related with glitches, but nothing in special.

[Parzival]

i'm currently playing the following:

Pocket Mortys: Beat the game. Not going back for all the Mortys as this game becomes even more P2W after you beat all of the Elite Four ripoffCouncil of Rick members.

Egg Inc: Why? Iunno. Something to do...
Apparently a 4 quintillion% prestige boost isn't enough to beat it, which would be more like 45% if i hadn't hacked it to give myself all the premium upgrades. (Yes, the game is weighted THAT heavily in the P2W direction but it's still not enough!)

MGS3: Snake Eater (3DS): Finally got the Chameleon rank (beat the game without ever being caught. Did it in 3 hours, not too shabby with the s**t controls in this game!) My 3DS' triggers are dying though, so i'll need to start actually using InputRedirection now... (good thing I remapped Rosalina to St+Se, I guess!)

[Missing? NO!]

Pokémon Vega: Yep, it's only recently that I finally decided to give the English patch a go! You all know what Pokémon is here, so there's no need to explain the deal with this game. For a ROM hack to receive a full localization, and for it to be amongst the hundreds of GBA ones, it would have to be the best one out there. And it is. You won't be disappointed.

Checked out a playthrough of Pokemon Vega on YouTube after seeing this. Gonna download it and start my own playthrough -- looks like one of the most quality 3rd Gen ROMhacks I've seen.

And here I was thinking that Pokemon Chaos Black was the gold standard in Pokemon ROM hacks.

[Evie the Bird Mother 🌸 ☽]

Yoshi's Crafted World: Completed the main story of this game. Its very cute! ❤ :3

Runescape: Relatively recently came back to this MMORPG. It's nice for mindfulness, its just wise to not get too addicted.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: On Shadow Temple

Final Fantasy: At Golden Saucer ✿

[Missing? NO!]

Yoshi's Crafted World: Completed the main story of this game. Its very cute! ❤ :3

How difficult did you find Yoshi's Crafted World? It reminds me a lot of Kirby's Epic Yarn, which I played, but I didn't like Epic Yarn because of how easy it was.

[Evie the Bird Mother 🌸 ☽]

Yoshi's Crafted World: Completed the main story of this game. Its very cute! ❤ :3

How difficult did you find Yoshi's Crafted World? It reminds me a lot of Kirby's Epic Yarn, which I played, but I didn't like Epic Yarn because of how easy it was.

It's easy like Epic Yarn, so you may not like it. Collecting all of the smiley flowers is harder, but the levels generally easy. There is a secret world which requires large numbers of happy flowers, but I'm unsure how difficult those are. ✿

[Pokedude]

Well I play lots of video games. (Maybe that's unhealthy? XD)

Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
So I just got into this series because I played a demo for Spirit of Justice, and the trilogy went up for sale on the eShop for $12 instead of $30. I've almost finished the first game, and I've really enjoyed the gameplay, and story development.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
So I got this game preordered on my birthday when it came out so I've had it for awhile, and recently I've been trying for a contortionist run of the game. Thing is if I end up not playing the game for a month or so I'll forget what I was doing, and decide to start over! (Kinda like my Animal Crossing or Tomodachi Life...)

Tomodachi Life
I got my copy of the game used so it already had random people from the original owner on it. So what do you do with previous characters? Copy them into mii maker, take pics of they're character settings, and when you start the game over recreate them so you have a few more unique faces on your island. I'll set up a thread for sharing Tomodachi Life Mii QR codes after I post this.

[Sherkel]

Healthier than filling yourself with butter and sugar while sitting through whatever TV shows everyone happens to be talking about nowadays.

I'm in love with the Ace Attorney series, even if I'm with the majority agreeing they never topped the trilogy or AAI2. It'd be great to hear your impressions. I think I first played it around 2008. I probably referenced it a few times on here with zero context. There's an anime of it now too, but don't watch it until you've played the games. From a critical standpoint it's probably quite poor, but I like having it as an add-on. After all, it's more content!

[Pokedude]

Well I actually saw the first episode of the anime before even playing the game so I understand how it contains major spoilers. Sadly the first season is unavailable through any of my streaming services although the SECOND season is available on Funimation.

Sometimes my sister will say something that doesn't make since, and I'll be all like "Obejection! There is a glaring contradiction in the witnesses testimony!"
Also as an update...

Pokemon Platinum
I just started my game over yesterday as I had completed the main story awhile ago, but I wanted to experience the game again with a fresh team, and a better understanding of Pokemon.

[Missing? NO!]

Been playing through Cadence of Hyrule recently. It reminds me a lot of the old Zelda games for the NES, in the sense that the game gives you very little direction and requires you explore and traverse the world in order to progress. I swear I've died so many times just trying to explore the world and find my next objective.

The rhythm quirk is really fun. Combat is really satisfying as a result -- you have to analyze the enemy's movement patterns in accordance with the rhythm and strike on just the right beat in order for your hit to damage the enemy. Pretty cool and satisfying, but boy is it f**king hard to get a hang of at first.

[Evie the Bird Mother 🌸 ☽]

Played most of Sutte Hakkun with the help of a guide. Here is some footage of this quirky gem.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PXPKJkB4VU

Been playing through Cadence of Hyrule recently. It reminds me a lot of the old Zelda games for the NES, in the sense that the game gives you very little direction and requires you explore and traverse the world in order to progress. I swear I've died so many times just trying to explore the world and find my next objective.

The rhythm quirk is really fun. Combat is really satisfying as a result -- you have to analyze the enemy's movement patterns in accordance with the rhythm and strike on just the right beat in order for your hit to damage the enemy. Pretty cool and satisfying, but boy is it f**king hard to get a hang of at first.

I've heard about this game! Nice ~. ^^ ✿

[Missing? NO!]

Typing this after I just beat Cadence of Hyrule. This game is fantastic. Takes some time to get used to the rhythm-based gameplay, but once you do it's extremely satisfying. I was having a blast just running around Hyrule, hitting everything in sight. Somehow got stuck with a ball-and-chain-based weapon, though, rather than a sword. I definitely didn't 100% the game as half my item slots were still empty when I finished.

Also, the dungeons are fun but frustrating at times. They're all randomly-generated, along with many of the item locations around the world. Made getting walkthroughs hard, but the dungeons are probably the most fun part about the game. You'll just be completely overwhelmed by enemies, needing to rely on all your tools (bombs, special moves, arrows, etc) in order to make it through. Really satisfying to get through a hard dungeon once you get the hang of it.

Bosses are fun but kinda on the easy and short side. Oddly enough, for a Zelda game, there weren't many, if any, puzzles. But, given that this is more of an indie-spinoff of a Zelda game, I'll let that slide. Also has a cool built-in speedrun mode, which is neat!

[Evie the Bird Mother 🌸 ☽]

Typing this after I just beat Cadence of Hyrule. This game is fantastic. Takes some time to get used to the rhythm-based gameplay, but once you do it's extremely satisfying. I was having a blast just running around Hyrule, hitting everything in sight. Somehow got stuck with a ball-and-chain-based weapon, though, rather than a sword. I definitely didn't 100% the game as half my item slots were still empty when I finished.

Also, the dungeons are fun but frustrating at times. They're all randomly-generated, along with many of the item locations around the world. Made getting walkthroughs hard, but the dungeons are probably the most fun part about the game. You'll just be completely overwhelmed by enemies, needing to rely on all your tools (bombs, special moves, arrows, etc) in order to make it through. Really satisfying to get through a hard dungeon once you get the hang of it.

Bosses are fun but kinda on the easy and short side. Oddly enough, for a Zelda game, there weren't many, if any, puzzles. But, given that this is more of an indie-spinoff of a Zelda game, I'll let that slide. Also has a cool built-in speedrun mode, which is neat!

Congrats!