Still play(test)ing my in-progress ROM hack of Pokémon Soul Silver.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
There was a firmware update (Knulli) for my Flip handheld so after doing that I’m now playing FFTA and other random GBA games.
I really loved FFTA. Is it your first time playing it?
I know I’ve played it before but that would be back in the day 20+ years ago. So it feels like my first time again.
Flip flopping through several titles, currently. BG3 just isn’t for me, there’s no fixing my intense dislike for D&D mechanics, so I’m going through some of my previous attempts.
I’ve been in the mood to listen to some podcasts at home, so I reinstalled Factorio and have been chugging away at it. I’ve never ‘finished’ it, getting to building the rocket, but its still entertaining.
Also giving another try to Cassette Beasts, and frankly amazed that Pokémon even exists as a franchise anymore. Every other game inspired by it is simply miles ahead, aesthetically and gameplay wise. Fascinating concepts, great art, unsurprisingly amazing music, hard as balls.
Played a little bit of Memoirs of a Battle Brothel as well, which I hope I don’t need to say is a NSFW game. Its a Cyberpunk RPG with grid-based combat and business management, with some pretty interesting stat progression and checks. Not close to the depth of, say, a Classic Fallout or Planescape, but still feels good to have enough stats to unlock unique dialogue option, build Trust with characters and grow your business.
YouTube recommended me a video on the pollen engine so obviously I had to play Noita. Once the spell system in Noita clicks it becomes so satisfying to play with. You feel like a wizard tinkering with godlike powers. If you can imagine a spell it’s very likely that you can make that spell because there are absolutely insane spells you can build. But remember that with great power comes great responsibility and chances are you’re going to blow yourself up with your spells.
And in case someone asked “what the hell is a pollen engine?” it’s an infinite spell loop where you can add a trigger into the loop to make it cast a different spell infinite amount of times.
Final Fantasy 10 remake. It feels its age with the controls and forced camera angles, but man Nobuo Uematsu can write a musical score.
Yooka-Replaylee - A bunch of former Rare employees that worked on Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie made a game that is a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. Yooka-Replaylee is the extened remake of Yooka-Laylee release in 2018. It’s an excellent 3D platformer that plays like Banjo-Kazooie with better controls.
As someone who kickstarted and finished the original (not quite 100% though), do you recommend me to purchase the remake?
I forgot I Kickstarted the original. 100% may have been impossible, people claimed there was an unreachable item. I would highly recommend. It is a graphically upgraded remake with double the original content.
Hades was on sale a while ago, am still playing
STALKER: Anomaly. Finally finished up my modlist, landed on a grand total of about 430, so now it’s time to playtest and see if it actually works without crashing and feels good and balanced to play. Just started a Mercenary playthrough yesterday and so far so good. Managed to clear out the bandits at the vehicle station in Cordon as is custom but the real test will be the first handful of missions over in Meadow. I’ve been wanting to do a Merc playthrough for a while but the start is rough in this modlist setup as you can’t get Fanatic as a free companion and you don’t get to start with a shotgun. At least starting off as neutral with the loners means you can start out in Cordon. It’s going to be rough until I get a working gas mask, dosimeter, detector and repair the first shotgun I find.
All in all though it feels great to be back in the Zone.
BallXPit, Absolum, Shape of Dreams. All three have come out in the last two months or so, all of them have been great, especially BallXPit.
A friend just gifted me Hollow Knight, so I’m having a blast discovering that for the first time.
I just got it in sale too! Looking forward to it.
I’m playing the sequel (I know, wrong sub). I normally never get sweaty hands. This changed because the game is so hard.
I even had to put flour on my left hand to get some grip on the thumbstickHope you have fun!!
Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate 2. Same engine and world, yet different enough that they both hold my interest. Baldur’s Gate is quite involved, with tons of quests and NPCs all vying for attention. I literally had a moment where I entered a new area, a bunch of enemies spawned and attacked, and during the fight another NPC spawned and initiated a completely unrelated conversation, ending in removing one of my party members. The quests and characters are interesting, but it can get a bit much when you have so many people telling you about their very urgent problem.
Icewind Dale on the other hand is petty straightforward: go to a new area, fight through it, report back, and repeat. Which doesn’t mean its quests are uninteresting, they are just less complex.
The Icewind Dale party is also much lower level, making fights much simpler, though not always easier.
Been playing Shredders! I love a game that can get me in the mood for snowboarding season, and Shredders has some of the best simulation of the sport I’ve ever played. Throw on the SSX 3 soundtrack in the background and I’m having a blast
Still on GTA Online (send help) with friends. We‘re doing the Criminal Masterminds challenge but we‘ll probably be done next week and then it‘s onto other games.
