WHAT VIDEOGAMES ARE YOU PLAYING RIGHT NOW?

So I decided to jump on this little bandwagon and play a randomized version of Pokemon yellow.

I forgot how to even...



This made my game a lot more interesting! Definitely harder, though, since you never know when some trainer will pull out a mon that outclasses yours by leagues. I'm actually glad I'm not nuzlocking this.

- Jigglypuff is a dragon... This is meme-worthy shit.

Jiggly-Puff the Magic Dragon

You won the lottery with the Caterpie, though.

Tried out Sonic Lost World thanks to the steam sale. I played it through the first world.

... You know, is it wrong for me to say that this isn't as bad as a game as the fanbase makes it out to be? There is actual non-linear level design in a 3D sonic game for once. The environment is varied and colorful, and there is plenty of variety in its gameplay that actually feels welcome. I also like how Sonic feels more controllable even when running. Like, in Sonic Generations, Modern Sonic would blitz through stuff at roller-coaster speed and it felt unruly, but the slower Sonic here actually gives me better control over him.

If there is anything that truly sucks about this game so far, it's the over-complicated controls. Why did we need two different homing attacks? Why does running have to be a button you press, especially since there are so few spots in the levels of these games that warrant not going fast? That part just consistently kills the pace of the game. The parkour system is also a bit broken, as it triggers every single time you run up a wall while running, whether you want to or not. It actually makes controlling Sonic feel a bit awkward.

Ultimately, if the controls were simplified and the level design was a bit less blocky, this would have been a great Sonic game.

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As for my Pokemon Yellow randomized run, I found a new enemy: Pyschic Rapidash with Earthquake, Hyrdro Pump, Quick Attack and Dizzy Punch. Made the path to Bill's House a nightmare, since a majority of the trainers there carried one. The generator popped up with a disproportionately large amount of Rock type Pokemon, giving me few options to defend against it, and my team has no Bug moves, so fighting this thing was hell.

I'm starting to get to the npcs that offer starters and seeing some hilarity. The guy who gives Charmander gives you a Goldeen instead, and tells you to take good care of Charmander. Similarly, the chick who nurses the Bulbasaur instead gives you a Seadra and acts as if it's her Bulba. Kind of shows how this game was programmed. xD

My current team so far:

Rattata - Poison / Knows Waterfall, Slam, Submission and Petal Dance
Pikachu - Rock / Knows Bubblebeam, Jump Kick, Seismic Toss and Confuse Ray
Growlithe - Ghost / Knows Dig, Comet Punch, Water Gun and Toxic
Clefairy - Ghost/Electric / Knows Smog, Razor Leaf, Bubble and Ice Beam
Voltorb - Flying / Knows Rolling Kick, Double Kick, Roar and Rage
Butterfree - Ground / Knows Sludge, Crabhammer, Spore and Recover

Transistor is incredible! Waaaay better than Bastion. Glad to see it get some more love.

I'm really close to finishing Lightning Returns. I beat all the main quests, so now I'm just getting stronger until the finale happens (took me 9 days, if you care). I'm glad to be able to wrap it up after 35 hours because I have other games to play, but I'll be sad to see it go all the same. It has easily become one of my most favorite games and I think that it will resonate through a lot of my work going forward.

I'm also near the end of Undertale, although my game time has been focused on LR. I might take a break to beat UT though, just because I'm in the calm before the storm in LR.

Still casually playing FFXIV and League. Betatesting Ara Fell, of course. I have two other RM* games to test soon too, and I just bought Shadow of Mordor for cheap so I plan on picking that up as my next "main game", maybe? I should probably keep working on my own project too...

I'm having SO MUCH FUN with Darkest Dungeon. I waited until the final release a couple days ago to buy the game, instead of buying the early access. From an indie development standpoint I'm sure early access is an extremely useful way to not go broke, but from a player standpoint I'd rather be patient and play a better version of the game.

The difficulty is perfect so far, it's challenging and occasionally you get very unlucky but the game is designed with failure in mind. Characters can and will permanently die, but the max level is only 6 anyway, and replacement characters are free. Town upgrades are your main type of permanent progression, and work sort of like the base upgrades in an RTS game. It's similar to X-Com in that way.

The voiceovers and art are amazing, and are what got me initially interested. They didn't have to also have fun and balanced gameplay. I would've enjoyed it without that.

I bought Shovel Knight last week. It was extremely fun, but if you're not interested in achievements and challenges, it's only about six hours long.

FF4 Advance has way way way better new content than FF6 Advance, assuming you've already played previous versions of both games. FF6 Advance merely adds a terrible new dungeon that looks like someone's first attempt at using RPG Maker. FF4 Advance adds two much higher quality dungeons, plus five extra playable characters.

I'm interested in Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes based purely on the name.

A friend of mine summarized Darkest Dungeon's gameplay: "repeatedly taking risks that aren't worth it until you lose everything."

bahleted

Only one of you needs the game, unless both of you want to take turns defusing. Technically you can just trade Steam accounts too, or authorize their account to play your game.

author=Craze
i took the break to beat undertale. i'm not sure why so many people are now trying to imitate it because nothing will be as undertale as undertale and any "bizzare" attempts to are just... futile. damn. what a trip.

People will always try to imitate what is popular without actually doing the work in deconstructing it to actually figure out what makes that popular thing good.

Pretty much sums up the Mascot Craze back in the '90s (though some good came from it).

I picked up Final Fantasy X-2 HD last night since I only ever played a few minutes of it back when it first came out and I really need some gameplay inspiration. I had tried Trails in the Sky having heard everyone raving about it but it was a snoozefest and I couldn't force myself to play any more of it.

X-2 has some really cool ideas for the class system, but it's a shame that I'm two hours into the game and have won every single battle (including two bosses) by just mashing X on the Attack button. I have never used a single spell, ability, or item in battle yet. And this is a shame because the concept of the skill progression system is interesting but I don't feel incentivized to use any of the abilities I've been learning.

It also suffers from the same problem that almost every ATB game has: even when I set it to Wait mode, enemies continue taking turns while I deliberate on the main menu, which is the one menu here I spend most of my time, so I feel like I'm given no breathing room to strategize, which makes me even more inclined to just mash Attack.

I can definitely see how the gameplay was a prototype for FFXIII's, and you can easily see how they iterated on the idea and finally made it work by removing the random encounters and adding heal between encounters, such that battles are allowed to be challenging enough to encourage (and actually require) thinking.