PWB Feb 26

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. As I suspected, getting this to run well on the Steam Deck was practically a game in itself. It doesn't run great out of the box (and has incredibly aggressive dynamic resolution scaling, happily reducing everything to a blurry mess if you don't keep it under control) but it is absolutely possible to get it running well and I'm really pleased with where I've got it to now. It looks and plays great, and is quite something to have on a handheld.

The game itself is… overwhelming. Remake was a tight, story-driven experience that led you from point to point in a very controlled fashion. Rebirth just kind of chucks you into the world and lets you get on with it. The upgrade system is more complicated, the battle system is more complicated and there is an overwhelming amount of stuff to do right from the very start. It's also absolutely amazing, and I've been unable to put it down over the last few days. It's like Ubisoft did Final Fantasy in some ways but it's also a really dazzling, complete world full of distractions that reminds me a lot of FFXIV. I'm going to be spending a lot of time on this one.

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Big new update for Monster Train 2 drops tomorrow - a new clan as a free update, and a second clan and a big new game mode as paid DLC. That'll be most of February sorted for me, then.

There are a lot of other games coming out this month though and I'm trying to persuade myself not to buy them.
Resident Evil Requiem - but I still have RE4R to play
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - but I have the 3DS version
Yakuza Kiwami 3 - but I have Lost Judgment to play

If I crack on anything it'll probably be Yakuza.

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I have no idea where to even start. I think I'll just stick to videogames.

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Monster Train 2 DLC

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Monster Train 2 DLC

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Things that are not Monster Train 2 DLC

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I stalled out on my party through of Mass Effect Legendary Edition back in the summer when I got stuck on a bit in an ME3 DLC. I decided it was time to wrap it up and I have spent the last couple weeks being reminded that I really do like this game.

I think all the negativity around it convinced me that I only enjoyed ME3 because of how much I liked the previous games. Which I guess is half right. The combat isn't great, although it is fine. The story can be a bit abrupt at times. But I can't think of another game which presented such cataclysmic stakes, and then actually followed through on them. I love this galaxy and one world at a time you get to see the Reapers tear it apart. Everywhere you go people are telling each other stories about what they've lost, wondering what happens next. It feels like there's a war going on. It feels like there's a war being lost!

It's a much more complete experience than I remember too, helped by the fact that I now have the DLCs. I'm looking forward to finally playing the Citadel DLC.

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Space Marine 2 - Not started yet but it was added to Game Pass, so I'll play it with my brother. Love 40k, love Space Marine, simple 'as

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - Why am I having to grind fire engine missions and stuff to buy property to advance the story? Have I messed up? This kind of sucks

Final Fantasy X - Not going to post about this much, wasn't going to post it at all, it feels nice keeping this experience to myself to be honest, but I guess I'd add it to the other thread when I beat it anyway. Game is still very good, playing it on my Odin 3 and it looks fucking beautiful. 😭

You know what, I just earned enough money playing Fireman in one sitting, left thumb on the left analog and right thumb to move the hose nozzle, and claw gripping my fingers to press X to drive and O to spray all at the same time (child's play for a Monster Hunter PSP veteran tbh)…after putting out over 100 fires I managed to earn fire immunity and 50k with my fingers starting to get sore. 😅

So it wasn't exactly Burning Rangers on the Sega Saturn(😔) but I enjoyed that and now hopefully the plot moves along, either way the Print Works and Ice Cream drug front should pay themselves eventually.

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I've been playing with fire recently, on a bit of a JRPG kick—hopefully not burning myself out on turn-based combat ahead of Dragon Quest VII coming out.

Something possessed me to start Lost Odyssey again, over fifteen years since I got stuck on Disc 3 and abandoned it. I'm almost back at that point now, so we'll see if I've learned anything in the intervening decade-and-a-half.

And after finally taking delivery of a GDEMU, my Dreamcast has been back in rotation with Skies of Arcadia leading the charge. I've got the US version loaded which… seems easier than I remember the EU one? The more important thing is that it's VGA-compatible (the PAL version wasn't), so my HDMI adaptor is happy. Next up, I'm thinking about replacing the fan…

For a bit of a change of pace, having realised I can get the DLC as part of the Nintendo Online subscription, I've been tinkering away at the Paradise Planning expansion for Animal Crossing, to unlock more options for decorating the hotel rooms in the latest update.

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Very much looking forward to Dragon Quest VII. I've opted for the Switch 2 version so I can keep playing it while the TV is in use, though from the demo I don't think the battery life is going to be fantastic…

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My bedtime revenge procrastination is getting out of hand.

I haven't gone bed before 4am this week, also for reasons I've also been looking at Animal Crossing, not the same game but maybe I should play Fantasy Life more too

Additional Play - Monster Train 2 - an already massive game gets even bigger. The free and paid updates combined give you two new clans and a new roguelike game mode with new bosses and stages and a new mechanic called Souls that you need to unlock and upgrade. The clans alone are worth it, to be honest - a bit more complex than most of the base game clans but really fun to play around with and with 12 in total in the game now the combinations seem almost endless.

This is a really great game. An all-timer. It seems very overlooked, both in the roguelike genre and as a game in general, and I'm glad cavalcade at least seems to appreciate it as much as I do.

Additional Want, after the Nintendo Partner Showcase Direct reminded me it exists: Pragmata looks like the best kind of 7/10 action nonsense.

Also in the showcase, Adventures of Elliot (terrible name), and Orbitals, which looks incredible but sadly might be co-op only which would dampen my enthusiasm a lot.

With the announcement of an expansion for Granblue Fantasy: Relink I want to say that even if you didn't play the gacha or the fighting game, and especially if you like Monster Hunter then you'll probably enjoy Relink. It doesn't really become Monster Hunter til' the endgame but it's still a fun action RPG with a dozen characters before that, post game has a lot of stuff to keep you busy too, mainly a MH style gearing loop where you farm fights except it's a lot more chill than triple carting to Rathalos every time.

I don't know if it's my emulation or what but so far the lighting in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is pretty bad so far, if its not the sun glaring a bit too brightly it's super dark instead, going to look into this.

It's hard to see in cutscenes at night but it's actually not so bad overall, maybe I've got use to the orange haze? Game still slaps.

The Citadel DLC in ME3 was every bit as good as everyone always said. Just a joy to play.

Citadel is amazing, I don't remember if it's part of the DLC or not but try and find Grunt and get his recap on his night out, it's fucking hilarious.

Also help I'm absolutely glued to Wuthering Waves, I am going to spend so much money if I'm not careful…

Metal Gear Solid 4 is now free from PS3 jail, I don't think it's a top MGS game overall like I did at the time when I thought it was a series ending, MGS5 has way better gameplay and a better story (4 shits on almost every aspect of 2 for me, like Kojima was ashamed of it at the time), but there's no denying this being back is a good thing, to top it off, we have the Game Boy Colour game on there, which is very underrated if only because it's rare and no one has played it, crazy good for a GBC game.

We're getting both an old Dead or Alive release and a new one, excellent news because DoA is the most fun button mashing FG for me, very fun to watch too with how much of a spectacle it is as well.

Legacy of Kain Defiance Remastered finally brings the whole series (bar the dubious canon status of Blood Omen 2 I think?) of LEgacy Kain to modern consoles, if you like a good story then goingthrough them all is a good time I think, you might even like the gameplay heh

The new Castlevania looks excellent, I'm just confused as to why Trevor apparently looks 99% like Sonia Belmont?

I am a bit surprised they're remaking old God of War trilogy, like sure it'll be cool but what happened to Nu Gow?

Grabbed a PSP today from the Games Shop in Sheffield. Not in fantastic nick but was £40 and they included a game and a charging lead. Its such a nice console/handheld. The stick feels evem more shonky than I remember but been loving playing it regardless.

I haven't actually gone back to Monster Train 2 yet. I have been playing Dungeons of Hintenberg, which is on Gamepass, but I got a key for it on Steam for 79p.

I had played it a bit before, but it sorta got swallowed up by other releases. It's really, really good. Looks wonderful on handheld with a line drawn art style unlike anything I've seen before and is really charming. On the Performance graphics setting it runs incredibly smoothly on the Ally (so I'd imagine would also be fine on the Deck, and would probably really pop on the OLED one).

I didn't know I wanted to play a Swiss holiday resort themed social simulator crossed with an Zeldaish action RPG, but turns out I did. The dialogue is good, the structure is vaguely Persona-like and the enemies have a sort of gloopy charm to them. Combat is a bit simplistic until you get level specific powers that are quite entertaining.

I dunno. A bit like Eternal Strands, I feel it got swallowed up at a time there were AAA bangers being released almost daily.

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Still Death Stranding 2 which I think is one of the best games of the generation, along with Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring. Elden Ring might not even count, actually as it's on PS4. I play on PC mainly, so I have no idea when generations start and end. I don't know if I prefer this or the first Death Stranding, but this is definitely the one I would recommend to someone coming to the series fresh, despite the fact that the game assumes a LOT of story knowledge of the player. The game part is just much more comprehensible. The difficulty curve makes more sense. The first game went from a horror walking simulator to a cosy pootle-em-up over its course. This one stays an open-world exploration, delivery, and action game for it's run time. That's not to say there isn't variety, because there absolutely is. There's a bizarre sci-fi bike race at one point.

It's still perfectly possible to get completely lost in a self-imposed side mission of building roads and monorails, or delivering kangaroos to the band Chvrches. There's always another gadget or weapon to try out, which seems to tie in cleverly to the game's (much more coherent this time) theme. I say "seems to" because there's still time for the game to throw everything away in a cut-scene twist and for Kojima to say, "Surprise! It's actually all about toenails!"

Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc - I actually finished this, after a decade of false starts in which I played through the first few hours of the game repeatedly over the years. It's really good, but I'm not going to jump straight into the sequels yet. There are two reasons for this - it's so long, and it's so dark. It took me something like 30 hours to finish, maybe more. Being as I play games for at most 40 minutes a day if I'm lucky usually, and don't have any days off in a normal week, it took me most of last year and into February this year to get through it. As for the darkness, it's a game about getting close to a selection of characters, and them being suddenly killed off. It's pretty bleak.

So in case anyone is unaware, all these characters are trapped in a school, and the only way to escape is to commit, and get away with, murder. Every time anyone dies, there is an investigation period, followed by a class trial. The trial consists of Phoenix Wright style logical deduction, pointing out contradictions and building a picture of what happened, combined with some light action elements such as a rhythm game and shooting "Truth Bullets" at characters' statements. It's well judged in that I went into every trial (with the exception of one or two which contained mid-trial rug-pulls) with a clear idea of exactly who had done it and how, but I had only put it all together right at the end of the investigation period. The only problems that arose during the trials were the times when I knew what had happened but was unsure of how the game wanted me to communicate it. If anything though, it's generally a bit less prone to this problem than Phoenix Wright.

I think I need to play something shorter and breezier next.

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I dunno. Good things to happen, I suppose. They never do, though.

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Expensive car repairs that come up a couple of weeks after Christmas. That I could have done without. The same goes for dental work.

Car repairs and dental work….

felt, did you crash your car again.

No, sadly I tried to eat it.

Death Stranding 2 is great but it's also worse than the first game for the reasons you (and I probably, story aside) would recommend it to new players, unfortunately for me, the friction is part of what made DS1, that and the fact that because it was so rough the act of helping someone just had so much more weight. That aspect isn't completely gone, you still build community stuff, including a bloody monorail this time, this is also part of the smoothing of edges but I can't deny it's satisfying to have your hard work of building it rewarded with those BIG HAULS which is still very Death Stranding.

The combat is also better, I'm not sure if I'd put this down as more smoothing because honestly, there was a struggle with the Mules in DS1 but they weren't really THAT big a deal, this game tuns each camp into some sort of MGSV simulator, which I'll take. Better when you have more delivery rewards (another undeniable improvement in DS2) including throwable Pizza dough and martial arts learnt from Mamoru Oshii himself, amazing cutscene too.

Great game, just inferior to DS1 imo.

Playing a cute little SNES game during commute/break hours called Pocky and Rocky, it's a scrolling shooter where you play as a cute raccoon or shrine maiden and go through 5 levels and shoot in all 360 degrees at enemies. Cute sprites betray how hard this game can get, it's not like Gradius where you die in one hit but you get overwhelmed pretty quickly and getting hit makes you lose power in your shot upgrades. It's a unique game for me, I've not played a game where you have free movement and shooting like this that wasn't a rail shooter. There's a really good looking remaster on console/steam, so I'll wait for the sale to get it, but it looks great.