What are you currently playing?

[Jowy]

Has anyone played Code Vein? Would you recommend it?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I will get into Anime Souls once I tap out of the mainline Soulsborne games. And I'm not even close to that.

Me and my Sunbro Solaire just stoved in Ornstein and Smough with my +5 Black Knight Halberd. This thing does so much damage that I'm not going to be able to adapt. I did fuck up slightly, I killed Ornstein first, when I should have killed him second for a Leo Ring and Ornstein's armor set.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I've spent the last couple of weeks playing Super Mario Odyssey.  It played like a lost Nintendo 64 platformer, and involved enough item collection to make Donkey Kong 64 look tame in comparison.  (Finding everything in DK64 isn't as bad as its detractors say, but good luck getting anywhere close to 999 Moons in Odyssey!)  The "Long Journey's End" quest on the Darker Side of the moon was a great ending to the quest, since it was difficult but fair.  I only beat that "Grandmaster Galaxy" after many practice runs.


(Is the Donkey Kong in Metro Kingdom and Darker Side really Cranky Kong?  It's hinted that Donkey Kong Country games are officially part of Odyssey's timeline since the streets in New Donk City are named after the characters. . .)


Not sure what I'll play next.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

As part of my continuing, current obsession with retro-ass games...

I put in a solid 32 hours beating my first playthrough of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which is just a modern Castlevania: SOTN, from the same game designer.  I managed to grab every secret, complete the full map, forge a legendary weapon with top tier armor and items, max out most of my passive shards, and cook every food recipe (which gives unique permanent stat upgrades) before beating the final boss.  Great game.  

The problem...now I'm in NG+ and my character is so strong that I still just one-shot everything.  I guess you aren't supposed to actually go for a full completion on your first playthrough.  Oops.

Now I'm on to Blasphemous, a Dark Souls/Metroidvania hybrid with SNES graphics.  It actually lets you choose between four filters that mimic old CRT TVs, including one that slightly bulges in the middle to simulate the curve of the old CRT glass.  It has a good difficulty level...just hard enough to make me curse on occasion without getting too frustrated.  I picked it up as part of a Steam sale for 8.99 over the weekend.

The game never could have been made during the SNES era though, as it would have led to all kinds of protests.  It is incredibly dark and violent, with generally bizarre religious iconography throughout.  The story is total esoteric nonsense, but the vibe is still pretty strong.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I've spent the past week replaying Ever Oasis, a 3DS action RPG by Mana series creator Koichi Ishii.  It doesn't have much material for variants, so I decided not to write a Let's Play.  Solo Seedling Chief would be annoying (if not impossible) since party members function similarly to items in Zelda games.  Low town level isn't an option either since you have to build up the Oasis in order to proceed with the story.  


Each gameplay segment is good rather than great, but they combine well.  Recruiting new villagers for your Oasis gives you more max HP, and you get most of your money from Seedlings selling items to visitors.  Fighting enemies yields crafting materials and goods to sell in shops.  Combat itself is a basic action RPG with light/fierce attacks and dodge rolling, but there is some variety in the weapon selection.  Be sure to have a bow user late in the game for all those flying enemies!


Besides that, I've played some of the Balloon World minigame for Mario Odyssey.  If you talk to Luigi with Wifi active (no Nintendo Switch Online subscription required!), you can hide balloons throughout the Kingdoms and find balloons that other players have placed.  You typically have around 30 seconds to find each balloon, so it plays like a mini-speedrun.  Balloon World is far more efficient than any other method of earning coins, so I was able to buy outfits like the skeleton, the 8-bit Mario with little animation, and Peach's wedding dress.


As for the next game, I'll give a few hints.  It's a Switch indie recommended to fans of older Pokemon installments.  I will try to write a playthrough for Realms Beyond, though the first will be more "normal" rather than a variant.  (Solos aren't going to happen because the developers designed mechanics like level scaling and stamina to stop them.)

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Currently playing Children of Morta, a pixel-art, ARPG with rogue-lite elements. I would call it a hybrid between Diablo and Hades.

You play as various members of the Bergeson family, fighting against "corruption" which is encroaching on and destroying their world. The gameplay is something akin to an ARPG dungeon crawl, although it probably plays better with a controller more like a twin-stick shooter at times, than a clicky-click mouse ARPG. I personally prefer that gameplay and find it to be more mechanically satisfying, but YMMV.

You level up each of seven different playable characters, gaining new skills and abilities for them. Also, when you reach levels, 4, 8, 14, and 20 with each character, they provide meta-progression bonuses to every member of the family, encouraging you to play with all the characters equally. After each run, you can spend your acquired morv (gold) to increase the family's specs--more health, damage, crit and dodge etc., plus increase your XP and gold generation rate etc.-- which apply to all characters.

There are lite-story elements after each run similar to Hades, and the game manages to be both dark and tender at times. The family is pretty likeable and the story provides enough exigency to want to assist them on their quest.

Right now there is local co-op, and they are adding online co-op later this year.

I picked it up on sale for $10.99, and at that price, I think it was well worth the cost.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

There are lite-story elements after each run similar to Hades, and the game manages to be both dark and tender at times.  The family is pretty likeable and the story provides enough exigency to want to assist them on their quest.

"Exigency"?  That's odd to see in English writing.  Normally I only run into that word in Mexican telenovelas.  (e.g a demanding person is called "exigente" in Misión SOS).  I've seen Children of Morta on lists of best Switch indie games, so perhaps I may pick it up eventually.


Besides Nexomon Extinction, I'm playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps.  The graphics are some of the best you'll see on the Switch and it's a well-made 2D platform adventure, but I don't understand why people think of it as a 10/10 game yet.

[yuris125]

Over the last week or so I played through Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It's a freshly released DND-based game; it's likely to be classified as an RPG because DND is associated with RPG, but I think it's better to call it a tactical adventure with RPG-elements

The game is very much focused on transferring the mechanics and essence of DND to make them shine on PC. The devs did a great job creating an interesting world, I very much enjoyed level design, and turn-based tactical combat is where the game shines. Exploring the dungeons is fun, and there's a lot of variety in encounters and the enemies you can run into. The in-game bestiary says there are 82 different enemies in total, and I'm pretty sure I only faced about half of them over the course of one playthrough. Combat is comparable to XCOM, but mostly because every turn-based grid-based tactical combat game is comparable to XCOM - the DND base brings plenty of its own mechanics and flavour. As I said, the combat system is the strongest point of the game in my view, it gives the player all the variety of options they would expect in DND, as well as all the emotion from lucky/unlucky dice rolls (those emotions are very comparable to what XCOM players experience when missing that 95% shot)

In fact, I see the game as a DND campaign ported to PC, which is the game's strength - and weakness. Story is not as deep as one would expect from a modern RPG; it is quite linear, there are some choices you need to make and some branches where you can take 2 or 3 different approaches to the same problems, but ultimately it exists to lead you through the encounters and towards the single ending. Don't expect to make world-altering choices. The story is there, it's solid, it was good enough to keep me engaged, but it's nothing special. The same can be said about visuals, cutscenes, voice acting (at least the game is fully voice-acted, which I'm sure streamers appreciate), and other presentation aspects

I'd say all the above understandable and can be expected from a game which was funded via Kickstarter and had a fairly limited budget. But this is the reason why I say this is more of a tactical adventure than an actual RPG game. Tactical part of the game is brilliant. RPG aspects are solid at best

All in all, it was a very enjoyable adventure for me. I assume there will be more coming for this game - the devs clearly put a lot of effort in worldbuilding, and I would be surprised if they stopped at making a single campaign set in this world. They created a great foundation, and there's potential for so much more

The game is priced at $40 (£31 in the UK), a fairly standard price for a high quality indie game, and I'd be happy to pay this price. It also is available on game pass (which is why I didn't have to pay this price)

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I'm playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps.  The graphics are some of the best you'll see on the Switch and it's a well-made 2D platform adventure, but I don't understand why people think of it as a 10/10 game yet.

I loved Ori, but I'm a sucker for Metroidvanias and maudlin backstories--the owl is just so fucking adorable.  For me, the game really takes off in its later acts once you have all your movement upgrades.  It's one of the more liberating platforming games out there.  The movement mechanics are just so deep yet elegant. I love games where the simple act of movement is a joy. Super Mario Galaxy. Breath of the Wild. Journey. Some games are enjoyable to just "be" in.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

For me, the game really takes off in its later acts once you have all your movement upgrades.  It's one of the more liberating platforming games out there.  The movement mechanics are just so deep yet elegant.  I love games where the simple act of movement is a joy.  Super Mario Galaxy.  Breath of the Wild.  Journey.  Some games are enjoyable to just "be" in.

Now that I have the movement abilities up to the part where you get the glide feather, I'm having more fun with Ori.  There's a sense of progression similar to an RPG in the better platform adventures.


I'll post the next part of Nexomon Extinction Return to Normalcy tonight.  If you think you're overleveled when you're at least 6 higher than the opponent with a mono-Normal team, you're not.  Legendary Nexomon make legendary Pokemon look like wimps.