What are you playing right now?

[danzibr]

Thoroughly enjoying Star Control: Origins.

[Zevox]

Uh, so, I may have jumped the gun on thinking I had finished DQ11 after all...

Spoiler

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Because what I thought would be the post-game bonus dungeon/boss is quickly starting to look like a whole third part to the plot.

Part 1: Initial journey, ultimately reaching the World Tree - where Jasper surprise attacks you and Mordegon reveals himself, steals your powers, corrupts the Sword of Light into a Sword of Darkness, and kills Yggdrasil.
Part 2: Four months later, you deal with the aftermath of Mordegon's victory, reassemble your team, forge a new Sword of Light, and ultimately defeat Mordegon. The World Tree is revived in the aftermath of his death. The end, right?
Part 3: You discover a means to take a one-way trip back in time to just before the ending of part 1 - but just you, not the rest of your companions, and the Sword of Light is broken in the process. But you get the chance to prevent all of the destruction Mordegon caused from ever happening, and save Veronica, who had died saving the rest of your party from Mordegon at that crucial juncture between parts 1 and 2. But when you do, there are consequences, which cause a new threat to appear...

I'm not sure whether this is annoying or brilliant. On the one hand, the story had a satisfying conclusion there at the end of Part 2, and Veronica's death felt meaningful and made the game stand out compared to others in the series, so I don't actually want to undo it. On the other hand though, holy crap, they're actually doing the time travel thing fairly right. I mean, for one, Mordegon doesn't act like an idiot and reveal himself immediately despite you thwarting Jasper's surprise attack, he tries to continue playing at being King Cornelius and manipulate you into letting him see the Sword of Light so that he can corrupt it. And you do see in the original timeline that Mordegon is the one who stops the fall of Erdwin's Lantern, which seemed weird but was never addressed further - well, without him to stop it, now it's going to hit, and you'll have to deal with the consequences, which appear to be the rise of another Dark Lord who Mordegon likely saw as a rival.

The one seriously noticeable flaw at this point, really, is that the whole "silent protagonist" thing does not mesh well with your main character being the sole one who went back in time. You wind up wondering why he doesn't just tell the rest of the group what's going on as soon as he gets back, or why he doesn't out the fact that Mordegon is possessing Cornelius at the World Tree. It works out in the end, but it would be a lot better if it didn't feel like you were being a little dumb in how you go about those particular moments.

(Well, also, from a gameplay perspective, kind of sucks that all of your companions were reset to where they were at the end of part 1, including having whole chunks of their skill trees missing, since those were unlocked as part of the plot in part 2. I assume something will happen to help fix that, but in the meantime, even with the better equipment you can give them all, you're basically carrying the party.)

[Resileaf]

You know what I suddenly miss? Worms 3D. I played the crap out of that game on the Gamecube. Maybe I should plug in my Wii again...
Wish it was on Steam. Doesn't seem like that game is downloadable anywhere on the PC except with cracks, and that's a no-no.

[factotum]

I think Worms: Ultimate Mayhem contains all the same content as Worms 3D did, but with extra stuff as well...willing to be proven wrong on that, though.

[Cozzer]

I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles (the first one) on a Wii emulator. It shows its age in some ways, but it's still a pretty fun and interesting ride.

Also, it's pretty sad how many Wii games are much better when played when a regular XBox controller.

[Knaight]

I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles (the first one) on a Wii emulator. It shows its age in some ways, but it's still a pretty fun and interesting ride.

Also, it's pretty sad how many Wii games are much better when played when a regular XBox controller.

A lot of them can be played with a Gamecube controller by default, which also helps.

[Resileaf]

I think Worms: Ultimate Mayhem contains all the same content as Worms 3D did, but with extra stuff as well...willing to be proven wrong on that, though.

It does have the campaign missions from Worms 3D (which you play in a sepia color filter), but it doesn't have the same random maps or challenges and stuff. So extremely similar, has enough differences that I still want to play the original 3D. XD

[Kato]

I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles (the first one) on a Wii emulator. It shows its age in some ways, but it's still a pretty fun and interesting ride.

I started that a while back but I somehow quickly lost interest.. I can't even exactly say why. The butt load of MMO style "kill 20 x" and "bring me 10 y" quests might have had something to do with it.. And people to befriend? Something like that.
I know I could just ignore them and move on with the story but then they would remain unfinished..

Meanwhile I decided to do the much more sensible thing of trying to get every achievement in the FFV steam version (because I love that game) ... Until I realized what the worst of them were. I might have to reconsider.

[oxybe]

So with ~35h left, I'm finally at Battlepass lv100 in Fortnite for my first Season of play.

All in all, it's been fun. It's not the best shooter I've played, and as I'm playing it on the Switch it means I can't use my familiar keyboard+mouse combo so i'm still getting used to the twin stick setup (I grew up with Quake & Doom, not Halo :P ), but it does do a lot of stuff I like and it's been fun and that's all that matters.

Speaking about the Switch... that, uh... that Switch Online sure is a thing. I don't need it for Fortnite and barring the cloud save feature, the one that doesn't apply to all games and is immediately expunged from the cloud(!) once your sub runs out, none of the other features really interest me much. Once they put up a decent SNES library on it's Netflix-like free games section it might interest me, but it's very, very poor substitute for the Wii-era virtual console.

I mean, I will be getting that online sub and a pro controller once Smash Ultimate comes out (good bye christmas bonus!), but until then it's only "saving grace" is that it's cheaper then it's competition's equivalent but you get fewer features like voice chat built into the service itself, a service that's been free up until now.

[Jama7301]

I am looking forward to playing Valkyria Chronicles 4 when I get off work today.

[Anteros]

I am looking forward to playing Valkyria Chronicles 4 when I get off work today.

Let me know what you think of it. I enjoyed the first game until I realized that there was almost no incentive towards using squad based tactics in favor of just running through the map with a handful of uber-units. I'm hoping that the sequel will reward more actual tactics, but I'm worried it will just be like the last game.

[williamlucas]

Assassins Creed Unity

[candys]

I play CS:GO right now. I like FPS, esp this one. I play it with my mates through eSport platform https://dreamteam.gg/csgo where I can find new players for my team. Besides, it's a good way to practise skills with other players. I want to become a Pro one day and next month I want to participate in the tournament.

[Resileaf]

I play CS:GO right now. I like FPS, esp this one. I play it with my mates through eSport platform where I can find new players for my team. Besides, it's a good way to practise skills with other players. I want to become a Pro one day and next month I want to participate in the tournament.

You are not lacking in ambition. I salute you and encourage you to follow your dreams!

[Jama7301]

Let me know what you think of it. I enjoyed the first game until I realized that there was almost no incentive towards using squad based tactics in favor of just running through the map with a handful of uber-units. I'm hoping that the sequel will reward more actual tactics, but I'm worried it will just be like the last game.

I never got too far into the first one (got body blocked by Minerva and Maximillian in the desert), but I did just come across a mission where my normal tactics that I used before didn't work. I didn't know if low visibility/foggy missions were later in VC1, but this game opens with one early where having that extended movement is incredibly helpful.

Also, the new Grenadiers are neat.

[deuterio12]

I started that a while back but I somehow quickly lost interest.. I can't even exactly say why. The butt load of MMO style "kill 20 x" and "bring me 10 y" quests might have had something to do with it.. And people to befriend? Something like that.
I know I could just ignore them and move on with the story but then they would remain unfinished..

Actually it's somewhat intended that you do not do all the sidequests in Xenoblade Chronicles because if you do so, you'll end up way overlevelled for the main story even if you don't do any other grinding.

This seemingly got so many complaints from completionists that for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 doing sidequests doesn't directly give you exp, but rather throws it in a special separate pool that can be spent at inns for gaining extra levels at your leisure. And new game+ actually lets you de-level at inns it seems.

Speaking of which finally managed to finish a sidequest in XC2 that's specially infuriating because the final boss is way harder than their level would suggest so I just left it unfinished and kept advancing the story. So that's really part of the Xenoblade experience, sometimes it's best to let sidequests just remain by the side, in particular because the main story's actually pretty nice when you get into it while "bring me X mechon bear asses" not so much.

(there's also another mid-game sidequest that ended with me needing to kill a lv.100 enemy which I just noped out of).

[Resileaf]

Alas, my TV is not compatible with the Wii/Gamecube. I have to order an adapter.

[oxybe]

So Fortnite Season 6 is off in full swing. I'm currently chugging along, having finished the week 1 challenges this morning and won my 2nd solo Victory Royale total (1st one was in season 5). Where Season 5's victory umbrella was beach-themed, this season's is spiderweb themed. If nothing else, I can say with pride "I at least scrub'd myself to a single win this season".

Battlepass has a lot of nice skins to unlock this season, with the Tier 1 and Tier 100 type of evolving skins of Season 5 returning, this time with Calamity, a Calamity Jane meets Van Hellsing badass, as your Tier 1 and Dire, a Werewolf, as your Tier 100. You can also unlock alternate colours for their trims by completing the required number of weekly challenges.

Map has changed a bit too. The aftermath of Kevin the cube melting into Loot Lake has caused the island in the middle to be supercharged with Kev's gravity warping power, creating a floating island and a gravity tornado you can ride up to the island with. New points of interest like a castle by Haunted Hills has arrived.

All in all, looks like it's going to be fun.

Also: pets are now a thing, in that instead of a normal backpack, cape or whatever, you can have a carrier with an animal on it riding on your back and it's behaviour changes based what you're doing. It's still just a backbling, just a very animated one.

[rooster707]

Okay, so I know I’m a few years late on this, but Stardew Valley is really good. Like, good enough that I’m (just barely) restraining my usual urge to read through the entire wiki and spoil everything.

Also! Heat Signature got a pretty big update a few days ago, the first one in kind of a while. I’m jumping back in to get all the new achievements (damn you, Tom Francis, I used to have it 100%ed ) and try out the new content, which is excellent.

[Razade]

Okay, so I know I’m a few years late on this, but Stardew Valley is really good. Like, good enough that I’m (just barely) restraining my usual urge to read through the entire wiki and spoil everything.

There's not much to spoil honestly. There's no story line per say and honestly...unless you want to go digging...the wiki is super healthy to get in some early help. Like Relationship stuff. I wish I'd looked earlier.

[ANOTHERSTORY]

Sims 4 and Pokemon go

[IthilanorStPete]

I've been replaying the parser-based adventure game Hadean Lands, trying to finish it in the minimum number of resets.

[Knaight]

There's not much to spoil honestly. There's no story line per say and honestly...unless you want to go digging...the wiki is super healthy to get in some early help. Like Relationship stuff. I wish I'd looked earlier.

If you're interesting in exploring the mechanical systems the wiki can curtail that, which is why I avoided it until I'd played for a while. That said it is helpful for clarifying some niche things, starting with territory covered by various effects.

[Wookieetank]

Been playing Axiom Verge pretty regularly recently and having a blast. Having only ever played pre-3D Metroid games, I'm really liking the twist this game takes on how to overcome your usual obstacles.

[Zevox]

So, I finally truly finished up Dragon Quest 11. And wow, it was head and shoulders above the rest of its series.

Spoiler

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I covered most my thoughts on past posts, but just to expand on the 3rd act/post-game (not entirely sure which it is - that portion is mostly side-quests like a post-game period, but also a continuation of the main plot in a way), they ultimately did the whole time travel thing pretty darn well. There's only two inconsistencies I noticed: first, you traveling back somehow undid the death of the Mermaid Shelly despite that having occurred before the time you traveled back to; second, when you send Serenica back in time at the very end, the Sword of Light that she uses doesn't break the way it does when you do it. Kind of minor all told. And seeing Serenica go back while your own timeline continues on even answers how the time-travel is working - alternate timelines/dimensions, not the timeline being rewritten based on what the time traveler changes.

Which means there's now at least three distinct timelines in this game:
- The main one, wherein Erdwin failed in the past, you were blindsided at the World Tree, Mordegon corrupted the Sword of Light and slew Yggrasil, Veronica sacrificed herself to save the rest of the party, Mordegon destroyed Erdwin's Lantern, you eventually forged a new Sword of Light and defeated Mordegon. And then you travel back in time - leaving that initial timeline with no Luminary or Sword of Light, but with Mordegon defeated and Calasmos having hitched a ride back in time with you, they may not need them.
- The revised one, wherein Erdwin failed in the past, but you returned with foreknowledge of what would happen at the World Tree, defeated Jasper there, defeated Mordegon at Heliodor before he could do anything worse than he'd already done in the backstory, and then had to fight Calasmos when, with no Mordegon to stop him, he regained his power from Erdwin's Lantern. Then, with Calasmos defeated, you restored Serenica to her true form, somehow gave her the power of the Luminary, and allowed her to travel back in time.
- Serenica's new timeline, where presumably she saved Erdwin from Mordecai's betrayal thanks to her foreknowledge of the future, allowing him to defeat Calasmos ages before you were born and preventing Mordecai from ever becoming Mordegon, thereby completely rewriting history so that your lifetime must be completely different.

And if the little ending encounter with the Yggdragon is any indication, I suspect they might be thinking of doing something with at least that second timeline - why all that talk of it becoming corrupted otherwise, eh? Unless that was part of the story of DQ10 or something (pretty sure it wasn't in any of the Dragon Quests, though admittedly I've never finished 7). Have to say, slightly confused by it giving you the "title" of Erdrick there too. IIRC that's what the Japanese versions called Loto, the legendary hero of games 1 and 2 - who we already had revealed as the main character of DQ3 at the end of that one. Are they trying to tie 11 into those three, despite there being no similarities between their worlds? Or just starting to use Erdrick as a title they'd give to any DQ main character? Kind of weird either way.

Anyway, gotta say, whether you call it a 3rd act of the story or just a very story-involved post-game, I very much appreciated that final part. All of the storylines wrapped up pretty neatly together with the full explanation of the original Luminary's backstory - it explains why the dark lord he was supposed to have defeated could be returning, why there were two such dark lords all of the sudden, didn't leave me feeling like the whole time-travel schtick was just an excuse to let you undo Veronica's death, and as mentioned aside from a couple of hiccups there the time-travel as presented seemed to actually work. (Though I'm still left seriously wishing you weren't stuck with a silent protagonist so I had some actual reason you don't explain the whole time-travel thing to your friends at any point, but such is the way of things with this series...)

Gameplay-wise, I have to say, the difficulty curve of the game on normal is a tad weird. For the whole first part I found it too easy, and had there been an option to increase the difficulty after starting the file, I would have. Then I hit act 2 post-Yggdrasil and things toughened up enough that the bosses at least were feeling like a challenge, and I was happier with that. Then I hit act 3, and even non-boss fights were kind of rough there for a little while, and the final boss fight with Calasmos wound up still being a real threat even to my party of level 75-79s with some of the best equipment in the game. I was worried that I've over-leveled and over-prepared doing all of Drustan's Trials and going out of my way to get some of the best equipment in the game before facing Calasmos, but nope. So, ultimately fairly satisfied with it, though part 1 could've used to more resemble part 2 in difficulty. Part of me kind of does want to go and start a new file on hard mode and see how that pans out, but the game's just too dang long for that right now I think. Someday, but not soon.

So yeah, if you like old-school style JRPGs, I'd highly recommend this one, it's really good. Heck, aside from Persona 5 this is the first RPG I've completely finished in quite some time now, which means it did a better job than many of holding my attention despite its length (I wound up with a little over 100 hours of play time).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Almost finished with the first episode of Life is Strange 2; definitely holds up so far, I love the character dynamic of having a little brother to take care of.

[Resileaf]

Adapter successfully works. Wish I didn't have to raid in WoW to play Worms. XD

[NRSASD]

Streets of Rogue with my fiance! The humor is a bit iffy, but the gameplay is vastly amusing.

I've been a hyper-intelligent gorilla who got sprayed with gigantism juice while fighting a scientist, so both the scientist and I became too big to fight in the bar, exploding the building and crushing the unlucky police responding to the King Kong showdown. I've been a shapeshifter who possessed a bank account, who promptly opened the vaults and collected all the cash before walking out of the bank and into the path of an oncoming train. I've been a cannibal who ate his way through a zombie apocalypse. I've been a bartender who got through 9 levels without ever raising his fists in anger.

It's a good game and while I don't think it'll be my goto game forever, it'll last me a while yet

[Zevox]

Found out that Mega Man 11 just released, so I picked that up. So far, I'm pretty impressed, honestly. It's obviously very much so in the classic, original Mega Man series' style, but the new Gear system they introduced is actually a fun new element that compliments how the series plays and which they very obviously designed parts of the game around. Or at least, half of it is - the Speed Gear that lets you basically slow down time. The Power Gear on the other hand is much more questionable, being just, well, a power boost. It's neat that it causes the special weapons to have different effects, but so far, those don't look so good that I see myself using it much. And the drawback of Double Gear is so harsh that I don't see myself using it ever, honestly.

So far I've beaten three stages - Block Man, Torch Man, and Tundra Man. Surprisingly enough Tundra Man's weakness was not Torch Man's power, even though that seemed like it should be the obvious one (maybe it was the other way around and I just did them in the wrong order, wouldn't surprise me). I'm playing on normal difficulty, and it's actually been quite hard so far - each stage has had areas where it's hard not to die repeatedly getting the timing down on some essential jumps in areas with pits or one-touch-death effects. But I honestly kind of like that, since it's quite true to classic Mega Man.

Also still slowly working my way through Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, and at this point I've passed the furthest point I reached before drifting away from it before. I'm reminded of one of the things that frustrated me about it though - it seems like most of your army in this one don't get their health increased frequently on level ups. In most Fire Emblem games that's the most consistent stat to gain when you level up unless you're specifically a squishy mage or the like, but even the durable classes in this one are feeling like they're no better than 50/50, if that, which is leading to my army feeling kind of squishy.

Also, wow, Conquest Corrin is an idiot. How many times does King Garron need to act blatantly evil before it gets through to him that he's not going to be able to convince him to stop ordering everyone that's so much as an inconvenience to him killed? Plus it's astonishing that neither he nor anyone else can tell that the dancer whose song seemed to be magically affecting Garron in that one sequence was Azura - even if I hadn't played Birthright already and seen that from their side, she didn't exactly disguise herself all that well there, and they did notice that she was missing during the performance and showed right back up after. Put two and two together already, damn it!

[Resileaf]

Also, wow, Conquest Corrin is an idiot. How many times does King Garron need to act blatantly evil before it gets through to him that he's not going to be able to convince him to stop ordering everyone that's so much as an inconvenience to him killed? Plus it's astonishing that neither he nor anyone else can tell that the dancer whose song seemed to be magically affecting Garron in that one sequence was Azura - even if I hadn't played Birthright already and seen that from their side, she didn't exactly disguise herself all that well there, and they did notice that she was missing during the performance and showed right back up after. Put two and two together already, damn it!

Although I agree that Corrin is kind of a dumb***, I do think s/he can be forgiven for not recognizing Azura during her performance there. Corrin is far from the stage, he doesn't know Azura that well (she only joined two or three chapters earlier and keeps to herself much more than in Birthright), she disguised herself (clothes are different and she wears a veil), and is singing in a different voice than usual.

But he really should have figured it out much sooner rather than having to be told.