It really is one of the best looking games for the Wii U. It’s great to see what a competent team of programming talent can pull off with such limited hardware. A lot of new titles I feel are completely bogged down by bloated middleware and engines.
I’m also wondering if we still consider the WII U a “modern” system, or should I start posting this under retro in the future?
Yeah that looks awesome!
They are a studio that always shoots for a clean, effective artsyle. It makes the hardware look like it’s punching above its weight. But really, it’s just good artistic design and very clever geometry. Reminds me a bit of Metroid Prime in that respect.
I bought Tetris Effect Connected last week and I’ve been enthralled by it. Can’t believe I slept on this game until now, both the original Journey mode and brand new multiplayer modes are superb.
There were a few times where I came close to shedding tears, the powerful backgrounds, music, and the connection to Tetris as a lifelong video game just have such an impact on me sometimes.
On the other end of the spectrum, the presentation does a masterful job at getting you into the zone. I played for almost three hours straight on just single player Journey, Expert Mode, finishing the game and then doing a Total Score run from the top. Managed to get to Area 6’s Orbit Zone, just three stages away from the end! And that really wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for me being in the zone.
The multiplayer modes in the new Connected edition surprised me as well. My favourite is the co-op mode where you take on three bosses in succession as a group of three players. At first you all clear lines individually while fighting the boss to get a chance at entering co-op Zone mode, and it’s there where the magic happens. You take it in turns, cooperatively, to drop pieces onto a super wide board and clear lines. It can be oddly emotional at times, frantic in others. Great stuff.
Not interested in the multiplayer but know the full run of journey mode is a fully emotional experience if you let it be. A 45 minutes or so that I try to allow myself every few months.
Now that I have the Series X I’m playing more modern stuff. Now I’m getting in to Watchdogs Legion. Not sure if I really like it just yet. It’s okay but I’m yet to be drawn in.
Interesting - I might have to try it on Normal, on Expert there wasn’t time to think about anything other than frantically clearing lines!
At first I wasn’t interested in multiplayer either but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Entering co-op zone mode for the first time invoked very similar feelings to when I first played the first area in Journey mode.
I’ve been plowing through Demon’s Souls. Got to New Game+ last Friday. Really loving the PS5 so far.
My son is playing Demon’s and loving it. I’ve been playing Cold War, Astro and a lot of Warzone which is fantastic at 60fps with no drops. HD texture pack makes it quite a looker too. I’ve enjoyed using it for media stuff while working during the day too. It’s a monolith of entertainment. Literally!
I started Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin and I’ve been playing an hour a day so far.
The visuals are beautiful, especially so given it’s the work of just two people at doujin developer Edelweiss, doing a great job at capturing the character of four distinct seasons. The dynamism of the water in your rice paddy had me gobsmacked, to be honest. Especially when the rain is pelting down on it, but even the mere act of filling it up with water produces a beautiful effect:
As for the rest of the game, it’s fine. In between the rice farming there’s side-scrolling action levels where you explore environments and bash enemies for spoils, it’s all been a bit samey so far and, for now at least, there’s clearly less choice than the game would appear to offer you. Because combat is as stat-based as it is skill-based, if you’re good and get ahead of the curve you’re still left waiting for your stats to catch up before you even stand a chance at battling monsters. That means either waiting for the next rice harvest, which boosts Sakuna’s stats directly, or messing around gathering enough materials to upgrade your gear.
Since there’s no global time limit like in, say, Pikmin or older Atelier games, it honestly just comes across as dull busywork. I hope there’s less of it later on.
Sakuna gets better and more promising, while it does start out rather sedate it impressed me with how much more it piles on your plate, and how much more involved the day-to-day management, and the rice farming, gets.
Overall it’s still very much a game where you’re getting numbers and levels up, and there’s no threat of long term failure like, say, Pikmin or Atelier Totori, but it’s still being demanding which is good for a simulation game like this. Unfortunately because overall progression is extremely railroaded and based off check-list quest-like tasks it’s not the kind of game I’d want to replay again once it’s all over. There isn’t that much room to improvise and forge your own path.
Did anyone else get the new Ghosts and Goblins? I’m pretty conflicted over it after playing through zones 1-3…
I’ve had my eye on Lonely Mountains: Downhill for a while after hearing Jeff Green talk about it on his Branching Narratives podcast (recommended!) via US Gamer (RIP). It was a short mention during the Gary Whitta podcast (I think? - it’s been several months since I listened to it).
He referred to it as the Dark Souls of downhill mountain biking. I’m not into the Souls series, but I know it’s an overused, tired description of games. However, I think it’s pretty fitting here. It’s definitely challenging. You will wreck (die) a lot. It’s also really fun though. It’s on sale on PSN right now which made me bite last night. I played through the first couple trails and tried out the daily challenge (much more difficult). It has an addicting gameplay loop that leads itself to a “I’ll play for a couple minutes” only to find you’ve been playing it for much longer than you initially planned to. “I know I can land this shortcut!” …even though I’ve wrecked 10 times trying, lol
PS5 port finally showed for yakuza: like a dragon, so i’m going in!
really hoping to finish it…ive been absolutely terrible at finishing games during this pandemic, where once i prided myself on it. DQXI, jedi fallen order, so many titles i’ve picked up & put down for seemingly no reason at all.
lately I’ve been playing the latest installment in everyone’s favourite grognard vertical tank sim, Mechwarrior 5! (i don,t expect that to be a very RGB -core game)
and it’s pretty good . It’s not the big-budget masterpiece mechwarrior fans expected after 20 years of inactivity but things blow up nice, it looks pretty and there’s a lot of content. The heavy emphasis on procgen content can make it feel rather repetitive and the negotation/fund management layer is neat at first but has a lot of annoying limitations and missed opportunities. but GOG tells me I’ve been playing it for nearly 20 hours and games rarely hold my attention that much these days so it’s doing something right
however one really neat thing it does and that I want to talk about is how it ties into its source material.
mechwarrior is based off the Battletech setting, a tabletop game that’s been running since the mid 80’s and has amassed a ridiculous (and often quite interesting) quantity of lore. the premise of mechwarrior 5 is that you’re a mercenary eeking out a living and going on a Personal Quest For Revenge at the tail end of the third succession war, a series of conflicts between the degenerate feudal houses of the inner sphere. the game runs on a some 40-years timeline that runs in the background, ending in 3049 right before the clan invasion storyline all of the other mechwarrior games are set during or after. it doesn’t affect your ability to take on contracts and complete the hand-crafted questline but it leads to a lot of neat stuff.
-as the timeline progresses, enemies progessively get better and meaner equipments as new chassis and weapons are introduced. “lost tech” becomes more widely available as supply caches are discovered and means of productions are rediscovered.
-where equipment is found and fought more or less loosely adheres to the lore of the battletop. the crab (a mech that’s stated in the fluff to be very rare because its factory was immediately bombed into oblivion) is, well, rare. as you get closer to the galactic core of terra, you’ll find more rare goods and advanced equipment.
-there’s a series of new reports that hints at new developments in opportunities. one report may state that a cache of lost tech was found in X region, hinting that you’ll be able to purchase good loot at that location’s black market. in the mid 3025-'s, you get a report that a “mysterious bird mech” has been sighted at a particular border. the mech in question, the raven, then has a low chance of appearing as an enemy in contracts for that region and it gets to the procgen pool for the other conflict zones as it officially goes in production
-battlelines are redrawn as alliances are made and broken.
basically it’s all quite neat and elavates the game. I wish more licensed games played with their source material like that. the one other game I can think of having a timeline gimmick like that is gundam crossfire, but none of it fed into the gameplay (thank you for coming to my TED talk)
That sounds really interesting actually… I used to love the early MechWarriorb games, especially MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. Excellent game.
I should check out 5.
If you have game pass it’s on there!
Just played ElecHead (Demo)
MUST PLAY
Full game due Summer 2021 so I guess that’s soon?
I’ve been playing a lot of Scarlet Nexus since it came out - it’s shockingly good. It’s the sort of mid-budget Japanese game we rarely see these days, and much better than Namco’s own Tales series. But so far I’ve been delighted by the wealth of ideas presented by the combat and many of the level designs (one highway level sees you control and ride buses to take down enemies), and the boss fights have provided a firm but fair challenge where you really have to earn your victories on Hard difficulty.
I also picked up R-Type Final 2, which I’m less keen on. So far it feels more like an exercise in trial and error more than anything else because the visibility of appearing enemies, bullets and the collision detection in the scenery aren’t all that clear and need to be learned in specific circumstances. But it does have that ‘one more go’ appeal but I’m left wondering if I should quit while I’m ahead…one to ask the shmup thread folk!
Oh man this looks awesome! I’m going to play this ASAP.
If you like this style, a simple-yet unique indie platformer, you may want to check out “Out There Somewhere”. The main mechanic is a teleporter gun, and it’s just crazy all the different methods it gets used during the game. You can play through it in about an hour, and it’ll have you smiling for sure.
Also, it’s $0.49 right now, highly recommended for an hour or so of fun!
