What are you playing?

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm shocked at how much time I'm investing into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and enjoying the experience.  I'm nearing 50 hours and I'm still a ways off from beating it as I've spent hours just doing sidequests, passively completely merc missions, farming salvage for cash, and trying my damnedest to get new unique Blades.  The gachapon crystal system is annoying, the drop rates sucks, but Blades can be found in other places, through the story, at least one quest I've found, and one expensive one I bought for 500k in a store.  Need more goofy or badass characters to interact with!

I say this not liking the last two games and thinking they had a number issues that kept them from being fun, particularly X which I last 30 hours in, but dropped after having enough of it.  Everything is streamlined and way more engaging, but there's enough depth here if people just want to spend forever micro-managing Drivers and Blades, though you don't need to that generally.  I usually get by just updating Chips when I get to new zones and updating my accessories every like 5 to 10 hours lol

Maybe someone else knows, but am I right in thinking it's better to just flick the analog stick after every attack, so you can attack way faster, building up your Driver Arts faster, and being able to get your Specials off quicker? I know there's the three hit rhythm which builds to a third hit that is stronger, but auto-attacks don't seem to be your main damage dealers, so it would make sense to want to build your meters faster.  To me, it gets you involved in the combat more, while being able to get your more powerful strikes off faster. 

[kamikazekeeg]

Last of the DLC is out for Resident Evil 7.  I did Not a Hero and it wasn't too bad.  Enough to tie up one loose end and is the only DLC they've done that I thought was enjoyable as Zoe's prequel bit was just too simple and short.  It's nothing amazing, essentially more of what we got in the latter end of the game, but not bad for roughly an hour and a half experience.  I'll most likely play it on the Professional difficulty on a second run, that unlocks once you beat normal, as I beat the game before on Madhouse and this will be a much shorter experience to get through.  This was definitely a pretty good game.

Only one more bit of DLC left that will properly tie up the last loose end of the game and I'll see about getting to that later tonight.

*EDIT*
The last DLC is also reasonably short, hour and a half or so, but it's a tight experience and feels different enough from Not a Hero.  It's kinda more of a stripped down take on the main game, not much in the way of weaponry.  Ending was a tad abrupt, but overall this is a great game and it ended well enough.  Still surprised how well Resident Evil turned itself around.

[doafan]

Since I purchased Animal Crossing New Leaf I have been playing this title every single day, spent Thank's Giving trying to get all the ingredients for the meal, was kinda upset that we didn't ate that delicious Turkey, right now am trying to get all the presents for my neighbors, already have Santa's costume ready just to give Renato a hand with the delivery of all the presents 

[burningdoom]

Finished the DLC 2 for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild...meh.

It was a neat little addition. But it felt a little underwhelming. Completed it all in just a couple days.

And the motorcycle is cool and all, but what's the point if this is the final part of the game? You don't get it until the end of the DLC.

[desocietas]

Since I purchased Animal Crossing New Leaf I have been playing this title every single day, spent Thank's Giving trying to get all the ingredients for the meal, was kinda upset that we didn't ate that delicious Turkey, right now am trying to get all the presents for my neighbors, already have Santa's costume ready just to give Renato a hand with the delivery of all the presents 

lol doafan

[telly]

Started playing some Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter last night. it's definitely an interesting game. I like the gameplay; it's actually fairly difficult, but you learn as you play. I just don't like some of the choices they made like making saves limited, etc.

Arkham Origins is not done but it will probably have to wait until I get back from break.

[kamikazekeeg]

Started to play Yakuza Kiwami as I was able to pick it up real cheap at Best Buy last week.  Less than 15 bucks.  I didn't exactly love Yakuza 0, it's generally a good game, though I feel the story drags and the side missions can get tedious.  Weird playing this after that, as you can tell there's a major production difference, which makes sense.  That was a new game and this is just a rebuild of the first game to refresh the series for people.  It funnily makes this feel like an expansion pack or DLC, even if Yakuza 0 is built upon the ideas of the original games.

At first I thought something was wrong with the combat, particularly against the first Boss fight, but I'm thinking now that the fight at the funeral is possibly just a really badly designed boss fight (Or I was woefully missing something in the combat), because I didn't remember having the same troubles in Yakuza 0.  Also had issues getting Climax Heat Mode to work, as I had the red bar and the right matching style, but the Kiwami wouldn't show up for me to activate.  Made that fight a god damn nightmare and it's just the first boss.  He can't be stunned, I can't grab him most of the time, he's constantly grabbing me, and dodging/blocking is limited, so it's hard to deflect any attacks.

Thankfully though, this game looks to be half as long as Yakuza 0.  I might be able to enjoy the game more because of that.

[ignition365]

Started to play Yakuza Kiwami as I was able to pick it up real cheap at Best Buy last week.  Less than 15 bucks.  I didn't exactly love Yakuza 0, it's generally a good game, though I feel the story drags and the side missions can get tedious.  Weird playing this after that, as you can tell there's a major production difference, which makes sense.  That was a new game and this is just a rebuild of the first game to refresh the series for people.  It funnily makes this feel like an expansion pack or DLC, even if Yakuza 0 is built upon the ideas of the original games.

At first I thought something was wrong with the combat, particularly against the first Boss fight, but I'm thinking now that the fight at the funeral is possibly just a really badly designed boss fight (Or I was woefully missing something in the combat), because I didn't remember having the same troubles in Yakuza 0.  Also had issues getting Climax Heat Mode to work, as I had the red bar and the right matching style, but the Kiwami wouldn't show up for me to activate.  Made that fight a god damn nightmare and it's just the first boss.  He can't be stunned, I can't grab him most of the time, he's constantly grabbing me, and dodging/blocking is limited, so it's hard to deflect any attacks.

Thankfully though, this game looks to be half as long as Yakuza 0.  I might be able to enjoy the game more because of that.

That first boss fight was one of my only complaints about that game.

[Warmsignal]

I just wanna say. Sega Rally Championship is the shortest game ever. I can't even believe it, it's about 10 minutes long. The driving and the graphics are pretty amazing for it's time, but 3 races and the game is over? It's set up so that you start the first race in 20th place, there's only one lap, and you gradually catch up to first place by the end of the third race. If you win, you unlock a fourth track. That's it. That's the entire game.

[burningdoom]

I just wanna say. Sega Rally Championship is the shortest game ever. I can't even believe it, it's about 10 minutes long. The driving and the graphics are pretty amazing for it's time, but 3 races and the game is over? It's set up so that you start the first race in 20th place, there's only one lap, and you gradually catch up to first place by the end of the third race. If you win, you unlock a fourth track. That's it. That's the entire game.

That's more than Ridge Racer, a PS1 launch title, had. All it does is add a few turns to the track, make you go backwards on it, or change it to night to change things up. But it's still fun as hell.

[kamikazekeeg]

That first boss fight was one of my only complaints about that game.

Glad to hear it, because being unable to actually fight in the boss fight was making me legit pissed off lol

[Warmsignal]

I just wanna say. Sega Rally Championship is the shortest game ever. I can't even believe it, it's about 10 minutes long. The driving and the graphics are pretty amazing for it's time, but 3 races and the game is over? It's set up so that you start the first race in 20th place, there's only one lap, and you gradually catch up to first place by the end of the third race. If you win, you unlock a fourth track. That's it. That's the entire game.

That's more than Ridge Racer, a PS1 launch title, had. All it does is add a few turns to the track, make you go backwards on it, or change it to night to change things up. But it's still fun as hell.

I just can't see people paying like $60 for the same deal they had in the arcades at the time for maybe 75 cents a go. They could have mirrored the tracks, added difficulties, added multiple lap races. There's so much they could have done to increase replayability for a home console port.

[maximo310]

I just wanna say. Sega Rally Championship is the shortest game ever. I can't even believe it, it's about 10 minutes long. The driving and the graphics are pretty amazing for it's time, but 3 races and the game is over? It's set up so that you start the first race in 20th place, there's only one lap, and you gradually catch up to first place by the end of the third race. If you win, you unlock a fourth track. That's it. That's the entire game.

That's more than Ridge Racer, a PS1 launch title, had. All it does is add a few turns to the track, make you go backwards on it, or change it to night to change things up. But it's still fun as hell.

I just can't see people paying like $60 for the same deal they had in the arcades at the time for maybe 75 cents a go. They could have mirrored the tracks, added difficulties, added multiple lap races. There's so much they could have done to increase replayability for a home console port.

You have to keep in mind that this is 1995. Most people bought these ports just to be to experience a half decent conversion, and since these were straight arcade ports most companies focused on just porting arcade content, which would reduce dev time. Its not until a few years later where you start to see arcade ports with added content ( mostly in ps1 fighters like jojo bizzare adventure/ street fighter alpha 3 or daytona usa cce).

[burningdoom]

Sky Force Reloaded (XBox One Digital)



So addicting.

Great shoot-em up that has the added feature of spending earned points to upgrade your plane, which makes it that much more addicting.

And it's much longer and bigger than the original Sky Force game!

[Warmsignal]

Speaking of addictive shoot-em-ups. I've been playing Solar Eclipse for the Saturn. That game is a hidden gem and no one ever mentions it. It's sort of a Star Fox deal, but predates Star Fox 64. Voice acting is a lot better, graphics are good, controls are tight, good music. I've played through it almost twice, because my battery was dead in the Saturn. Can't beat the last level, it's freaking insane. But, really fun.