What You've Been Playing This Week

[Neon Ignition]

Main focus is currently on the mostly reasonable Spider-Man 2 at the moment. I'm trying to focus on getting through some of the BIG title releases of 2023 I've fallen behind on before new years so need to judge what to focus on next after it as there's a fair old number. I'm thinking either RoboCop or FFXVI

[Dogg Thang]

I just finished Yakuza 0 and I absolutely adored it. Such a fantastic game with so much to do. And the story really kept me engaged, except for a few long breaks where I was determined to complete side quests. The ending was gripping and kind of beautiful. It’s a really interesting mix in that some of the story is so serious and grand and yet much of the game is so silly and whimsical and it all works together. I’m really itching to the play the others but after 70 or 80 hours on this one, it might be an idea to go to something else in between so I do t burn out on them.

I absolutely love this game.

[huxley]

Still meticulously working my way through tears of the kingdom. Did the fire temple last night, which was a little frustrating and onto water temple today. It’s taking me over 150 hours, so far as I’m using the distraction method to play.
ie what’s that and where was I?

[wheelaa]

Chained Echoes. Fun.

[importaku]

Still stuck into mameda no Bakeru, there have been some amazing games this year on switch but honestly this one has managed to resonate with me to the point that i enjoyed it even over other stellar stuff like pikmin 4 & mario wonder. As someone who adores the ganbare Goemon games this was as best as i could have hoped for considering this is goodfeels first attempt they totally nailed it. The artstyle is so pretty and the levels are really themed well to each prefecture of Japan. While i don't have intimate knowledge of them all i know enough of them thanks to the momotaro dentetsu games to know why they are themed as they are even the omiyage capsules you find hidden in the levels contain items that the prefecture you currently are in are well known for.

After 63 stages the game sadly ends but i haven't even started to fully get everything, in each level there are 3 omiyage capsules & 6 unchiku the little poop guy who tells you a random fact about Japan, later on you no longer have to trek on foot your tanuki grandad unveils a ship to fly in that looks like a giant iron kettle. It makes traversing all over japan a lot faster and later on still you can warp to any part. There are giant robot battles dotted about where your trusty kettle transforms super robot style into a gundam along with flashy transformation sequence. These giant bosses are imaginatively themed as well, even as you go through Japan no 2 levels look the same they are all themed brilliantly with some really cool gimmicks one level you are climbing a misty mountain then all of a sudden when you reach the summit the entire thing starts rotating like a single platform and you have to jump to the next mountain that's also spinning. Another level has those thached triangular houses like they have in shirakawago and they are all rolling down the hills having to get through the level while houses are rolling all over is wild then you reach near the end and you have to go in one and all of a sudden the thing starts rolling around with you inside so you have to platform in it while it's constantly moving.

So far my main struggle is finding the hidden tanuki, finding all the omiyage capsules & unchiku are tricky but doable however those hidden tanuki i have found the grand total of just one i have no idea where they are hidden or if i'm doing something wrong. The giant kettle ship you are in is piloted by these tanuki as you find them you can start upgrading it. Inside is also a vast display area to showcase all the souvaniers you have found along the way. I'm curious if anything unlocks for finding all these things in each stage so i will keep going till i 100% it. Hoping a OST CD gets released as the soundtrack is peak Goemon and so soooo good. The only thing sadly missing from the game is the hub towns like Goemon games used to have where you can talk to people shop & play games if it had these it would have been exactly like a Goemon game. But even without it this game for me easily beats the other 3D goemon games that have come out.

[briareos_kerensky]

The tanuki are masquerading as objects, you need to hit them multiple times to have them reveal themselves. The biggest hints are that objects normally destroyed in one hit are not, and they have a tanuki tail sprouting out.

[Neon Ignition]

This week I 'av been mostly playin'


PC - RoboCop: Rogue City
PS5 - Final Fantasy XVI
XSX - Dead Space
Steam Deck - Mad Max
Quest 3 - Doom3Quest

[egparadigm]

Neon Ignition I just started (nearly finished) Dead Space on Xbox. Still as good as ever.

[importaku]

The tanuki are masquerading as objects, you need to hit them multiple times to have them reveal themselves. The biggest hints are that objects normally destroyed in one hit are not, and they have a tanuki tail sprouting out.

Yeah i got lucky and found another yesterday when playing the Nara stage the one with the deer and beautiful golden field of leaves before you get to the gateway that leads to the courtyard i spotted a suspicious bush on the right of the gate entrance that had a tail so i battered the hell out of it and boom tanuki appeared. Seems though that not all of them show their tail as i was playing a misty level with log bridges (cant remember stage name) and there was a lamp post that looked identical to all the others but only when i hit it did it make a slightly different noise. Seems other items have subtle clues on the beginning beach level there's a brown & yellow striped beach umbrella with a tiny tanuki mask logo on it that one was a hidden tanuki too now i know what to look out for i'm slowly making progress just have about 10 left to find and a handful of unchiku then i can see what if anything unlocks.

[Dogg Thang]

After not being able to settle on a game for a couple of days, I have done exactly what I said I wouldn't do and I've started Yakuza Kiwami. And maybe it wasn't a great idea because it really is soooooo similar, except for a new click added to the dialogue buttons that I can't seem to disable. I'm struggling to buy the time jumps a little because it feels like nothing changed in those jumps at all but, conversely, having just played through Yakuza 0 I'm not entirely sure why Goro Majima is so different. I kind of see now what they were hinting at right at the end of 0 but I don't quite get that shift. Maybe it felt right if you play 0 with the context of those other games.

Still, I'm already sucked into it and the story feels good even early on so I guess I'll continue.

[Neon Ignition]

Neon Ignition I just started (nearly finished) Dead Space on Xbox. Still as good as ever.

I was wary that it would feel overly similar but despite being early in it I'm getting good vibes

[wakka]

After not being able to settle on a game for a couple of days, I have done exactly what I said I wouldn't do and I've started Yakuza Kiwami. And maybe it wasn't a great idea because it really is soooooo similar, except for a new click added to the dialogue buttons that I can't seem to disable. I'm struggling to buy the time jumps a little because it feels like nothing changed in those jumps at all but, conversely, having just played through Yakuza 0 I'm not entirely sure why Goro Majima is so different. I kind of see now what they were hinting at right at the end of 0 but I don't quite get that shift. Maybe it felt right if you play 0 with the context of those other games.

Still, I'm already sucked into it and the story feels good even early on so I guess I'll continue.

I do struggle to play these games one after another myself. They are extremely similar (which I guess is part of the reason they can produce them so quickly).

I guess the thing is that these games were made and released a decade apart. So I think there is some retconning that happens in 0.

The stories in Yakuza 1 and 2 I think are particularly good. They are written by a crime novelist who specialises in yakuza stories and I felt the story quality dropped when he left the series, especially in 3 and 4, then improved again with 0 and 6.

I'm still playing through Yakuza 6 myself. Really fun game. I'm really quite into the MOBA/RTS style side game too, where you lead a small army on sorties against other gangs from a top down perspective.

I don't like the levelling up system quite so much as the one in 0, though - although I continue to really be happy about the fact that eating at restaurants is much more meaningful from an EXP earning perspective.

One thing that I think is really interesting and cool about Yakuza as a series is that the sheer volume of entries means they can test a whole bunch of different things out, and iterate pretty quickly. When I watched the recent GTA 6 trailer, it really felt like more of the same as 5, and I couldn't help but feel like the series would have perhaps progressed more if they had more frequently released smaller entries.

[Dogg Thang]

I do struggle to play these games one after another myself. They are extremely similar (which I guess is part of the reason they can produce them so quickly).

I think one of the things I was looking forward to was seeing how the place changed over the years in between the games but it's pretty much the exact same! And the main characters didn't change their clothes in a decade.

But I'm already hooked into the story of Kiwami. It's good! I'm so glad I finally played these games.

[wakka]

I think the biggest changes in Kamurocho have, for me, come as new gaming technology has arrived. It felt like it changed substantially with the shift from 2 (PS2) to 3 (PS3), but then hardly at all in 4 and 5 (also PS3).

So I can imagine that Kiwami is not much different to 0 because they basically just rebuilt Yakuza 1 inside of 0 (I think Kiwami came out only a year later). Obviously from a narrative perspective it is a bit silly that the place has hardly changed in 20 years though!

Yakuza 6 features a whole new engine, the Dragon Engine, which does feel very different to the last one I played, 0, since it integrates building interiors and rooftops into the overworld, allowing for the free roaming map to have more depth. I believe subsequent games are also built in the Dragon Engine and that it has improved substantially since 6, too.

If you move onto Kiwami 2 next, that is a Dragon Engine game and built on the bones of 6.

[Dogg Thang]

If you move onto Kiwami 2 next, that is a Dragon Engine game and built on the bones of 6.

The history of the remakes will make them interesting to experience. Does it mean I’ll feel a drop for 3, 4 and 5? Before it then jumps back up in technical quality in 6?