Finished Chapter 3 of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. I was trying to do the side missions before going for the story mission but had very high level enemies around, so after trying that for a while, went for the main mission.
Have just started chapter 4. Going to explore and do the side content now.
Also played some Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
Game is progressing well, but I think I’ll get tried or bored of it. Just not feeling much enjoyment playing it.
I shared most of my feelings a few back, but one annoying aspect I missed was loot system. Each companion has their own loot, which I find a bit annoying. In DA: Inquisition, I played as fighter, but any non-fighter equipment, or light / medium armor I had, I equipped it to my companions, even heavy armor that I wasn’t wearing went to them, same with weapons. But now all that extra loot is useless. Feels very restrictive in an RPG, and it made me lose interest in loot quickly enough.
Well, that’s about me, what about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?
Started another Xenoblade Chronicles 3 run. Big mistake. I fill addicted again. Also tf 3 years already?
Wow, 3 years, time moves fast!
And good luck with your 3rd run!
It is 2nd run. The game is Xenoblade Chronicles 3 lol. Thanks
lol, I got the XC3 part, but don’t know why I thought it’s your 3rd run 😀 Too many 3s maybe.
I’m still on my Metaphor ReFantazio playthrough, and I’m still loving it! I’m currently in the main dungeon associated with the first tournament trial.
However, I just unlocked endless mana by virtue of stealing it from enemies and all resource management has been thrown out of the window, I presume. I don’t like limiting myself, but I also think JRPGs need proper resource scarcity to be good - it’s probably both the most important and most overlooked design parameter for a great dungeon.
Example from my current dungeon
There are these stealth sections with the main boss, I presume. Every time he catches me, I get to steal mana from him with three characters and on my last turn, there seems to be a guaranteed escape. That’s 15 mana a turn, or 45 per fight, which means I’m fully regenerated within minutes if I want to.
Due to this excessive amount of MP recovery, these dungeons don’t feel tightly designed at all. Persona 5 was a lot better at this, even though the endless ammunition in Royal made it way easier. I don’t think these games should have any skills to regenerate MP.
I am opposite, I worry too much about losing health and mana, and prefer some way to regenerate it all. Though I guess it depends on overall game design too.
“The Thing Remastered”.
Just for the love of the films. Could be better, could be worse. But I’m curious how it will turn out.
Nice. Not a fan of horror games personally, but the movies were fun. Let us know how the game goes.
I’m still pushing through Legends: Arceus. I’ve just dealt with the frenzied Kleavor, and have been exploring some of the edges of the Obsidian Fieldlands. The level jump in some of those areas really caught me off guard. I’m really enjoying the exploration, though.
I introduced my girlfriend to Minecraft and we both are now building and exploring on our shared realm for some cozy weekend relaxation.
That’s nice. I am not a big fan of such sandbox games, but I do share a world with my kid and it’s sometimes fun to play together.
On Switch I’m playing through Mario Wonder (awesome game - have been slowly savouring it over the last few months) and Steamworld Quest. I’d heard mixed things about Quest, but I’m really enjoying it! I like how each character has their own deck of cards which you can synergize with the rest of your team. And it’s a bit more forgiving than something like Slay the Spire as you can add or remove cards to your decks at your leisure.
On PS5 I just started Spiderman 2 - loving the larger map and ability to switch characters.
Quest is the only Steamworld game that I didn’t finish. It wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t for me. Still played about half of it though, maybe more.
“Spider-man” 2, respect the hyphen! Great game. Loved flying around. The traversal in these games is really good. Can’t wait to see what Insomniac releases next. (Where’s Wolverine!?)
My favorite part of finishing a chapter in Xenoblade Chronicles X is how your view of just about everything seems to shift after whatever twist gets thrown at you. I’m finished with Chapter 6, too, but my levels aren’t high enough to get Skell licenses for a full party yet. That’ll be soon. (I spend too much time on side quests, too)
I finished all of the character stories for the 135 characters I’ve unlocked in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent! I’m still delaying on the main storyline (about three chapters from the end, I think), so I’m goofing off in Side Solista, the OT2 story they brought into the game. This mobile game is one of those where a character writes you a letter every day you play with a little login bonus. I just passed 880 days playing! Most days are just log in and do a battle for some in game currency. Gosh, I’d love it if they “completed” this game and put a full, non-pay version out. I’m thinking like that Mega Man X Dive game where a mobile game closed down and they converted it to a full console experience. But they’d have to do that after the game ends, and I don’t want that, either. Shucks.
I’m headed to a friend’s house to play some board games. I’m going to push for Castles of Mad King Ludwig, but I’m betting I’ll get out-voted. I’m sure I’ll play something fun.
Shouldn’t doing the side quests increase the level quickly? I am currently doing the Affinity missions after the Chapter 3 story mission. It’s fun solving problems and just exploring.
I am looking for a new board game to play with family. We have Catan, Dominion, Carcassone etc, looking to add something new. Any suggestions?
I was pretty underwhelmed by the footage of Mario Kart World for Switch 2, but I haven’t played MK since Double Dash, so I was kind of interested… So I went and bought MK8. It’s fine - pretty much what I expected, it feels exactly the same as double dash minus the cool two-drivers mechanic. I played a couple of rounds with the kids it it went okay.
MK World looked okay to me, but then I saw some hands-on videos, and I am not excited about it. The game looks very nice and smooth. Though I haven’t even completed all the booster levels from MK8, so not sure if I’ll get it on launch or somewhere down the line, let’s see.
When I first saw MK World, I thought, “it’s lucky I didn’t get MK8 so I can get this instead”, but then the main difference (besides tracks) was the open world thing, which doesn’t look that appealing to me.
I’ll say again how similar it is to MK on the Gamecube. Playing (a) SNES/GBA MK, (b) N64 MK, and © GC MK, they’ve three very distinctive driving feels, but with MK8, I can pick it up and all the muscle memory is there despite not playing MK for 20 years (although I haven’t tried 200cc yet). It’s already a near-perfect kart game, so there’s not much they can do to improve it.
I’m in full Tears of The Kingdom mode. Some days ago I even beated 5 lynel in a row, never faced them before
Wow, 5 in a row, that’s cool. I only fought couple, I think, ran away (or did I die?) from the first one, but killed the second one underground. Don’t recall fighting any other lynel. Fought many in BotW though.
Tbh I actually happen to be in an underground arena with 5 of them in sequence, so of course they killed me multiple times, but luckily the checkpoint was saved the very moment they died And the last one was an freaking armoured silver lynel so I used the only ancient arrow I had against him
Ooh, I fought them. I only recalled one, but I fought it in underground arena. There were enemies in waves, but I don’t recall if there multiple Lynels.
Now that you mention the Silver Lynel, I don’t remember if I actually killed all of them, but I do feel I got the reward in the end, so maybe I did end up killing them afterall.
Going back to Breath of the Wild for the first time in years. Playing a hardcore ruleset for an extra challenge and to make it more interesting than vanilla.
Hardcore ruleset as in Master mode or is it something else?
Apologies for the wall of text, but here it is! This is copied from a reddit post from years ago by a deleted user, so I unfortunately cannot give them credit.
I’ve done this ruleset before and it’s very fun, I highly recommend it if you want to give BOTW a fresh spin and challenge yourself in a fun and not too grindy way. I play on Master Mode and follow all rules except where noted. Hope you enjoy!
My Breath of the Wild Hardcore Ruleset: The “Base System”
I realized fairly early on into my first playthrough of BOTW that I’d want to do it again, but imposing an additional set of rules upon myself to force more careful play, with more planning and preparation throughout. The primary consideration in this ruleset is not “difficulty” for difficulty’s sake; I don’t like the idea of forced naked runs, for example, or other arbitrary constraints such as no food allowed whatsoever. I wanted my ruleset to largely preserve the vanilla experience, but with a few fundamentally tighter constraints on the player, with the understanding that it was to be built for veterans of the game, who already possess deep familiarity with the systems and enemies therein.
Breath of the Wild can be a challenging game, particularly at the beginning, but it doesn’t take long before players begin to grasp the various mechanics and systems, and learn to cheese them for their own benefit. In my opinion, the single largest crutch that prevents the game from becoming truly difficult is the overly generous inventory management system. Players can switch weapons and armor sets at will to optimize durability consumption vs. damage, for example, in an instant with no consequence, even between swings of their weapons. Hearty meals can be swallowed whole in the middle of combat, replenishing dozens of hearts in a single button press, able to be eaten while falling, swimming, gliding, or even hurtling through the air after getting launched by a powerful enemy attack. This has never quite felt right to me, and so adjustments to this system form the first portion of the changes:
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The Base System: The foundation of my ruleset. A base is any location where you may access and interact with your Materials and/or Armor inventories. For the purposes of this playthrough, all NPC towns, villages, and stables are considered bases; additionally (and very importantly!) your horse (or rented sand seal in the Gerudo desert) can serve as a mobile base. This makes your horse a vital companion on your adventures, and dramatically affects the way you approach gated areas that your horse cannot reach. Since you cannot change your armor set away from a base, for example, you must decide which of your armor sets is most important to equip, and bring along elixirs for other status effects you might need. (NOTE: This system is problematic when you’re on the Great Plateau. You may decide to ignore it entirely until you obtain the glider, or designate a location of your choice like the Temple of Time or the Old Man’s Cabin as base.)
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Combat Focus: The inventory screen may not be opened at all while Link is moving or while combat music is playing. Weapons may be swapped using the Quick Access menu on the D-Pad, but for any and all other needs you must first defeat all enemies or retreat from combat. No mid-battle meals for you. Additionally this will mean that you cannot eat or drink while swimming, falling, or gliding.
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Forbidden Fruit: I tried to think of a good way to combat their overpowered nature, but unfortunately have concluded that Hearty Meals simply have to go. You may cook them and sell them if you wish, but you may not eat them under any circumstances. They are simply too powerful.
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Packed Lunch: While away from base, you may only carry one (yes, one) cooked meal with you. This feels more realistic, will force the player to prioritize high-quality cooking, and in addition, the inability to access the material inventory away from base increases the importance of food immensely. As a parallel to this, however, you may carry up to four elixirs with you at any time. This way you can plan additional status buffs to bring with you, or just prioritize healing elixirs outright. The choice is yours.
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Hunter-Gatherer: Foraging is allowed; e.g, you may pick up or hunt something and then eat it immediately, whether it is classified as food or a material (such as raw vs. cooked fish). An obvious example is the cooked meat you can often find on spits in bokoblin camps. This gives the player an additional option when running low on hearts if they are reluctant to retreat and regroup, while preserving the unforgiving limit on how much food you can carry.
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Useless Koroks: No inventory expansion is permitted.
The second part of my ruleset is comprised of refinements to combat.
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Wrong Weight Division: You may not wield shields during combat against Moblin, Lynel, or Guardian-class enemies. I ignore this one, I think it’s fine to have Link strong enough to withstand an attack using a shield, especially since shields vary in strength and the weaker ones break with one hit. I do follow the rest of this rule regarding parries against larger foes though. Perfect Parries are too easy and too powerful against these foes, especially Lynels, and they look ridiculous. Link can casually knock aside a solid metal Lynel Crusher taller than he is? No thanks. You must rely on your ability to dodge effectively, or in some cases (as with the aforementioned Lynel Crushers) might find it a more appealing option to simply avoid combat entirely. As a modification, you may add the ability to Perfect Parry Guardian lasers if you are wielding an Ancient or Guardian shield, if you like, since that feels logical and lore-friendly. Shields are permitted in Test of Strength shrines against Guardian Scouts.
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Not-Quite-Superhylian: You may only use aerial bullet-time to fire one bow shot at maximum. Being able to slow time and individually target an entire mob of enemies around you detracts from the challenge. This is the compromise I offer for not having an easy way to limit the amount of arrows you can actually carry.
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Specialty Fighter: Link’s not a big guy, and favors agility with one-handed and spear-class weaponry. While you may carry and use utilitarian two-handed weapons like the Woodcutter’s Axe, Iron Sledgehammer, or Korok Leaf, others like Lynel Crushers or Moblin Clubs are simply too large for Link to wield effectively, and so cannot be used. I ignore this one, Link has used plenty of oversized weapons in previous installments and I think it’s pretty lore-accurate to have him portrayed as somewhat strong.
Miscellaneous Rules:
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By the Hero’s Strength Alone: All Champion abilities, once acquired, must be immediately turned off and never used.
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Pro HUD: Uh, well, play on, you know, Pro HUD mode.
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We Travel On Foot: Fast travel may be employed only between activated towers and tech labs, instead of from anywhere, to anywhere, at anytime. let me reiterate: You may NOT fast-travel to shrines.
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Time Flows Heedless: You may not reload previous saves. I ignore this one, it’s just too cumbersome
The objective of this ruleset is to provide constraints that will allow players to blossom creatively when approaching a challenging situation. Rather than beefing their way up a stacked moblin encampment by relentlessly chowing on food, the player might be forced to reevaluate their approach, using Runes, stealth, the glider, and/or mobility to fight more effectively and minimize damage, a consideration that is not needed in the base game due to the power of your near-bottomless food carrying capacity. Battles with large enemies will be longer, more difficult, and feel more intense, and the base system will provide incentives for the player to utilize additional options like stealth and/or combat avoidance for the sake of their ability to push through a challenging area.
As with all hardcore rulesets, though, the number one rule is to HAVE FUN and to feel free to modify and add to/remove the rules as you see fit. I have not yet started a playthrough under this system and I’m sure there are flaws and holes in there somewhere. Let me know any suggestions, clarifications, or criticisms you have to offer! I’m particularly interested in the possibility of implementing penalties for death.
Wow, that sounds pretty tough. I don’t think I’ll survive without those unlimited food eating, but the rest sounds interesting.
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I haven’t had much time to play this week, but things are looking better again. I really need to put more time into Brothership again. I beat the third area and then just stopped playing again.
And it’s all because of Monster Hunter Wilds. I’m knee-deep in high rank now and I’m starting to appreciate the new structure of the game. I’ve always been the kind of guy who grinds out a single monster until I have everything I want before moving on, but with the whole world constantly moving on with local events and monsters spawning in forms that give distinct loot, the old quest format, while still here, just isn’t the way to play anymore. I was taken aback by that at first, but I’ve really been enjoying the variety this leads to.
Oooh, Congratulations on High Rank!
I started Super Mario Galaxy on Nintendo Switch. Never played it before, and the touch controls are not really my cup of tea, but I’ll give it some time.
Is that in the limited-release 3-in1 game? Or is Galaxy playable some other way?
Yeah it’s that collection 3-in-1 thing. Not sure it is limited tho.
Nice. Yeah, it was only available for about 6 months.
On March 31, 2021, physical copies of 3D All-Stars were discontinued, and the game was delisted from the Nintendo eShop.
You can play Super Mario 64 on the N64 emulator, and in the future, Sunshine on the GC emulator, but being able to play Galaxy again might be a while off.
You are absolutely right! I remember now, that’s why I bought it - FOMO got me that time.
Having said that, I’m playing docked now and the motion controls are okay that way. The game actually is quite nice!
Playing Xenoblade X!
Finished Chapter 6.
Got two Skells so far, the one that you get for free after getting the pilot license, and another from the “New Skell on the Block” mission… but that’s only because I need to get to Level 30 before I can buy more of them. I’ve got something like 3.5M sitting in the bank due to all the passive income from FrontierNav so I’m ready to spend big bucks into buying+upgrading mechs once I get there.
Have been focusing mostly on Primordia and Oblivia, though I also got some reasonable progress exploring the goddamn labyrinth called Noctilum. I took a quick trip to Sylvalum and Cauldros but only unlocked a fast travel point on each to make life easier, haven’t really started exploring those yet.
Currently doing sidequests and leveling up, will probably move on with the story once I get everyone past 30. Might try to unlock a few more characters too, I there’s 2 or 3 available and just waiting for me to do their recruitment mission.
How much does the game change with Skells? Should I try to hurry to the point where I get skell, or just enjoy the exploration and quests until I naturally reach that point?
How much does the game change with Skells?
A lot. It’s a drastic improvement in exploration speed and ease .
- Faster movement speed, which also means you can escape easily from those annoying high-level enemies that chase you.
- Huge jumps that let you climb mountains quickly. And this game has a lot of verticality.
- Larger enemies go down more quickly since some Skell weapons do a ton of damage.
- Visiblity is better since you have a larger POV.
I was having a good time before, but the game certainly became a lot more fun after I got them.
Should I try to hurry to the point where I get skell, or just enjoy the exploration and quests until I naturally reach that point?
I don’t think you can rush too much since there’s exploration requirements in some of the story missions, and one of the “tests” to get the skell requires you to have a good amount of FrontierNav spots (you need to get it up to 15k credits per return).
But if you’re close to Chapter 6 I’d say yes, rush a bit and get your mech now, it’s worth it.
How the skell acquisition works, minor spoilers.
Once you finish Chapter 6 you’ll get a notice from Vandham that the Skell license test is available. It’s a set of 8 quests, one for each Blade division and most of them are fairly simple and quick, similar to the Basic/Blue missions - kill X enemies, find X of a specific item and so on. The most annoying one may be the “15k credits from FrontierNav in one return” if you haven’t been exploring a lot.
Once you complete them all you get your first Skell for free and others get unlocked in the store, but they are quite pricy (200-500k just for the basic Skell, not counting additional weapons you may want to purchase) and need Level 30 for a character to use, so it may take a while before you get more, but just having one of them opens up exploration a lot.
You can also get a second free Skell from the “New Skell on the Block” Affinity quest which should open once you get the license.
I am still at chapter 3. Well, I finished chapter 3 story quest, but haven’t started the next one, so not sure if it’s chapter 3 or 4. Just doing the affinity missions right now. Guess I’ll just take it slow.
How are you enjoying Xenoblades Chronicles X? I thought of getting it, but I played it on the Wii U, and I have too many good Switch games to play, so I didn’t double dip.
I’ve been playing Star Overdrive, which I talked about here. I need to get back to Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story and eventually start Tetris Forever. I got the physical version, but I know once I start it, it’ll be the only game I play for a while 😅 I love the Digital Eclipse interactive documentary format!
I played a bit of The Mortuary Assistant recently. It’s scary but quite clunky and sort of boring in parts. I’ll give it another chance soon, potentially this weekend.
I am loving it, though I have played for only about 7 hours (going by the save) so can’t say much about it. Main story is pretty interesting, so want to see how this develops.
I love the Digital Eclipse interactive documentary format!
I forgot, did you also play The Making of Karateka? How did you like it?
That’s cool! And it gets cooler when you get a Skell!
I haven’t played the Making of Karateka. I think I’d really enjoy it too, but I decided I had to miss at least one (I can’t afford all the games I want to play both in money and time 😄).
I can’t afford all the games I want to play both in money and time 😄
Haha, isn’t that true for all of us? Well, at least most of us. That’s why being a patient game help so much, get most games for very low price, and also why I have become very liberal with dropping off games I am not enjoying too much. Too many games, too little time.