[Maark Abbott]

Recently I've played Subnautica Below Zero. I hadn't played the base game before. Madness, you say? Nay, says I. Genius. People kept saying that BZ was disappointing after the first, so by playing the first game after, I can't be disappointed by BZ.

Just got Seamoth plans, got a base starting up as well. Not hugely far from the starting point but overlooks a big open area. It feels HUGE compared to BZ.

[Mentalist]

Finished the Dollmaker in Blood Omen. Basically I'm done with exploring the map, which leaves the final stretch of combat challenges- with the one dungeon in between. Not really feeling it right now.

So instead I started "Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights". A lovely exploration platformer where you play as a priestess that has to cure the kingdom that's fallen victim to a "Blight". You do combat by using "spirits"- basically the enemies you defeat (including bosses) whom you "purify" become available for your use as attack summons- so once you beat an archer archetype, you can use his ranged attack, once you beat a chunky mace-knight boss, he becomes available as your heavy attack, etc. Beating bosses additionally unlocks traversal options (the typical double-jump, ground pound, swim, air dash), and you're always on the lookout for items to increase max health, increase your health regen, as well as extra "relics" that increase your stats, and items that allow you to carry more relics. Oh, and by collecting certain amount of "blight echoes", you can increase the strength of your spirits' individual attacks- and you can have 2 loadouts of 3 spirit types each, altenating between them, so up to 6 active attack types at any given point.

It's not a particularly elaborate game so far, but the spirits system is clever and encourages exploration- because some bosses can be made A LOT easier by having an appropriate spirit to counter them. And the whole game just looks lovely, even if the bosses getting another monstrous stage just as you thought you've had them is anime AF. And the whole "exploring, backtracking, and making sure every area is marked as fully explored/scoured clean of loot" is just oh-so-pleasing to the part of my brain that loves maps and patterns.

[Traveller]

Maark Abbott, on 25 October 2021 - 11:50 AM, said:

Recently I've played Subnautica Below Zero. I hadn't played the base game before. Madness, you say? Nay, says I. Genius. People kept saying that BZ was disappointing after the first, so by playing the first game after, I can't be disappointed by BZ.

Just got Seamoth plans, got a base starting up as well. Not hugely far from the starting point but overlooks a big open area. It feels HUGE compared to BZ.

Haven't really felt the need for BZ after finishing the first. I may go back and do it again at some point, and play it differently. I barely used the Cyclops, and stuck with my one Home base; it's possible to build more, I just never really needed to. Once I got the Prawn suit that was it, as you can hit the deepest point without risking a massive Sub in the cave system.

It was really good fun and easy to platinum.

Nearly finished Kena now, on last boss but this one just seems to be a gauntlet of different enemies, with no health pickups and no rot skills available which seems a bit of a let down after the previous boss challenges.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 26 October 2021 - 09:55 PM

[Mentalist]

Got another boss in "Ender Lilies". Now I can wall-climb, too!

The level that preceded the boss was pretty tough, as the game is becoming fairly combat-focused. Good enemy variety allows for multiple combinations keeping encounters fresh.

Each time I get a new tool there's several places I can re-visit to pick up more goodies, or unlock a new path, which is great. The minimap is very minimalistic, but atleast there's plenty of checkpoints to fast-travel across, so backtracking's not really tedious.

[Traveller]

Finished Kena Bridge of Spirits.

Last boss was a let down from a technical view - after a couple of phases with no healing, had to do a platform section which was frustrating as hell because it would let you fall to your death even having succesfully hit the grapple points. And after that was the final boss section. Took far too long and was a pain for all the wrong reasons.
Finished it anyway, I enjoyed the rest of the game but that ending has left me a bit sour, I don't even think I'll carry on to collect up the few items and chests I missed.

Got my eye on Tails of Iron, Ender Lilies - or I'll possibly take a shot at The Forest. With a Blight to heal and spirits etc Lillies sounds a bit too similar to Kena to take on right after though.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 27 October 2021 - 09:25 PM

[Mentalist]

In Ender Lilies you aren't really restoring anything. I've played for over 12 hours and I'm yet to encounter a non-hostile that's not a ghost.

Also, the protag has amnesia, and trying to figure out the past from a bunch of letters scattered around levels & the memories of the bosses you beat.
I also don't expect this story to have a happy ending, fwiw. So probably not much like Kena at all.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 28 October 2021 - 12:04 AM

[Traveller]

Mentalist, on 28 October 2021 - 12:04 AM, said:

In Ender Lilies you aren't really restoring anything. I've played for over 12 hours and I'm yet to encounter a non-hostile that's not a ghost.

Also, the protag has amnesia, and trying to figure out the past from a bunch of letters scattered around levels & the memories of the bosses you beat.
I also don't expect this story to have a happy ending, fwiw. So probably not much like Kena at all.

Good to know, I'll have a look. I just read 'priestess cures kingdom of blight using spirits' and that pretty much sums up Kena too - using the forest spirits to eradicate the blight infecting the land.
Also all the npcs you meet are actually dead - you release their spirits by defeating the bosses which are basically people that are enraged and lost and can't move on.
Game is likely completely different though.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 28 October 2021 - 06:00 AM

[Mentalist]

Finished "Ender Lilies". Took 30 hours to 100%, including levelling up to level 100, and getting all 3 endings. After an ending you can go back into the save file at the last save spot to get the other endings, so it's fairly convenient.

last 2 endings each drop a different special item, so in order to get the last achievement for collecting all the relics, you need to beat the final boss twice. But overall I found the late-game bosses to be fairly easy compared to the mid-game. It's pretty easy to get over-powered in the game, which is always fun. The traversal/exploration abilities set is pretty basic, but there's enough goodies to find to make the search worthwhile. And the presentation is simply gorgeous, both the art and the music/sound design. Definitely one of the best games this year.

[Traveller]

I couldn't decide between Ender Lilies and Tails of Iron, so I downloaded The Forest instead.

No regrets so far, it's thrown me right into island survival, with an easy intuitive and well laid out crafting system, alive landscape and physics, and the natives ai is creepy and unnerving.

Just getting basics like water collection and food sorted, went off to gather some wood and there were three of them waiting on the beach when I got back. They just circled, watching, occasionally running on all fours; but in a very convincing manner.

I'm only making a rough shelter and fireplace at the moment, with a few weapons thrown in, but the item tree looks enormous, I can't wait to find a good location to set up a proper camp.

So far - Subnautica on Land is just what I wanted right now.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 31 October 2021 - 09:43 AM

[Mentalist]

Went back to "Morbid: The Seven Acolytes". Finished the game in today's session. Took some minimal grinding to get some gun-related buffs upgraded, but overall it was a pretty smooth ride, exploring all the maps and seeking out all the bosses.

Cool weapons selection with decent variety, though this is definitely on the easier end of the souls-likes spectrum. Still enjoyable due to the art style and world design.

Gonna try to wrap up "Aztaka", a mythological metroidvania I've started a while ago.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 31 October 2021 - 11:59 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Man, I am glad I played base Subnautica last. I'm beyond how long it took me to finish BZ. The sense of scale is so much bigger. Currently looking around a toasty little biome about 1250m down.

The game's use of sound is excellent. Coming up from the reef at one point from the second survivor base, what's that sudden ungodly screech? And there's a spoopi boi bearing down on my prawn and oh god oh fuck.

I am getting used to evading leviathans and warpers by using the prawn grapple to wavedash, so I am sort of tempted to go punch a reaper in the cock.

[Aptorian]

Still playing Farcry 6. Game gets better and better the more equipment you unlock.

Also a lot more story content than in prior games. I just ran into motherfucking Danny Trejo. I'm helping him get the food he needs to make his famous Trejo tacos. That he makes to feed the people who are in need because he likes helping people. Also he apparently stabbed a guy nine times in the throat because he ransacked his taco kitchen.

[Mentalist]

Put a bunch of hours into Aztaka. It's got some neat ideas and a pretty unique UI that fits the theme well. Having 4 types of energy you can manipulate on-screen for various effects is certainly novel.

Unfortunately, the game is prone to crashing, and some of the traversal mechanics are just poor. One of them is the wall-jump, where you basically automatically curl up into a ball next to certain walls, and then if you tap space again, you get launched off the wall into whatever direction needed. This is very wonky mechanic, since holding any direction key during the "ball" phase saps all your momentum, but you need to jump towards the wall to trigger it... it's just... not a good system.

And now it's blocking my way to the final areas. Coupled with the iffy combat (so much level scaling where on later levels same enemy types suddenly become damage sponges, and lack of HP bars means you're never sure how much damage you're doing), quick enemy respawns, and crashes everywhere, I just don't feel like trying to figure this stupid jump out.

So instead I bought "The Legend of Tianding", of which I previously played a demo. It's got comic book artstyle, and it's presented like a radio series, with an announcer recapping the story and then saying: " will X be able to achieve Y? Find out in this chapter!" It's cute and really adds to the presentation. The game is an action-platformer with beat'em up combat (your character does kung fu, after all), with plenty of secret areas in each level. Each of the game's 145 collectibles conveys an extra buff- you have to find some of them in the levels, but you can also use your time in the hub cities to give money to the respawning beggars, and each time they'll also give you a collectible in return. It's a pretty cool system, especially since you can replay earlier levels ("relive your memories") and farm more money each time for new equipment, or more collectibles.

The game controls well, the art is gorgeous, and the music is kick-ass. It's a rock soundtrack, but when I'm going through a dozen thugs or a mix of cops and military, beating them down, stealing weapons and using 1 finger punches or Shadow Clone techniques to be a total Kung Fu badass, the electric guitar riffs fit, even if the story's a period piece about the Taiwanese resisting the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century.

So yeah. This game is pretty awesome.

[Mentalist]

Finished Legend of Tianding. Last boss took a few hours, the bastard has too many different elemental attacks in his second phase. Fun game, not too long, do recommend.

On Thursday "Treasures of the Aegean" will be out. It's a timeloop platformer puzzler that shares the same comic book aesthetic. I played the demo in the last Steam nextFest, and I'm hooked.

In the meantime, I'm going through my indie backlog, and I started "Guardian of Lore". The game's pretty janky, but I adore the concept, trying to keep the legends of various native peoples of Latin America from being re-written.

[Aptorian]

Woke up early and like a kid on Christmas I booted up Forza Horizon 5.

Only played through the intro but that was quite exhilarating none the less. You know the gameplay is good when you get this swooping feeling and sort of feel unsafe, when you're barreling down a Mexican highway at +300 kmh. I was sort of going "oh shit, oh shit" and "whooooooo" under my breath every time I overtook some car at subsonic speed or executed a controlled turn while racing a giant cargo plane in the sky.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 09 November 2021 - 09:21 AM

[Mentalist]

Only 1 legend left to save in Guardian of Lore. The 3 legends on the 2nd floor of the library feel much more straightforward than the ones on the 1st floor. Though to be fair, one of those just has a really annoying hidden area that took me forever to find.

Some of the late-game gear you get in this game looks fantastic, though. And the late-game sword lets me chain aerial hits, so that I can basically helicopter my way around the maps just spinning my sword around. Also allows me to hit bosses in the air, and avoid being hit myself, which is an easy way to get the "defeat boss X without getting hit" achievements. I do suspect that might be a bug, though, because there's A LOT of weird platforming bugs with this game.

Still, it's a blast for what it is. "Treasures of the Aegean" is out today, but I won't be getting it till Monday, cuz I need to wait for a new billing period, lol.

Started to dip back into Age of Empires II again, there's a custom campaign by a Chinese designer team I've been asked to review. Thought I was doing all right in the 1st scenario, defeating 3 Mongol sympathiser heroes and getting myself a base. There's an enemy base I need to take, which I thought I was doing a decent job at, but then they spawned like 20 or 30 Keshiks, and my offensive really stalled. Will need to rethink my approach with that in mind.

[Aptorian]

Finished Far Cry 6. The more I played this game, the more I enjoyed it.

The story is what ever, it has its moments but the writing misses its mark every time it tries to be serious or dramatic. Anton Castillo never really seems dangerous or even particularly present in the world. He's just a guy who shows up in some cut scenes.

The gameplay opens up the more you play, as you earn points to upgrade your weapons and discover new guns. This is both annoying and clever in that you actually have to work to build the arsenal you desire.

I think the games real short coming is that it's just more of the same. Same types of outposts, enemies, collectibles, etc. I don't understand why both Far Cry and Assains Creed continue to only use vanilla human enemies. Introduce something bigger and badder to challenge the player.

Put in a couple of hours into Forza Horizon 5 today. This game is fun. It's just fun to drive around, completing little challenges, unlocking new races, etc. The rewind functions really helps to eliminate frustration when you fuck up and go off track. It sort og makes the races into more of a puzzle than a time challenge, at least when you're doin the race for the first time.

[Morgoth]

Got the final ending in Returnal. What a weird game that was. Great fun, but weird. Not entirely sure what I think of the ending, they might have gone a little heavy on the metaphors, but it was well worth it all the same. Might even try to platinum the thing, I am pretty close I reckon.

[Aptorian]

Now that Returnal has gotten a sort of autosave progress feature, I definitely want to check Returnal out if I ever get a PS5.

Those tentacle aliens look super cool.

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on 15 November 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

Now that Returnal has gotten a sort of autosave progress feature, I definitely want to check Returnal out if I ever get a PS5.

Those tentacle aliens look super cool.

The gameplay is great. It's responsive fast and addictive, and as you say, the autosave should have been there from the start.

The world is so alien and weird and fantastic, it's a joy to step into a new biome with all the beautiful crazy stuff that follows. Not to mention all the snippets of storytelling you discover, the strange insane messages from past/future versions of yourself.