Topic: What Game(s) are You Currently Playing?

Potion Permit

From developer MassHive Meida out of Indonesia. It's very Rune Factory adjacent. Resource gathering, potion crafting, lite combat, life-sim lite, survival lite. It's quite a goulash of mechanics. All I know is that the game has that "just one more day" / "one more run" kind of quality and that the ten hours I've played thus far have flown by.

Metroid Prime Remastered - I'm currently around the Magmoor Caverns/Phendrana area. Love the music, but I highly dislike the turrets and those beetle things that grab Samus in Morph Ball form and spit her out back at an area's start. Nabbed both the Boost Ball and Space Jump Boots last I played.

Ys Seven (PC) - Very little playtime so far thanks to the above taking most of my very limited free time this week, but I quite like Altago and some of the introduced characters. Only two party members so far (I can FINALLY play as Dogi!), but I'm pretty sure I've stumbled across number three. Who definitely isn't a disguised princess. Nope. Not at all. Off to a village outside of Altago City to learn more about this country's lore next.

Spending some time playing both Capcom Arcade Stadium compilations this month. Currently playing the beat em up Battle Circuit which I'm really enjoying, and also Tatakai no Banka (the Japanese version of Trojan) which I'm not. Will give Trojan it a bit more time before I decide whether I'm going to abandon it or not, but it's not looking promising so far. Controls are not great and the hit detection of the enemies is awful - not one of Capcom's best.

Mostly Gunbrella. Hoping to finish off wind waker soon too. I've been putting off the triforce shard quest for a week now.

I'm currently trying to finish Kirby and the Forgotten Land at 75% currently, and playing Dragon Quest XI having gotten to the point where the first two party members meet the two sisters.

I'm going to repost what I said over on the most recent "What are you playing this weekend?" article because it's pretty much what I was going to post here.

In my quest to stay concentrated on the backlog and push myself to play games that aren't what I would normally gravitate to, I worry I just made a huge mistake. I picked up Snowrunner (Switch) and started very slowly figuring things out during the week. I have to say it's completely out of left field of anything I'd ever touch but I would always hear so much about it (Switch Up for years always brings it up). I say I possibly made a huge mistake in the sense that it's very slowly digging in meat hooks into me in a way I could see myself putting that backlog on ice (again!).

I honestly don't know how to explain it. I'm nothing of a "trucker" type person and/or have any desire to be. But yet as I learn more and more of this game's mechanics, I find myself losing track of the real world and just being absorbed into Snowrunner's world. I don't get it. It's a freaking slow (and I mean slow!) paced game but it's grabbing me. This game is so massive and literally hundreds of things to do on each map. If this continues, I could see my quest of the backlog being once again at a standstill (I've been doing so good the year or so cracking at it!). I never expected I'd be so fascinated with conquering an antagonist that is nothing more than an environment...?...crazy.

Honestly, it's really tripping me out. I've been gaming on some totally awesome games all over the spectrum lately but there's something about this game that feels the most unique and unexpected. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

@Ganner Snowrunner got me like that too. I have no idea when or why I picked it up on Xbox - it was probably in a sale - but it was sitting there in my backlog and one day I thought "I'll give this a go".

Months later I realised I hadn't really played anything else during that time and would wonder how this 'Delivery Sim' was taking up so much of my time. I would often play at the weekend and glance at the clock only to realise it was 3am and I'd just spent hours creeping up a narrow forest track with an oversized trailer to get to a delivery point. I even found myself driving to work and checking out any trucks I passed on the way - 'those tyres would be crap off-road' and 'the ground clearance of that trailer is terrible' 😂

I think I pretty much did everything there was to do in the base game, but I do have all the season passes on the wish list, but will try to clear a bit more of the backlog before buying any of them as it would likely take over my (gaming) life again.

@dmcc0 Dude, I can tell you I already know I'm in for it. Check this out. I'm still in the beginning of the game figuring things out. I got so pumped and charged up once I found the "raised suspension" upgrade for the scout. I immediately slapped that bad boy on, put on some 'better' tires (LOL what I could afford) and felt like a total bad@ss exploring the map hunting the watchtowers. I got even more charged up when I pulled out that stuck truck by the farm.

Afterwards I was like what the hell is going on with me? How is something so generic like this getting me more excited than finding the master sword or finally beating the tough boss in Monster Hunter? Or dare I say it rolling the credits in Hades, Everspace or Sifu? How the hell is this possible!? What is this black magic!?

@Ganner And just like that, I get a notification that a couple of the Year Passes are on sale. Must....resist...

For me it's almost the perfect game. It's pretty chilled and you can explore as much of the map as you want, a bit of strategy figuring out the best vehicle or route to take for the tasks and the difficulty curve is spot on too.

Finally hit level 80 on my Zandalarian Paladin on World of Warcraft. Now that I hit max level I just need to do the campaign and some side quests. I like the fact now that I am maxed level I can just blast through the quests to see the storyline.

Already talked about it here, but I am replaying Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!

I haven’t actually touched it in a few weeks and I played it last night to complete some new songs I had purchased from the music shop but had not touched. I replayed a few songs that I enjoyed and I was able to finally full combo a really hard song chart called Kyu-kurarin. I exploded with joy and excitement when I got through the thing without missing a note, cuz I messed up a lot on the chart for a long time and never got a full combo on it until now. Getting full combos and hitting a majority of the notes on songs gets you lots of rewards.

Usually, I prefer to play the game on Expert and like playing songs that are a higher difficulty level, cuz I find that those improve my game skills, are way more fun from how much tapping you do on harder charts, though there are lower difficulty levels you can play on instead.

Luckily I can still play the game well despite not playing it in a hot minute, cuz when I revisited it a few weeks ago, I messed up on every single song I played. Now I’m just patiently waiting for them to announce next month’s song list and the third anniversary update releasing in a few days that’s going to revamp the UI. Praying the update doesn’t eat up my phone space…

I'm toward the tail end of Plucky Squire. Such a great game that's extreme unique. Combat won't blow your socks off, but the rest of then gameplay is just ultra fun.

Some recent gaming...

Cosmo Gang The Puzzle on SNES Switch Online - One of the recent NSO additions. I have Pac-Attack on Game Boy, I have the old Pac-Man Special Color Edition for Game Boy Color, which includes Pac-Attack. Kind of cool seeing the original Japanese release with the original characters. Still enjoy the Pac-Attack gameplay I haven't played in years.

Return To Castle Wolfenstein with the RealRTCW mod, on PC - tried a mod to Return To Castle Wolfenstein, honestly, it's the definitive way to play the game. Not only does it improve the game, but it actually fixes issues the vanilla game has on modern PCs, such as the bug in Forest Compound where I had to sneak passed a guard, but would always get caught, even when I was out of sight (little hypothesis, the game was being played on a PC much faster than it was originally made for, I had a similar problem with Red Faction where a higher framerate caused problems like making a required vehicle explode for no reason). Was finally able to clear the level without needing the command console. The mod is just a great way to play the game in general.

Smurfs Kart on Switch - Been in a Smurfy mood lately watching the show on Netflix and wearing my shirt with Papa, Brainy, and Smurfette on it, decided to boot this one up for a couple of races.

Still playing the same rhythm game I mentioned above, but later today I’m going to boot up my handheld and play Yokai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls. I kind of am in a bit of a Yokai Watch mood after Level-5 showed off that Holy Horror Mansion concept they are using for their next Yokai Watch game, and it did kind of make me miss it a lot since I have a lot of good memories playing the games and watching the anime back when it was popular in the West. It was such an interesting game series and I am sad that no one really remembers it here besides a few people.

I have played the first game (though I don’t have it on me) but I have the second game with me. I have completed it before, but I’m going to start a new file. My handheld luckily still works and is on full battery, but I am really worried about the charger, so I’ll have to buy a new one because I think it’s busted.

Dead Island 2 and the original Dead Rising. I don't know why, but I'm in a zombie mood this month.

I’m on the last floor on Pizza Tower. I’ve only P-Ranked the first floor but want to unlock the second character before I get to work on the rest of P-Ranks.

Alongside that, I’ve been dipping in and out of MVC Arcade Collection, Steamworld Heist 2 and Bzzzt

Great mix of games and all fun to play 😁

Started up Yokai Watch 2: Fleshy Souls earlier on my 2DS after seeing a concept trailer for an upcoming Yokai Watch game called Holy Horror Mansion and the memories are coming back to me... I already had a saved file with the game finished, but I started a new file to replay the game. The game is extremely boring once you finish it since there is nothing else to do besides befriending more yokai and completing side quests. I also realized I only have 90 collected yokai on my finished file, which is weird cuz I recall having more...

Anyway, I am pretty early in the game, I only finished the first chapter and just got onto the second chapter. The story isn't too exciting right now and so far I have only befriended two yokai (Jibanyan and Brushido), but I still love the humor and creativity of the game with its yokai and concepts. It makes me sad playing this now, seeing a franchise with so much hilarity, fun, and potential, has since been forgotten here in America due to financial issues and how long it took to localize the games and the anime. I remember when my siblings and I were crazy over it, we just loved talking about the games and the yokai, watching YouTube videos on the first game, and watching the first season of the anime and the anime film on Netflix nearly a decade ago. To this day, I'm still upset I never bought Yokai Watch 3 and the fact that they never localized Yokai Watch 4 and never will at this point.

While on the handheld, I also hopped onto Tomodachi Life for a bit. The game is random and that's what makes it a fun game. Nothing too exciting since a lot of the locations and storefronts on the island have since then been unlocked on my file and nearly all rooms in the apartment are full, but it was nice seeing the islanders' faces once more after a few years and a lot of random stuff unfold. My brother described the game as being a "cult classic" and I can agree. It is not a masterpiece, but its fans are very dedicated and love expressing how much they love the game, and it is just a nice, small game to play to kill some time if you're bored; though I lost at a lot of the games against the islanders and I got so angry when they repeatedly handed me toilet paper every time I lost. It is a bit saddening that Tomodachi Life is something that they probably are never bringing back when I think Nintendo would benefit by having a few smaller and random games to go alongside their bigger game releases.

A little update on my 2DS: it still works fine luckily and the charger still functions, it just doesn't work when it's on full battery. However, the volume slider is completely busted, so I can't turn the volume down and Yokai Watch got extremely loud during its cutscenes, so I'll have to get a new pair of earphones for it. Even though my handheld is slightly broken and a lot of key features (like the eShop and internet) are now unusable, I still feel delighted playing it again, just because I have so many memories playing the heck out of it when it was first released, and the Yokai Watch games and Tomodachi Life remind me of a time that was happier and simpler for me from how comedic they are in tone.

EDIT: Getting comfy in bed and playing Yokai Watch 2 again. With my progress, I just completed the second chapter, so far it still isn't exciting yet. All I had to do in the second chapter was completing side quests to progress the chapter. In chapter 2, you have to help Eddie (a friend in the game) retrieve a toy watch that was stolen by some crows and later Yokai, and running around the place on foot for the watch the entire chapter was honestly not fun and time-consuming. Later on, you do get a bike that will make traveling faster, but because I'm early in the game, it's a bit of a slog. I have befriended about four more Yokai to go alongside Jibanyan and Brushido, which forms a full team with six Yokai, but almost all of them are extremely under-leveled so I'll have to do a couple of battles before progressing more in the third chapter, but I'll eventually replace my current team with a stronger team later on. The game's chapters get more exciting after you visit your grandma in another town, but I cannot remember what chapter that happens in since it's been about four years since I last played it. Hopefully, it is not too far away!

Also don't know if it could be considered a game, but I opened up StreetPass Mii Plaza for a few minutes and got a single visitor...my brother's Mii lol. I got a special pink piece from him in Puzzle Swap for an Animal Crossing: New Leaf picture and tried to get him to fight off some enemies in a blazing room in Find Mii II. While his Mii was blue and had magic that could destroy the flames, his magic was too weak and he fled. I almost can't find anyone else on StreetPass, so I am stuck on the second to last level of Find Mii II, but I honestly didn't expect the Mii I had to actually defeat the enemies, given I have recruited so many Miis that always failed the blazing room level. I just need to accept that I'll be forever stuck on Find Mii II haha.

Playing Echoes of Wisdom. I know, it's a huge surprise, lol. Really liking my time with it.

Trials of Mana. Have to start over because I didn’t realize I already owned it on switch. At least I was only in chapter 3.

Echoes of Wisdom. I only have about three more temples to go before I beat the game.