What You've Been Playing This Week

[hudson]

Andro Dunos and its sequel are lovely.

[Dogg Thang]

I finished the Suikoden 1 remaster last night and I really enjoyed it. I missed one of the stars of destiny, goddammit, and I was too late into the game to recruit him when I finally found him. There are certain points of no return. The game is still so good after all these years and it's one RPG that isn't too long, which I like. It moves along at a good pace and doesn't outstay its welcome. The remaster is lovely, IMO, and really captures the spirit of the original while looking great and adding a few improvements. But there are definitely a few other quality of life improvements I could have done with, especially around inventory management - you can't transfer equipment and equip stuff from the same menu and you can't tell if someone can use something until you try to equip it so I just ended up getting items and not using them because it was too awkward to find out who could use it. That's my biggest gripe.

Just started Suikoden 2 and it levels up right away and looks gorgeous in the remaster. Really looking forward to playing through it.

[CMcK]

Andro Dunos and its sequel are lovely.

It’s weird the sequel came out of nowhere and ended up being far better than anyone expected. One of my favourite games that year. It would be amazing to see it ported to the Neo-Geo.

[Golgo]

I've been trying to get into Metaphor Refantazio (PS5), the unsubtle new racialist fairytale game from Atlus. It's an even more grindingly slow start than usual for them and the info. dumps in exposition and lore entries are verbose and relentless. Thematically it's so on-the-nose in its connotations they should've probably gone with Literal Refantazio. Dungeons so far exceedingly generic: clear path through plus blatant little cul-de-sacs all over with minor items/loot at end, truly old school design. Also, it's ostensibly a game encompassing the wildest races and 'magicks', but I'm stuck in a squad of three stuffy blokes with rapiers. Sadly this might be an early bail from me unless it picks up sharpish.

Also, Unicorn Overlord (Switch). I'm a bit embarrassed to say this is my first ever Vanillaware game (I'm also bemused, as I've been meaning to try them for years!) and I'm enraptured by the beautiful design they've applied to every element of the game. Even the pause screens are artworks. I didn't think I would be able to get on with the auto-battle concept in a SRPG, but tinkering with the roles and behaviours of your little units is incredibly engrossing, and its amazing to then set them off into battle to see how they get on. It's like the FF12 gambit system but streamlined and with more impact. Really enjoying this one.

The story is also a proper fantasy story: retake kingdom, repel traitor, avenge mum...with a unicorn. No racist sheepmen in sight.

[randombs]

I'm barely ten minutes into either of these, but I'm enjoying both so far:

Day of the Tentacle Remastered (iPhone)

Having finished the first three Monkey Islands, I was itching for more point-and-click goodness. I've never played this before, but it's highly regarded.

Batman Arkham Asylum (Steam Deck)

Still right at the beginning of the game but the fighting is fun, as are the infinite Batarangs!

[QualityChimp]

Batman Arkham Asylum (Steam Deck)

Still right at the beginning of the game but the fighting is fun, as are the infinite Batarangs!

Don't forget to find all the Riddler trophies!

[Wools]

I finished the Suikoden 1 remaster last night and I really enjoyed it. I missed one of the stars of destiny, goddammit, and I was too late into the game to recruit him when I finally found him. There are certain points of no return. The game is still so good after all these years and it's one RPG that isn't too long, which I like. It moves along at a good pace and doesn't outstay its welcome. The remaster is lovely, IMO, and really captures the spirit of the original while looking great and adding a few improvements. But there are definitely a few other quality of life improvements I could have done with, especially around inventory management - you can't transfer equipment and equip stuff from the same menu and you can't tell if someone can use something until you try to equip it so I just ended up getting items and not using them because it was too awkward to find out who could use it. That's my biggest gripe.

Thanks for the impressions Dogg Thang.

I've never played Suikoden before but vividly remember it always sitting in the display case of my local indie gaming shop back in the 90's. Always loved the art style but never clicked with JRPG's, despite trying so many times!

However, I've found myself recently fancying trying a JRPG after re-starting and then re-bouncing off of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and wound up playing and loving Dragon Quest XI on the Switch. It's beautiful, has a very compelling story and cast of characters, polished and if I'm honest, is very simple to play through the turn based battles as I've never liked them. But DQ XI's battles can be sped up, auto played and is simple to play through. As such, I've loved it. However, after hour 30 hours ticked by, I did start becoming more bored and when I reached an underwater area (No more spoilers!) I just lost the will to continue. Which is such a shame as it does so much right and I love being in the world, but the length and trappings of the JRPG genre made me give up. I may go back to it one day though.

Your impressions of Suikoden though have made me think this might be more up my street, particularity with a smaller running time. Was it difficult at any point and how was the battle system?

Also, Nintendo Life's review mentions the issues with the inventory management. Ever fancied changing career to a games reviewer?

[Neon Ignition]

Focused on FC6 and with it done I'm now steering toward a fuller focus on Candleman and Final Fantasy XVI

[Dogg Thang]

Your impressions of Suikoden though have made me think this might be more up my street, particularity with a smaller running time. Was it difficult at any point and how was the battle system?

The battle system is pretty generic. It works fine and gets you through the game but it's just what you'd expect from an old JRPG. There are equipable Runes to mix things up and some of those are fun and can add some strategy if you put some thought into your party and which Runes you give them. One of the interesting elements is the amount of characters that you can add to your party. You can't add everyone who joins you but you can pick from a crazy amount of characters, each one a little different, and that can get interesting. Gives you a chance to find your favourites.

One word of warning with that: characters have short, medium or long range and you can arrange formation with your six characters. But there are many points in the story where it forces a character or two on you. If you happen to end up with four short range characters as a result, one of them will be useless to you because they'll end up in the back row. Just something to watch for.

The battles never get particularly challenging. As long as you keep well stocked on healing items or healing Runes, it's a breeze. And yes, nice and short and moves along very quickly so it won't outstay its welcome. It could be a good fit for you!

Also, Nintendo Life's review mentions the issues with the inventory management. Ever fancied changing career to a games reviewer?

Ha! Wouldn't that be something? I could think of worse career moves.

[randombs]

Don't forget to find all the Riddler trophies!

No thanks!

[Wools]

The battle system is pretty generic. It works fine and gets you through the game but it's just what you'd expect from an old JRPG. There are equipable Runes to mix things up and some of those are fun and can add some strategy if you put some thought into your party and which Runes you give them. One of the interesting elements is the amount of characters that you can add to your party. You can't add everyone who joins you but you can pick from a crazy amount of characters, each one a little different, and that can get interesting. Gives you a chance to find your favourites.

The battles never get particularly challenging. As long as you keep well stocked on healing items or healing Runes, it's a breeze. And yes, nice and short and moves along very quickly so it won't outstay its welcome. It could be a good fit for you!

Thanks so much for the tips. I'm going to put it on my wish list (Unsure whether Steam, PS5 or Switch, will choose on my mood!) and will wait for a sale to pick it up! It looks beautiful from the videos and screenshots and considering it's based on a PSP Port of a PlayStation game from the 90's that's saying something!

[importaku]

Last few weeks been full into snack world, switch release goes for less than £20 so i thought why not as i have been curious about this one since the 3DS days better late than never i guess. The english translation & voicework is unhinged i have laughed way too many times at stupid word jokes and absurd monsters & characters.

Take P-gnocci-o the robot that works at the wepon shop that at one point in the story finds out princess melonia has been captured and the reward for rescuing her is her hand in marriage & then find out that he has a major foot fetish and his nose starts growing while he gets worked up about feet.



Or the quest where a lion is too scared to sleep in the forest as he keeps hearing twish noises and screaming, then the hilarity where they find out what exactly has been making the noises and the lion comments that the truth is even more horrifying than the noises.

The scene in question LOL


The 3 genies that you meet at the beginning of the game are the frutiest characters i have seen in a game in a long time it makes tingle seem super manly, they all sound like extras from drag race. When they are not lusting after you constantly whenever they pop up from time to time while you are dungeon crawling they sometimes comment along with other characters, i got hit by a water tile and got drenched to which the game pops up a dialoge box in the corner with one of the damn genies saying that i'm all lubed up and nowhere to go lol you can summon them as a snack like other monsters and control them in battle. Suffice to say they are fun



The game is extremely grindy but it's addictive as hell, it's designed for short bursts as things change daily like the weapon selection in shops as well as the fortune teller that gives you the NFC jara content in the western release level 5 decided not to bring over the physical jara trinkets that unlock stuff however instead of totally strippimg them out they just added the content they would unlock by scanning into the game for free you just talk to the fortune teller each day and she will randomly give you a selection of items. However daily some of the quests will offer after a point in the story a chance to get super rare miracle items as the prize drop although the regular prize drop is not guaranteed either hence it been grindy however there's a crapload of items & weapons to find and use with each other and there are style forcasts where if you equip items or clothing ensembles of certain styles and colours then it increases the rare drop rate there's a lot of different fun mechanics at play that all mesh together. So far nearly 30 hours in and nearly level 50 and it's the perfect thing to keep me going till fantasy life drops, just a shame that online on this is dead as it's designed for friends to join you on your unhinged antics.

I did manage to get super lucky and get one of the miracle prize treasures yay

[MartyG]

Tried Atomfall, played about 3 hours now. Combat is a bit meh, turned that down to casual, and the whistling is driving me a bit bad tbh, it's a shame I don't have more bullets for a shot between the eyes of anyone that does it.

Definitely not enjoying the games as much as Avowed, but the environments are quite nice. It's worth a look if you have game pass.

[Golgo]

Minecraft, the Adventure Time pack, with my son. Absolutely amazing amount of detail, characters, easter eggs and locations - a total dream if you're fanatics of the show like we are. Been hooning around in it all weekend.

[Neon Ignition]

Currently:

PS5 - Final Fantasy XVI
NS - Pepper Grinder