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[lachesis]

Just finished Dragon Quest XI S: Definitive Edition on Xbox Game Pass. The clock says about 275 hrs, but I think I put in around 250 at the most. 100% achievement - and I went even further to collect every single items, fill out every single enemies and all. Even married/co-habitated with every single characters to see their stories. LOL...

Still... I think it's been a while since I put in so many hours into one game. In which it means it really provided a lot of contents... and since I was playing in my native language, I enjoyed talking to all the townsfolks and all. Normally I tend to skip a lot of them... but DQ is one of those games where those things really shine. I knew and heard how much text the game actually has since it's original form - so much so that they actually had to use some sort of compression for the font and text to stay within the size of the cartridge.

As per the game, I loved it quite a bit. I think it being more cinematic in its storytelling, I think it worked better than previous ones - but since Horii Yuji is pretty old guy now, I can definitely sense the old school feel, and probably the translators had pretty tough time to really conform it to the western standard. It is a pretty vanilla story, very standard, cliche'd and all - but there's always something unique about the gameplay itself, and how it managed to balance itself. It was pretty easy DQ, for sure - but I had to spam a lot of expensive/rare items to fight the hidden boss in the end.

I'm actually feeling a bit tired of all the gaming, and a bit glad that DQ games only come out once in a blue moon - so probably take a few days off while thinking about what to play next. My anticipated upcoming release is Ys IX, but have about a month or so left - so I may tackle something shorter in the mean time. I would like to start with Persona 5 Royal so that I can also prepare myself for P5 Strikers... so many games, so little time.

 

[Mr. PlayStation]

DSRemastered on PS5, lord vessel acquired demons being slayed and the only way forwards is backtracking and unlocking locations. So good so far

 

[Justin9mm]

Doom eternal. Finished it, replayed 2016. Replaying eternal on nightmare again. I can't get enough of this game and the "doom dance"

Doom Eternal is life!

 

[Naked Lunch]

Alien Soldier (Mega Drive) -Treasure's boss rush masterpiece. The game literally kicks the player in the teeth from the jump and says "deal with it". Relentless and never lets up. 7Force alone is a crown jewel of 2d gaming skill. Ive been playing different versions of it. The port on the Genesis collection on XB1 - but that doesnt compare to the 60hz NTSC patched rom played thru an original Sega Genesis. I recently got my Genesis Triple Bypass modded so this is Sega gaming on cloud 9.

Gunbird 2 (Steam) -shmup excellence from psikyo. Its cutesy visuals mask its brutal difficulty. I dont think ill ever be able to 1cc it on normal. Better than the Dreamcast port - just a shame its missing Morrigan and her assets.

DoDonPachi (Arcade/Mame/Retropie) -I can always make time for some DoDon. Still my favorite bullet hell shmup of all time.

Batsugun (Saturn/Mame/Retropie) -the birth of bullethell? Even though its one of the first its one of the best. something is slightly off with the saturn version. Im having better goes on the arcade emulators.

Dragon Quest XI (XB1) -a massive time sink so im taking my time playing it on and off. I love the game - but 20+ hours in - I am NOT liking how easy it is. All DQ games had at least some challenge.

Halo MCC (XB1) -multiple MP sessions a week. I refuse to believe that my Halo skills have diminished but people currently on this game are insane. Bring your AAA game or leave humbled. Very tough sledding online with all these Halo freaks.

 

[lachesis]

Dragon Quest XI (XB1) -a massive time sink so im taking my time playing it on and off. I love the game - but 20+ hours in - I am NOT liking how easy it is. All DQ games had at least some challenge.

TBH, yes I thought the game was pretty easy compared to some other DQs - but there are some real good challenges later in the game. It feels like in general the game ups its difficulty in 3rd and final act. Lots of status attacks too. Later bosses were pretty tough as well... and some good challenges that requires your pre-battle planning, damage counting and all to really nail it down. Post game hidden boss was quite something.

I do think general, the battle system makes it easier though - that it used to be that you had to put in your order first, and it would execute - so there was always an element of surprise while you wait for the spells/attacks to activate - but now if it's your turn, your action gets activated no matter what.

 

[bender]

1 was rough and 2 is a lot better than 1 so far..

 

[Dazraell]

I'm halfway through Sam and Max Save the World remaster. It was my least favourite game in a Sam and Max franchise, but gotta say, devs did a lot of work to revamp it's visuals.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Got my 360 out of the cellar to mop up the last remaining games from my backlog and hence started Splinter Cell Double Agent.

The framerate of this game is atrocious. Holy shit, aiming is a fucking pain in the ass. Aside for that it's quite decent though. Will probably tackle the Xbox version right afterwards. Really curious because I read it's not really the same game and also a lot better.

 

[tioslash]

At the moment I´m playing Hades and Doom Eternal.

 

[stranno]

Did you happen to buy Mass Effect or Dead Space on iOS? I have MGS Touch, but I don’t have a device that can play it. I’d like to fight a Gekko again. Lol

iPod Touch 4th Gen, the most compatible device with old iOS games (iOS 7.0 broke tons of games), is dirty cheap these days. Get one and jailbreak it, it takes like 5 minutes. And you have a gigantic library of great games (not MGST, that's for sure).

It runs Mass Effect: Infiltrator and Dead Space fine, as well as most of those obscure iOS ports from back in the day (RAGE or Resident Evil 4 come to my mind).

 

[BabyYoda]

As I'm borasic, I'm mostly playing through back catalogue and free Epic Store games. Just finished remake of Abe's Oddyssey (really holds up, looking forward to the sequel, so mission accomplished I guess).

Also My Time at Portia, its a chill game and beautiful.

Also Starlink (free in Ubisoft deal), gets repetitive fast, but it's fun to play with niece and nephew now and again.

Just restarted Deus Ex Mankind divided, as bought it at full price, but never got far due to poor performance and negativity surrounding it.

Next is Alien Isolation and Cities Skylines (loved SimCity 2000) among others I forget right now.

 

[Phobos Base]

Dusk - how did I not play this earlier? It's absolutely awesome.

 

[J-Roderton]

I really liked creating my own level in Dante’s Inferno. Placing a unit here and there and then health orbs. It’s been a while since I played it back on PS3. I liked how you could get rated by other players.

Thats part of a DLC pack isn’t it? I thought about snagging it but figured the community would be nonexistent at this point.

 

[King_Mandu]

About 3/4 finished with my second run of Cyberpunk 2077 so now I'm starting to consider going back to 100% Valhalla, play AC: Odyssey for the first time, Control since my new ultrawide monitor arrived this week, or start a massive Yakuza playthrough of the games in order since 3, 4, 5, and 6 are finally coming to PC.

Leaning towards Yakuza because I have very fond memories of 1 and 2 from the PS2 days. I want to sing karaoke, save kittens and slap fools around.

 

[Tell’em Keb]

I like to keep it simple.

I just finished Demon’s Souls PS5 (first time woot!), and now I’m playing Ghost of Tsushima.

 

[Marvel]

Mostly warzone these days. And some Mortal Kombat 11.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Thats part of a DLC pack isn’t it? I thought about snagging it but figured the community would be nonexistent at this point.

Ya, Trials of St. Lucia. I wonder if you searched the store on the console if it would show up.

iPod Touch 4th Gen, the most compatible device with old iOS games (iOS 7.0 broke tons of games), is dirty cheap these days. Get one and jailbreak it, it takes like 5 minutes. And you have a gigantic library of great games (not MGST, that's for sure).

It runs Mass Effect: Infiltrator and Dead Space fine, as well as most of those obscure iOS ports from back in the day (RAGE or Resident Evil 4 come to my mind).

That’s awesome. I miss having my 4S and playing those games. I tried it on a iPhone 6 years ago and Mass Effect would just freeze.

 

[FUBARx89]

Currently playing DMC4/5 and back on the Destiny 2 addiction too.

I've got a shocking backlog on games to get through, but the PS5 update for D2 dragged me back into it.

 

[Banjo64]

Trying to find some games on Game Pass with a nice gameplay loop whilst I listen to some podcasts and grind some Gamerscore for the 10k reward points.

Cycling through Streets of Rage 4, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Halo Wars DE at the moment.

Streets of Rage is freaking great. Never played a previous one in the series but it’s just a super satisfying game.

 

[Self]

I'm playing Ace Combat 7 besides Cyberpunk at the moment. Why is nobody mentioning how freaking good AC7 is? It derseves a well crowded thread in my opinion.

 

[Naked Lunch]

TBH, yes I thought the game was pretty easy compared to some other DQs - but there are some real good challenges later in the game. It feels like in general the game ups its difficulty in 3rd and final act. Lots of status attacks too. Later bosses were pretty tough as well... and some good challenges that requires your pre-battle planning, damage counting and all to really nail it down. Post game hidden boss was quite something.

That's good to hear, thanks.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Hitman (2016) - Never tried a Hitman game before. Plaayed the training stage with the fake yacht about a dozen times back to back trying different things, I'm already in love with the game.

 

[Astorian]

Is it not? Technically speaking 1 is dated compared to 2, can’t speak for 2’s story yet but I thought the first game was meh.

 

[sleepnaught]

Playing Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing at the moment. Just been enjoying the easy going, laid back stuff at the moment. Probably going to jump into Age of Calamity next.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Monster Hunter Rise demo. After a lot (A LOT) of solo runs I've picked up the 7 free online days Nintendo is giving, so now I'm playing some multiplayer and it's a bit chaotic, but very fun.

 

[BlackOlivesMatter]

PUBG almost everyday. Preparing for new Path of Exile league start this week which will overtake my life as it does every 3 months.

 

[The Pleasure]

Just beat Sackboy a big adventure.

 

[Celcius]

Call of duty black ops Cold War.
Just finished reaching max level with the tundra sniper rifle.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Jedi Fallen Order

Very good so far. Been wanting to play this forever, but never got around to it. Seems like now is a great time to dive in. EA just released a patch for PS5 pushing framerates and resolution up a notch. Looks and runs great for most of the time, but I've noticed some stutter and framedrops.

Arrived in Dathomar, and the lore behind the planet with the Nightsisters is interesting. I like the UI with all the datalogs and BD-1 scanning the planets for info logs. The story overall is pretty compelling so far. Curious to where it will go in the end.

The combat is okay so far, I've had a somewhat rough transition from Demon's Souls to adjust to the controls. Didn't expect it to be so parry focused, and I've died a couple of times just because I went in all swinging thinking I'm a jedi master, only to get beat down. Getting Sekiro vibes. Not as tight though, Respawn ain't no From Software. Hoping for some spectacular boss fights though.

 

[njean777]

Black Ops Cold War
FF7Remake trying to beat it finally
RE5
Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Links
Pokemon Go

 

[J-Roderton]

Dante’s Inferno - just about finished with Resurrection Mode playthrough.

COD WWII - loving the multiplayer. Going to knock out story mode soon.

 

[HE1NZ]

Just Cause 3.

Had to completely rebind controls, they sucked so bad. Got used the mechanics now and seems a pretty fun game.

 

[ManaByte]

Addicted to Sea of Thieves.

 

[lachesis]

And... while looking for something quick breather, I finished unfinished DLC for Shenmue 3.
Received the backer art book and physical CD a few weeks back - so I think I am all done with it.

On PS5 - obviously it loads faster - and it felt like Bailu area was generally smoother. However in Chobu, there are a lot of frame skipping/stuttering. It moves smoother, but there are several frame skipping happening every so often - especially around stairs for some reason. It sort of borderline bothered me, and after playing several masterful games starting 13 Sentinels, Nier Automata, and Dragon Quest XI Definitive Edition... and going back to Shenmue3... felt little sad. Took a while to get used to the battle system, although even on hard level, battle isn't much of a challenge. If the game had a good battle system like Shenmue 1 and 2 - or at least had some throw/evade moves - it would have been so much more fun. Also I noticed that the camera angle is quite tight with no option to widen up - it could have given more wider, open feel if they moved out the camera further away from Ryo. (also that would have solved that weird steady-cam feel of Ryo's running) Sometimes control actually felt much more natural in 1st person view mode... except, you can't run.

Story DLC and Big Merry Cruise were 2 DLCs that I tackled this time. TBH, I wish the game already had those 2 in the game - essentially more of a longer quest, which I wouldn't have mind if they were part of the game to get go. As per the volume wise, I still think Shenmue 2 tops everything else. Just like the main game, some of the trophy requirement was quite tedious one - like waiting 100 hrs doing Chawan (each failed chawan passes around 2 hours - and you essentially have 12 hours per day, it took a couple hours of doing chawan and waiting to get that trophy..) and the big wheel prize getting. I do think there are some formula involved - but a lot of it comes down to pure luck... so that was pretty tedious to win 10 times in big wheel. Took me additional few hours... but none of them were not as bad as getting that 1000 fish caught. Damn, that was tough one on my patience.

After finishing the DLC, I quickly re-did the rest of the Chobu chapter to the ending to make a complete save... and hoping, if there's any more of Shenmue coming out in the future - all the items and money/tokens I put in gives me some early boost... and uninstalled game from PS5. I do hope, if theres any more of Shenmue game - hope it would be much better one than this one. Hopefully with much better storytelling & cinematography, ironed out play mechanics and vastly improved battle system. At least I am glad that my little contribution got the ball rolling, even though it came out to be rather dull experience... sadly more I spent the time with the game, it failed to give me sufficient content and polish unlike previous 2 games. Now looking forward the Anime series, and see what happens in next few years with crossed fingers.

 

[teezzy]

I'm trying to remember how DoA plays. It's definitely not Soul Calibur or Tekken... been so long since DoA 3 for me

 

[Durask]

Metro Exodus

Bought it on Steam sale just a few days ago. Initially planned to wait until I can get GTX 3080, but the price was too good.

Using my GTX 2080 and hooked up my unused 2560x1080 monitor, so I am getting 60+ fps with RTX on. Not bad. Since this was the only game with RTX I care about in the near future don't think I will need GTX 3080 at all, might as well wait until 4080 (or a used 3090) way in the future.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Gears Tactics

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Finished CP2077 with 41hrs in, now thinking what to play next on GPU, Prey maybe?

 

[Danjin44]

I'm putting godly amount of time in Monster Hunter Rise demo, this going consume my life once full game releases.

 

[GymWolf]

I just finished yakuza 7 and now i have to decide what to play and i have various choices:

godfall
paying 15 euros for uplay+ to continue with ac valhalla and fenyx rising
devil slayer raksasi on pc
trying the multyplayer of tsushima
trying again the demo of MH rise on switch in the hope of changing my initial negative impression of it


In my region we are once again in full lockdown now (thank you fucking politicians of my ass) so i have time to spare (unfortunately)

 

[Low Moral Fibre]

On PC I've started playing Stellaris again and I've forgotten everything about the game so another 20 hours of YouTube vidoes coming my way!

On console I'm near the end of Like a Dragon on XSX and it's definately the most fun I've had on a next gen console so far. Horrible graphics, laughable animations (the chimp in the zoo sidequest lol), crap sound effects all count for nothing when a game is this enjoyable.

Been playing a bit of The Touryst on gamepass but mainly been watching my wife play it (first game since Astros she has actively asked to play rather than being coerced into playing).

Not played my PS5 much since Xmas but will finish GoT next as it is a joy at 60fps.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Just finished Resident Evil Revelations for the first time (campaign, don't care about raid modes). It was a really fun RE game, I just wish they there wasn't so much scanning involved. I get scanning monsters for xp / data, but having to scan for loot which isn't visible until you use the scanner is dumb.

 

[marcincz]

LTTP Final Fantasy VII Remake
4th chapter.

 

[GeekyDad]

Finished Persona PQ2, started a NG+, but I think I need a break. Think I will start up a new file for Tactics Ogre LucT today. It's been a while.

 

[gradient]

Currently playing Hollow Knight

It's not living up to the hype tbh. It's good and controls well, but there are some bad design choices that drag it down. Enjoyable, but nowhere near the top end of the Metroidvania genre, let alone the best in genre as so many people make out.

Played Bad North before that. Really enjoyed it - a nice little roguelike with an original and charming aesthetic. A little short on content, but nonetheless surprisingly fun and one that I'll be going back to.

 

[Mista]

Can’t put Hades down. I have yet to finish it but I just can’t put it down! I’m Also playing WoW but stopped for now till they fix the garbage loot

 

[Tschumi]

I've got a few running right now, but I'll say... Persona 5 Royal, catching up to where i was up to in persona 5...

 

[Orta]

After enjoying the demo of part 2 I bought Little Nightmares for my Switch. If ever there was a game not suited to a small screen its this. Near impossible to see what is happening in dark sections and the number of times I've fallen to my death simply running along a straight path over its side is a piss-take. And as for the loading times, infuriating

A clear case of just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. I'll try it docked later but in that case I would be just as well getting the PC version.

Well pissed off.

 

[L0la H4vana]

Final fantasy x and it is kicking my ASS.
I know i beat this game back in the ps2 days but i don't remember it being this difficult.
It is much more fun than i remember as well. I appreciate the story way mire than back then too, and i genuinely like Tidus and Yuna as a couple. They're like a pair of little kids running off together sometimes having fun in between the serious stuff. It's cute.

The trials make me wonder how one could ever beat this without a guide. I used one and while doing so I was still confused as to how i would have ever figured out where to go.

I guess this was truly the last great FF game to me. I genuinely like the voice acting here much better than any of the anime grunting recent efforts. It feels more genuine and human. Awkward but not as stilted.

I'm looking forward to the sequel which i remember as being really fun, except for the ending in the tower.

 

[Mhmmm 2077]

Going through my backlog, currently Scribblenauts Unlimited, next one probably will be Deadpool.