What are you playing?

[paprikastaude]

Finally tried that Witcher mission in Monster Hunter. This had the worst boss I've seen in ages, did CDPR themselves design this shit?

[Akala]

IDK why but started Wolfenstein YOUNGBLOOD with a bot even though I never got all the way through the 2nd one. It's pretty dumb, but looks fantastic, lots of RTX bits. The french resistance is in the catacombs again. 

Seems to be kind of hubby/openish which I am not sure of, will play until I hit a wall and uninstall more than likely.

[bork]

Control is done. I have mixed feelings. outside of throwing objects it feels like a second rate third person shooter that is lucky that it has it's mysterious vibe and incredible aesthetic. I can see why it was important, not sure it deserved all the awards it got. If it was just on the gameplay it's not very compelling at all.  And the story is a bit laughable at times instead of creepy.

It's the complete package that people were gushing about, but yeah- the game play could stand to be better.  But I love the atmosphere and aesthetic.

[Bebpo]

Gave 198X a try. Yeah, right off the bat, can see why this didn't review so hot. You have to sit at the title screen for like 10 seconds for start or quit to appear. The game looks amazing pixel art-wise and sounds great, but it's pretty clear by the first game or two that the team was more interested in making a cool looking movie than a good game.

[EchoRin]

Finally started playing Luigi's Mansion 3. The plan is for me and my friend to play through in co-op, so we kicked that off tonight. Took a little while before we got Gooigi so we passed the joycons to each other a few times to get acclimated, before we were able to actually play the game in co-op (go to the settings as soon as you get Gooigi and there is an option that says Co-op.). I think we are gonna have a good time. I'm kind of a "look at every nook and cranny even when I know it probably won't give us anything" type of player and my buddy is the "let's get a move on already" type. So we'll find a happy medium. Neither of us as played the other 2 games in the series so it's good that we are starting off with the same amount of experience.

Got several of the elevator buttons already. I like how Gooigi is actually a totally worthy character in co-op as some of the bosses or areas where you do some ghost fighting are centered around Gooigi. But because he's not real, he will always respawn if he dies. It sort of makes him the better option for the less skilled player cause they won't have to worry if they are doing good or bad as it's the player who controls Luigi that has actual life so to speak and it's only game over when that player runs out of health. If we play a few times a month I can see this game lasting us for like a quarter of the year.

[Nintex]

Continued my murdering rampage across Greece in AC Odyssey.
Met some interesting characters, fought a Minotaur (twice), killed a bunch of cultists.

I noticed someone here post about the balance of this game that made him rage quit.
There's funny thing going on that you eventually discover with certain weaknesses and strengths with enemy types and weapon classes.
I agree that balance is a bit wonky at the start until level 12 or so when it levels out and you have enough abilities to turn the tide in your favor.

May Poseidon guide your sword.

[Nintex]

The Amazonian Outfit 

I'm wonder womaning through the world now

[Bebpo]

Been messing around with humble bundle games from the last few bundles, playing them for 20 mins and moving on.

The Hex took me by surprise. The art is pretty bad/amateur and there's a furry at the start and then it was like oh hey this is doing that 198X thing but better and more clever take.

Then I saw it's the next game by the guy that made Pony Island and it all made sense. I think I will stick with this and play through it.

[Bebpo]

Finished the main story in RDR2. Was very good, though expected the last mission to have a little more impact. Lotta stuff just sorta left up in the air which I get because it's a prequel, but I think RDR1 finished stronger. Arthur's a very good character though. I think the story kinda loses some steam after Guarma.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The build up of the split between Arthur and Dutch gets kinda repetitive and then doesn't really blow off satisfyingly in the end.

[close]

Started on the epilogue chapter. Mainly just want to get to

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blackwater and the RDR1 map and check it out and I'm guessing the dozen or so stranger stories in it.

[close]

I'm like 85 hours now. Guessing will be a little over 100 hours when all is said and done.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Bebpo]

Ok, I went ahead and spoiled/read up on the post-game map.

So it turns out whatever I saw that said 32 strangers was probably counting separate missions in stranger quests as separate entries, so maybe 32 missions total, not 32 strangers. Looks like I found and did every stranger quest in the game outside the serial killer one (found 1 site) and finishing the collectibles. Guess I'll do the rest of the serial killer one.

So then outside of the epilogue story, that entire huge map that's like 2/3rds the size of the main game map, has...apparently nothing to do in it? I read there's like 2 bounty missions and a couple new legendary animals/fish and that's it. Basically it's a huge area just for a bit of epilogue story use and mostly nostalgia.

That seems kind of a waste. I figured they'd litter that area with a bunch of stranger quests and bounty quests to give things to do in the map while enjoying the nostalgia. But what I read online said that either they cut some stuff that was planned for it, or its main purpose outside nostalgia is just for more map for the online game.

Guess I won't be spending 20 hours+ exploring it and doing quests in it. So probably be completely done with the game in the next 5-10 hours since all that's left to do is the 2 epilogue chapters and that one serial killer stranger and maybe try to do some more of the challenges.

Still a huge game and the main map is great. Just seems kinda odd about the post-game map.

[Potato]

Finally started playing Luigi's Mansion 3. The plan is for me and my friend to play through in co-op, so we kicked that off tonight. Took a little while before we got Gooigi so we passed the joycons to each other a few times to get acclimated, before we were able to actually play the game in co-op (go to the settings as soon as you get Gooigi and there is an option that says Co-op.). I think we are gonna have a good time. I'm kind of a "look at every nook and cranny even when I know it probably won't give us anything" type of player and my buddy is the "let's get a move on already" type. So we'll find a happy medium. Neither of us as played the other 2 games in the series so it's good that we are starting off with the same amount of experience.

Got several of the elevator buttons already. I like how Gooigi is actually a totally worthy character in co-op as some of the bosses or areas where you do some ghost fighting are centered around Gooigi. But because he's not real, he will always respawn if he dies. It sort of makes him the better option for the less skilled player cause they won't have to worry if they are doing good or bad as it's the player who controls Luigi that has actual life so to speak and it's only game over when that player runs out of health. If we play a few times a month I can see this game lasting us for like a quarter of the year.

Such a good game and playing co-op is the right way to play.

[MMaRsu]

There is a lot of online content that the map uses the old stuff for, so I understand its a bit of a bummer but you can explore it now in your sp file and then just if u want to do some online it takes place there (but also the main map)

[Nintex]

Ok, this was the wildest quest.

I find a guy locked in a cage. The oracle had told him he would rage and kill his parents (or at least that's what he thinks she meant).
His parents are outside the cage telling him to come out. He says that he will likely kill them so they need something to defend themselves.
Enter, the quest! Kassandra is told to find his sword and shield. The sword is at the blacksmith for maintenance and the shield has been stolen.
Easy enough.

First, Kassandra heads for the blacksmith where she finds a short guy with a beard who is struck by the beauty of the amazonian legend.
For some weird reason Kassandra can hit on this guy to try and get him to give back the sword. Alas, he's limp and his 'sword' needs 'forging'.
Aphrodite's flowers will fix this and when she returns with the 'medicine' he 'spears' her and gives back the sword as he promised.

Next up is the shield. Some bandit camps on the outskirt. As you approach you hear the bandits talking about their score.
They're pretty easy to kill and with the shield found it is time to return to the caged man.

Kassandra hands his parents the items. The sword for dad and the shield for mom but the parents have a confession to make...
The man in the cage has been 'adopted' the sword and shield were 'family heirlooms' they left him. The blacksmith was the father, who Kassandra fucked.
His mother the thief who stole the shield and was brutally murdered.

And so the prophecy is fulfilled. His mother would 'bleed' and his father would 'scream'. "He screamed alright but not in agony" she ads.
Realizing the results of his orders to Kassandra the man in the cage removes his own eyes as punishment.

 

[tiesto]

I just finished chapter 8 in Astral Chain, unlocked the final legion, now I'm going back through the previous levels and doing any sidequests/collactathon shit that I missed, before continuing with the main story. It's a fun game even if it wasn't what I expected in the slightest. The pacing is weird... especially chapter 8, which has you doing "cleanup" around the destroyed city, including slider puzzles and walking around balancing crates via the joycon. It feels like you spend most of your time either in the Shibuya-esque central square, or the Astral Plane (red area that looks not unlike an RPG final dungeon)... I wish there was a bit more variety in the areas you travel to.

[Bebpo]

There is a lot of online content that the map uses the old stuff for, so I understand its a bit of a bummer but you can explore it now in your sp file and then just if u want to do some online it takes place there (but also the main map)

Yeah, I might give the online a shot after finishing the SP.

[BlueTsunami]

Playing Golden Sun for the first time, emulated on my phone. Was never a GBA owner but I would have adored this game back in the day. I love Camelots idiosyncrasies, as far as menu, character , and enemy designs. If I had known then that this feels like a spiritual successor to games like Shining Force and Beyond the Beyond I would have gotten to it sooner. There's a remanescence to those games in the music too. I'm loving it

[toku]

I remember being like 12 and getting that and being so fucking mad because I beat it in two sittings. It's really short.

[Svejk]

Playing through the Shadow of the Tomb Raider DLC.  Got through The Forge and The Nightmare.  Enjoying these side quests, romping again with Lara and having the outfit restrictions turned off.    

Also finished through Mm's Dreams campaign/story.  It was definitely a nice showcase for what's capable with Dreams.  Very impressive visuals and sounds with a good message on pushing yourself past self doubt.  It was inspiring.

And also plucking away at The Last of Us Remastered.  Played through it before on PS3, but got the remastered version with my PS4 when I got it, and wanted to play through again as a refresher in prep for Part 2.  It's nice playing it with headphones now.

[MMaRsu]

Playing Golden Sun for the first time, emulated on my phone. Was never a GBA owner but I would have adored this game back in the day. I love Camelots idiosyncrasies, as far as menu, character , and enemy designs. If I had known then that this feels like a spiritual successor to games like Shining Force and Beyond the Beyond I would have gotten to it sooner. There's a remanescence to those games in the music too. I'm loving it

Man treat yourself to a nice IPS modded GBA! Get those games legit man! Worth it!

[bluemax]

Playing Golden Sun for the first time, emulated on my phone. Was never a GBA owner but I would have adored this game back in the day. I love Camelots idiosyncrasies, as far as menu, character , and enemy designs. If I had known then that this feels like a spiritual successor to games like Shining Force and Beyond the Beyond I would have gotten to it sooner. There's a remanescence to those games in the music too. I'm loving it

I used to call it Beyond the Beyond Advance. The game has some interesting ideas with Djinn system but the reality is that I never had to swap them around except for a couple of puzzles. You can beat the game without ever using an inn, and boss fights seem to just break down to unleash your Djinn, summon, heal, repeat.

Transferring your save to part 2 was such a pain as well.

[EchoRin]

I played Golden Sun as a youngster on emulator too. Had very little RPG experience back then, so the game was a real joy for me. Thought the graphics were great for a GBA game. My laptop shit itself before I could beat the final boss.

But ever since I played GS I've wanted a level or character from the series to be included in Smash. But no. Instead we get a kajillion Fire Emblem peeps instead. /slightly bitter

[paprikastaude]

Total nostalgia for GS, but it's really not that amazing. Battles are throwaway and it has more text than RPGs twice its length for a story that's the definition of forgettable. Good presentation though and puzzles.

[BlueTsunami]

Yeah it's pretty damn easy. Plus I have the thing at 4x frameskip when slogging through dungeons and the world map . Modern me cannot deal with how slow this game is along with the random encounters.

The hook currently is finding cool treasures and the puzzles. Very Zelda and Wild Arms'ish in regards to the use of abilities to solve things.

[Joe Molotov]

Almost completed a run of World of Horror after I found out you could go home and sleep for +4% Doom during a mission, smh. I was just playing until I ran out of stamina/reason and died, and wondering what I was doing wrong. Although, unfortunately I abused it a little too much and ended up maxing my Doom gauge on the Lighthouse and dying from that, but at least I know what to do now.

[demi]

Playing Golden Sun for the first time, emulated on my phone. Was never a GBA owner but I would have adored this game back in the day. I love Camelots idiosyncrasies, as far as menu, character , and enemy designs. If I had known then that this feels like a spiritual successor to games like Shining Force and Beyond the Beyond I would have gotten to it sooner. There's a remanescence to those games in the music too. I'm loving it

I think they're ok games in general but the first game is going to feel like shit when you finally start the sequel - it's just better in so many ways.

Also there was never a third game

[I'm a Puppy!]

I picked up Murder by Numbers finished one case and on the second. It's, not bad. a little light on the humor and so far it seems very predictable. Still a perfectly OK way to get your picross fix. However, I did hate that the end of a case it's about completing a picross in a time limit. Seems gimiicky, even for such a gimmicky game.

[Svejk]

I have a weird/pathetic nostalgia for Golden Sun.  I just got the game and took a spontaneous trip up to NY because I received a free round trip ticket to certain places.  I thought hey, maybe the girl I met on my last Euro trip will be single now, so I decided on NY.  I rented a small hole in the wall hotel room, that didn't even have it's own restroom, somewhere in downtown Manhattan.  I met up with her only to find out she was still with her boyfriend whom she talked about in Europe.  But we all hung out in Brooklyn (where they lived).  He was actually super cool af.. we all partied on some building rooftop and had a good time that evening.  The next day she said she was sick and had to work...  I had 2 days left of being by myself, so I went and saw a few things I haven't seen before (not my first trip to NY), but the majority of the time, I sat in that little hotel room and totally played through Golden Sun.  It felt like it was all I had that I could hold onto at the time. 

[paprikastaude]

All the problems of Golden Sun DS were identical to the GBA games. Except they added furries, which might understandably be too much a no-no for some.

[Joe Molotov]

Wew, 99% Doom but I finally got a win. Ignore the timer, I left it running for about an hour while I ate dinner.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I liked Portable Ops at the time.

[toku]

MGSV definitely took ideas from it.

[Chooky]

the controls/camera did suck, bosses were hp sponges, and dragging guys to the van sucked (you can also get in the box near fallen soldiers and call a codec instead, fyi). otherwise it was a great mgs game. nice maps, addicting collecting mechanic, some good music, and great and cool-looking story sequences. underrated game that's sadly overlooked by dorky series fans because it's not technically canon lol.

[BIONIC]

Portable Ops is great.

[eleuin]

Those cutscenes really were ace, one of the first psp games I pirated

Been meaning to play acid, hope ppsspp runs well on my computer..

[CatsCatsCats]

Lordy Jesus help me, been playing wow with my stepson

[Bebpo]

Those cutscenes really were ace, one of the first psp games I pirated

Been meaning to play acid, hope ppsspp runs well on my computer..

Yeah, I really liked the digital comic cutscenes. There's a few games that used that to save costs and it worked in like every game that tried it. I'm surprised more indie/smaller games don't go that route. Can have full action cutscenes, epic setpieces, just using comic form.

There was one cutscene towards the end in Portable Ops when the psychic person goes on about the future of Snake & Liquid that was really exciting for the future of the series at the time.

Shame about what happened to MGS in the end, though I'm glad MGSV exists as a open-world test bed base so that we could get the far superior Death Stranding years later.

[tiesto]

I need to give PW and Portable Ops a play, I liked the gameplay aspect and the weird base building stuff in MGS5 a whole lot (aside from the mobile-influenced real-time progression for construction).

[bluemax]

Portable Ops was the last Metal Gear I enjoyed. Although I didn't really get far in any after that except 4, which I finished because it was the only PS3 game I had at the time.

[Bebpo]

Portable Ops was the last Metal Gear I enjoyed. Although I didn't really get far in any after that except 4, which I finished because it was the only PS3 game I had at the time.

Hmmmmm,

I mean MGS4 kinda was bad
Peace Walker was pretty fun and played better but was also more MP grindy and the story was balls
MGSV played amazing but unfinished ch.2 and story was worse than balls

So maybe you're right...

[bluemax]

I mean I didn't say it was the last good one or anything, just the last one I personally enjoyed. I got through the tutorial of V and wasn't feeling it. IV was... yeah. I didn't play Peacewalker.

Portable Ops was probably just one of those right time, right loops for me. Some of the better Japanese PSP games were designed for people who rode trains and buses, so they had the kind of quick, easy to enjoy, constantly kinda rewarding loops that mobile games have now, but in a slightly more fleshed out manner and with less gacha and micro transactions. If you play a game like PO or FF7AC or MH for more than like 20 minutes at a time they get repetitive and annoying. But if you play for a quick bus ride or whatever, then the shallowness and/or repetitiveness doesn't hit you as much.

[Bebpo]

I'd actually say that Ground Zeroes if we count it as a standalone title is the last best MGS game.

It was pretty awesome, extremely well designed base, tons of missions, tons of secrets, fantastic gameplay, cool little story stuff (outside the vagina bomb lol), crazy gfx and stuff. Pretty much hyped up MGSV because a full game at that quality should've been amazing.

[toku]

Still think about GZ years later. Just a really effective mood/tone piece. TBH if Kojima just decided to do this rest of his career, make 3-5 hr ambitious tech demos, I'd be fine with it.

[Coffee Dog]

Ground Zeroes is great because it shows that the MGSV team was totally capable of good level design/base layouts, meaning that the base game is the way it is because they knew it would sell anyway. 

[Mr Gilhaney]

Or because Kojima was given too much freedom, and decided it had to be an open world multi-player game with base building, on top of being a metal gear game. He literally shit away their budget on shit features no one cared for

[Bebpo]

Finished RDR2 completely. Looking back on the 650+ photos I took. That was quite a journey.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[bluemax]

Still think about GZ years later. Just a really effective mood/tone piece. TBH if Kojima just decided to do this rest of his career, make 3-5 hr ambitious tech demos, I'd be fine with it.

What if, and here is a crazy thought, Kojima only made 2 hour cut stand alone cutscenes and didn't bother with the gameplay at all!

Or because Kojima was given too much freedom, and decided it had to be an open world multi-player game with base building, on top of being a metal gear game. He literally shit away their budget on shit features no one cared for

And then a bunch of people at Sony let him do it again, and got demoted because of it!

[Bebpo]

I'm confused since GZ has excellent gameplay.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

and so does Death Stranding

[close]

[Svejk]

Finished RDR2 completely. Looking back on the 650+ photos I took. That was quite a journey.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

(Image removed from quote.)

Although this game is totally not for me, those are some incredible screenshots.

[kingv]

I'm confused since GZ has excellent gameplay.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

and so does Death Stranding

[close]

Even mgs5 is excellent in a way. It just is unfinished.

[Bebpo]

Started playing Ori and the Blind Forest and idk, I like it, but on PC I can feeeel the 30fps lock. The controls just don't feel that responsive and given the platforming I'm not sold. I hear the Switch version is 60fps so I might double dip on that and restart.

[MMaRsu]

30fps lock on a pc game? a 2d pc game?

-_-

[paprikastaude]

Got the Contra collection and I think I've been living a lie. I once played the arcade version of Contra and only remember being perplexed it only had a fraction of content of the NES port. And it's still true. But I gotta say these first arcade games might have more satisfying gameplay than not only the 8bit versions, but also the 16 bit games. I love how opulent the weapons are. And for such early titles, they are surprisingly fair.

[Don Rumata]

I played Ori on PC and i don't remember the 30fps lock, wth.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I tried it on switch with the demo and docked didn't really notice any difference, portable seemed a little smoother/more responsive just because no input lag. Ended up just playing on PC.

Played like 5 hours straight, at the 3rd fire temple and did the secret areas at the bottom. Have all the powerups and like 80%+ completion. Just been cleaning up secrets for the last hour since I have access to every ability point/health/energy since I have all the power ups. It's funny, the ability tree is like you slowly progress and feel pretty weak until you get to the end game then get two dozen ability points in an hour behind all the secret bits and suddenly you're super powerful.

So far I like it and think it's pretty good, but it's not one of my favorite metroidvanias. The art is great and music is fantastic, some clever original platforming ideas like the ice temple with the ball carrying and using enemies as slingshots, etc...

...but I don't like the combat and enemies. I don't find the enemies and their movesets to be fun to fight, especially until I got powered up and they'd take a lot of hits and I'd die in like 2 hits even with a ton of green health orbs. I feel like most metroidvanias that are top-tier ones tend to have really good combat to go along with the exploration and platforming so maybe I'm just spoiled. I mean Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, even Bloodstained all have way better combat than this, though Ori has better platforming than some of them.

...but I also feel like the platforming is a touch slippery. Had a handful of deaths that felt off throughout and learned real quick to save often. I think the save system is either clever or pretty dumb. Because lots of sections can 1 hit kill you, it's nice to be able to checkpoint often, but then again they could've just made it checkpoint often automatically. Early on I kept forgetting to save and would have to redo dumb cutscenes. Or I didn't have any energy to make a new save so I had to watch a cutscene and try something and maybe die and then repeat a few times.

Also energy should either regen or drop from killing enemies. Because it's real stupid when you get to an energy door or a spot you need to throw light balls or something and you don't have enough energy and have to run down the hall until you find some energy flower and get your energy and then run back. Don't see any reason why energy shouldn't be easier to get.

The game also seems pretty short. I was surprised when it seemed like I'd gotten all the abilities and cleared almost all the areas before the final one or two in 4 hours. With all the hype and accolades the game has received over the years I thought it'd be a more meaty adventure, but feels like a short, but good, little indie game.

Anyhow, will finish it up next time I play, probably tomorrow. Then maybe just jump straight into the sequel since it's so short.

[Don Rumata]

Ori is honestly the only 2d platformer i liked this side of Super Meat Boy.
It's not like it's amazing or anything, but the way it controlled just clicked with me, which is rare for a 2d game.
I only hated the mind numbing combat, but i hear it's sort of fixed in the sequel.

Speaking of mind numbing, i'm playing A Plague Tale: Innocence.
Phenomenal music and great environments to look at (for real, there are some really cool sets and vistas with mountains of corpses and such) but everything else is mediocre to offensively bad.
The story is pretty straight forward, so are the characters, and the gameplay is near non-existent.
I'll finish it anyway, though.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I was reading up on the sequel and it sounds like the combat is much better, which does sound like it fixes my biggest issue with the game. The mid-ranged combat is just boring for an enemy heavy metroidvania.

Also with all the bullet dodge, it makes me think of Outland which I thought did the bullet hell shmup metroidvania thing better. I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I loved it. Ikaruga inspired color swapping bullet dodging puzzle platformer metroidvania was a really cool concept and pretty well executed. Still my favorite game from HouseMarque.

[Cheddahz]

picked up the new call of duty and kinda just waiting for animal crossing to come out; have been playing 2k20 whenever i have time

[Bebpo]

Just beat Ori and the Blind Forest. Ended up 100%-ing it (well 99% because fuck trying to find whatever missing map dot is 99% in a couple spots, I have all the items).

Good game but flawed. Kind surprised it has the years long fan following it does. It's very pretty, the music is great, story works and doesn't feel too try hard, the platforming is good but coming from other metroidvania's/indie platformers, it's pretty easy and nothing on the harder parts of Guacamelee, Hollow Knight, Celeste, SMB, etc...

Hunting for secrets is fun and some of the puzzle platforming sections are really good. Ended up spending a couple hours just doing that today before beating it. Once it shows you were all the secrets are on the map, the OCD kicks in and needs to get all the power ups. Not sure if they should've had the ability point marker so early on since once you have that at end game you can just clean those up and then you get everything else. Power up tree in general just doesn't seem well balanced.

and then there's the combat. The combat sucks and honestly the game would've been better off a pure platformer like Celeste or something with a bit more challenging platforming & puzzles. The boss fights are terrible and the game knows it because the final boss is just a trial & error run instead (and let's talk about the suckiness of the couple trial & error escape sections; trial & error is lame). There's a lot of enemies in this game for a game where the combat sucks. After a certain point you get strong enough that you can just run past them or blow them all up (air dash helps a lot), but the first half of the game with how hard they hit damage-wise and how much HP spunge they are, they're just too soulsborne annoying for a game that otherwise is not souls at all. Then you get strong and the 2nd half is a joke combat difficulty. Just not well balanced at all.

My endtime was about 5 mins under 7 hours. Kind of surprised that How Long to Beat.com has the game length at 8.5 hours and 11 hours for collecting everything. I didn't use any guides and the ability/health/energy markers made it pretty quick. Had about 200 deaths.

The additions to the definitive edition definitely help speed it up. The dash ability you can get pretty early lets you not only speed through the game, but there were one or two spots I broke the puzzles by air dash before I was supposed to have abilities to skip certain bits. Fast travel was also nice and definitely would've not gone for all the items without it.

Overall was a good game. Felt like a B+ indie platformer with plenty of room for improvement. Without the hype train might've liked it even more, but coming from all the hype it wasn't a let down but it wasn't anything really amazing to me. Hopefully I like the next game more, better combat is definitely a good start!

[Freyj]

Nioh 2 is a sequel ass sequel for better or worse. Finding the new additions to add probably too many things to juggle.

[Bebpo]

Dang, Ori 2 feels like it mostly read my mind while playing and fixed almost every issue, no matter how small I had with the original.

Locked 30fps a little slippery/laggy -> Beautiful 144fps super responsive with incredible lighting
Map is too zoomed it and when you try to zoom out it just goes to the world map picture (big no no for metroidvania) -> Map is super zoomed out and can zoom in if you want
Shitty ass mid-range combat -> satisfying melee combat
Lame enemy attack patterns -> much better enemy attack patterns so far
Weird save/energy system -> frequent auto-save (this may actually make some of the platforming harder since no mid-puzzle saving)
Main game a little too zoomed in -> main game zoomed out a bit more

I like how the puzzles are feeling even more zelda-ish. Played a bit past the bow puzzles. Good design.
Story seems better.

The only change I'm not sure if I like is the shard system. In Ori 1 you just kept adding to your traversal options and by the end you were super amazing with all kinds of movement abilities and had like 12. Now they're equipable shards and you can only equip 3 at a time? Makes me feel like later on I'm going to be constantly going to the shard menu and swapping them to have the abilities I need for each puzzle which could potentially be lame.

I'm fine that the game was really inspired by Hollow Knight (I saw a thread on Era about that and yeah, there is so much of it that feels pulled straight out of HK, but the shard system totally is the biggest), but if they wanted to do the shard system this way they shouldn't have made traversal abilities as shards. Should've just been part of your traversal powerup progression and you use the shards for things like HP+1 or Damage up or other unique abilities but not your basic movement set.

Anyhow, seems great! Was only about 7% after an hour, so feels like it'll be bigger/longer than the first as well, which would be nice. Pretty impressed and loving it.