whatchu playing now

Did I mention Steam sucking by the way?? It sucks. If this is the alternative to App Store lockdown then..... long live Apple's monopoly

I got Two Point Hospital because I saw someone streaming it and it looked fun, and I figured I needed a way to calm down from Fall Guys induced rage, but dammit if TPH hasn't supplanted Fall Guys as my "just another 15 minutes going on 3 hours" game instead.

I returned to 428 and I got halfway through it. The slow text speed is still sleep-enducing, but I understand the gameplay loop now, which helps.

i've been having a wonderful time playing disco elysium. holy crap! i'm sure a bunch of people have mentioned the lynchian stuff (down to naming a prominent skill tree Inland Empire), but i had no idea and it's been a wonderful surprise. right up my alley. very good writing too. clever and occasionally lol, even, and i find myself actually taking my time and reading/listening through all the dialogues.

played thru The Touryst over the last couple of days on gamepass. about 6 hours long maybe? have some small gripes with the button mapping and the sections with 3D platforming can be a bit frustrating as there are not enough visual clues to know where you are landing imo (although you don't really get punished fot it). still, it's a fun little game if you want some laidback puzzly adventuring in a Fez/3D Dot Heroes type blocky world. oh and you can go raving in Ibiza.

(showing my age by not saying Minecrafty world lol)

playing through (and really enjoying) resident evil 2 HD remake

ghost of tsushima is extremely solid

i'm about 15 hrs into Trails of Cold Steel and it's just starting to pick up... not sure if i'll be able to make it through

kinda have a soft spot for everything Falcom though

love cold steel 1. the story gets very messy by the 2nd game but it makes hanging out in town between story chapters and checking in on all the side characters more rewarding than any other jrpg imo. it's a very specific niche but it fills it so well

i'm playing ace attorney 5 (dual destinies) and ace attorney is still good. i think i'll be able to make it through this and 6 before getting tired of the formula

my kids are playing tsushima and they keep saying it's great but it just looks like horizon zero dawn with a weak-ass melee mechanic? what am i missing here

perhaps my 26" tv is to blame

i never played HZD but the combat is actually quite deep if you want it to be. and yeah, it's quite pretty too

okay. from a distracted distance it just looks like some kinda stiff baddies whose weapons light up red whenever they’re about to hit you and you learn their patterns. different stances are kinda cool i guess.

I'm undecided on whether mr X is awesome or annoying

ys 9 out in february

8 ended up being my favorite jrpg this generation so i'm excited for that

sweet. just finished played memories of celceta and boy do have they perfected the art of the action rpg

i also saw that limited run games is doing a print run of the regular edition of ys origin

i need something new to play on the switch - looking for a game with an engrossing story that will keep me playing, preferably more adventure-y than action-y. if you have any recommendations, let me know.

separately is it worth playing "moon" if you've never played any jrpgs or will the subversiveness not translate if you don't have that background?

i should play the outer worlds sometime.

are there any good "starter" jrpgs i should play? i know dragon quest xi is supposed to be good. trials of mana? one of the final fantasys?

DQXI, FFX, xenoblade 1 all seem like decent options for that depending on how traditional a jrpg you're looking for gameplay wise

or obviously FF7 is a major classic with the caveat that it hasn't aged as well visually since they lost all the art files to do a proper HD upscale

i'm enjoying the new fire emblem quite a bit if you're into spreadsheet gaming

i don’t know what that means but it does not sound appealing

Spreadsheet-y or not, “does not sound appealing” is my basic reaction to 98% of jrpg’s tbh.

Same. I don't get the anime aesthetic at all.

I’m having a ton of fun with Sea of Thieves lately. Got dinged on release for being a sandbox with not a lot to do in it, but apparently they’ve been heavily building it out since. Got into it through some friends recently. Definitely requires other people for it to be properly fun, great hangout game with buds, but I’ve taken to just firing it up with a squad of randoms and it’s been a blast. Seriously never know what kinda crazy shit will happen.

There’s a real primal joy in sailing through the open sea, hearing all the sounds that go with it, angling sails, getting up in the crow’s nest and looking around for opportunities or a menacing silhouette off in the distance.

The cooperation aspect of running a full boat is truly great with a good group. Particularly when things get hairy.

(ys) 8 ended up being my favorite jrpg this generation so i'm excited for that

ys 8 rules, the music is amazing

it bangs and the lost world setting is so perfect for that type of game

i finally replaced my joy-cons. they succumbed to the left analog stick hell that ruins so many of joy-cons, it seems. i kept it going for months with tweezers and computer air cleaner, but by the end i couldn't play with it longer than 30 seconds without having to fix it.

i highly recommend the PENJOY C25 off-brand joy-cons. they're $38 new, and they feel much larger and better in my hand than the real deal.

as a result of this i've been playing switch for the first time in months, and unexpectedly lost much of my afternoon to fucking donkey kong country, which is now one of the free SNES games (probably has been for a while). also, rygar sucks imo

my daughter calls DKC "monkeys" and demands to watch me play it frequently. i make good use of the rewind and save states.

i think dkc is pretty satisfying if you only use save states at the start and checkpoint of levels, the second half of each level is usually a nice escalating gauntlet that feels good when you nail it

the secret sauce of dkc is its difficulty curve, both on a broad level throughout the game and sometimes even within levels, like ciderpress mentions

GTA3 for days...

nice. i jumped back into Vice City a couple of weeks back on the ps2. control issues aside it's still a lot of fun.

finished GTA 3 last night, onto Vice City (replaying...)

what are you playing them on?

My phone

ewwww.

you must have a large phone! my dumb thumb would cover up half of the screen on mine.

did they change the gameplay at all for the phone versions, or is it just a straight port?

iPhone 11
Admittedly it would be impossible on a first gen SE but anything other than that should be manageable. Controls are on the far right / left, so not much of an issue.
Straight port except they added auto aim for the shooting which makes things a lot easier.

probably one of the better platforms to play it on tbf. ps2 is hard to get good visual on modern tvs. PC versions just suck with bugs on modern os platforms (admittedly can be patched if you quit your job and spend the rest of your life working on)

may i suggest a used PS3? i believe it's backwards compatible with ps1 and 2 out of the box (i know for sure that it is on a jailbroken one)

jailbreaking a spare PS4 seems like an idea

PS4 wouldn't work for that, has to be 3

Convenience is the thing for me, i can fire it up at random times during the day and take care of some in game bidness

there are jailbroken ps4s, yes? is the deal that it won't boot without an internet connection?

oh is there a working ps2 emulator for ps4? i wouldn't think it'd be powerful enough to run one