PWB August 22

Play
I'm enjoying Fallguys more than I expected. Twice I've been the first guy to fall in the final round.

Tried Sunset Overdrive. Does it get better? 30 minutes in and it's fine I guess, but I've got no urge to continue.

I will be playing more of Ori and the Blind Forest though.

Want
Mario Vs Rabbids 2 and FF Tactics

Bin
Fire Emblem GBA has presented me with a boss on level 25 which I can't fight without losing a couple members of my team. This has passed me off enough that I think I am done with it, even if I did thoroughly enjoy the preceding 30 hours. I might go give Wargroove another go.

Play

I'm sticking with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the moment, and enjoying it well enough even if I still don't fully (read: at all) grasp the complexities of the battle system. I'm almost at the point where I bounced off it last time, but I've been taking things slower, completing side quests and fighting more of the unfortunate low-level fauna so hopefully I'm better-equipped to deal with what comes next.

I'm further through a replay of Prince of Persia 2008 than in any previous attempt since I first completed it (probably in 2008). It's a little bit creaky in places, but I'd be well up for a sequel. Moving around the environments is just so enjoyable (with the exception of some of the magical power plate nonsense).

The kid and I are also making our way through Wind Waker and Skies of Arcadia, gradually. Nice blue skies (and seas), and the graphics have held up impressively on both.

Want

The kid is very excited for Splatoon 3 coming out (we've preordered a card version so that it can move between Switches if needs be; he's had to play with my account in Splatoon 2), so I'm sure I'll be having a go at that eventually.

Play
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - only played the first hour or so but already prefer the cast to 1 and 2, and there's certainly less of the ridiculous character designs. Looking forward to it.

Escape Room Academy - downloaded and will give it a go later this evening. I love actual puzzle rooms, so hopeful this will be right up our alley.

Life is Strange - True Colours - picked this up again this week and am enjoying it, Alex is a great character (and brilliantly well animated/captured too) although not convinced they'll ever top the rewind ability from LiS1 in terms of the magical stuff.

Cube Escape/Rusty Lake - only just discovered this series of Lynchian point-and-clicks and they're great! There are loads of them - I've finished the first couple of them now, which I guess must have been flash games orginally, but they hold up really well. Perfect for a little light puzzling in an environment that captures the twin-peaks-season-three/behind-the-diner-in-mullholland-dr feeling of creeping horror perfectly. The sound editing and production is particuarly great.

Want
Some indication that the world is not going to hell in a handcart. I can't believe the overton window has shifted so far right, so quickly, at a time when there is so much that needs to done for the collective good. I can't see where any sort of change for the better is going to come from - it's sure as hell not Starmer, who looks weaker everyday now, but where are the realistic alternatives? There's nobody willing or able to make any sort of realistic assessment of where we are as a country, let alone any sort of vision for what we might do to improve things for more people. It's all agenda politics or grabbing what they can while the house burns down around them. I'm seriously considering trying to get more involved in politics, but can't work out if it would help me feel like I was at least trying to do my bit, or would just drive me utterly insane. Possibly both.

Bin
See above.

Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which I think I have to admit is just never going to click for me.

The cast of Xenoblade 3 is the best if only because there's a British girl in it calling people muppets and saying 'bollocks' every so often.

Is the combat in 3 closer to 2 or 1?

I loved one's combat, especially having to position your character different for certain skills. But 2 was just a clusterfuck of intertwined systems, none of which I understood. I just let 2 play itself – even low-level mobs took a good minute or so to kill.

Play

Power Wash Simulator - it's legitimately brilliant. I can't work out quite why this challenge-free exercise in meticulous repetition is so compelling but it absolutely is.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak - like JDub, I think this is as good as Monster Hunter has ever been. It's huge, expansive and the difficulty level is pitched just right. Where the original Rise felt a bit unsatisfying and incomplete, Sunbreak makes it all make sense, and it's still got a whole load of additional updates to come. Absolutely love it.

The Switch in general. After owning one for several years I think I've finally come to terms with it. I've pretty much stopped using it as a portable device and I'm just treating it as a home console with a great range of unique titles. Turns out I'm much happier with it like that. Some serious tweaking of TV settings has got it looking pretty good and I'm generally using it much more than I've ever done before.

Want

I've still got Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes sitting installed waiting for me to finish Monster Hunter - might be a while still though.

Tactics Ogre Reborn isn't coming out on the Xbox sadly but it's getting a Switch release so that's good enough for me.

Bin

Just echoing what Cheddarfrenzy says above really. I can't remember a time when everything felt so hopeless. We're going into winter with fuel bills no-one can pay, food rotting in lorries at Dover, the economy in the toilet and no-one in politics has any answers or even really cares about anything other than getting on the gravy train and hanging on for as long as they possibly can.

I hate to say it but I've pretty much given up on politics as the answer to anything now, at least while the current lot (incumbents and opposition alike) are stinking the place up. Maybe some good old-fashioned riots will shake things up, I suspect we'll find out soon enough.

It's not got the elemental burst system from 2 anymore where you use those finishing attacks that required you to mash the buttons, for the most part it is like the combat in the first game with positioning but there's some new stuff like Spoiler - click to show you unlock the ability to fuse two of your 6 active party members into a Mech which sounds scary but it's just the same really, but in a mech and the Chain Arts which were also in the first game (the ability where the game freezes and you choose an attack for everyone to make a big combo) are slightly different this time.

So it's more the mechanics under the combat rather than the combat itself.

I hate to say it but I've pretty much given up on politics as the answer to anything now, at least while the current lot (incumbents and opposition alike) are stinking the place up.

They certainly seem determined to find the limits of the British attitude that "it could be worse".

"it could be worse".

USA: "Hi"

Escape room academy is really good fun. It's very close to the actual experience of an escape room, right down to the spousal arguments in our case… Also ramps up the difficulty pretty quickly - we flew through 1, did 2 pretty comfortably, then failed 3 at the last hurdle. Will definitely be trying again later though. The wraparound dialogue/characters/puns etc are frequently appalling, but for raw puzzling fun, it's well done and highly recommended.

I played a fair bit and got to the winter term chapter. Highlight so far is

Spoiler - click to showthe level where you're looking to enjoy a tasty milkshake in the cafeteria.

It's very good at making you feel clever when
you work something out and also guilty when you have to resort to using a hint (I've used three in total so far, which sucks). I'm stopping now though because my partner wants to play in co-op, so we'll start over and I'll let her take the lead until we get to where I was (the greenhouse)

We did a couple more last night, the Under Pressure one was great fun! 😊

We finished it last night - started over after we got back from dinner out around 9:30pm, then rolled the credits at 2am and went to bed. That was fun.

Did you guys play it in split-screen co-op with your partners, or did you just play it as a single-player game with others shouting suggestions? Not sure how this works but I think it could be a great one for us if it's good.

We played split screen co-op locally which, in hindsight, is a bit of a pain since your vision is severely limited - not ideal when the idea is to spend half your time looking for stuff. It also supports online multiplayer, so that would have been a better suggestion, since you get a full screen each.

Not sure I'd recommend single player with shouting… I could see that causing a lot of exasperation and arguments when the person controlling the game walks straight past the answer for the umpteenth time.

We did one controller and shouting. First night - arguments and complaints about motion sickness. Second night - pretty good and collaborative. Split screen would be a bit of a pain I think as mart says. I wonder if you can stream player 2 via the app onto ipad or something? That'd be good.

Played a bit of Ryse: Son of Rome, which was an early Xbox One exclusive - it may even have been a launch title.

It looks far better than an Xbox game from 2013 should look, frankly. It uses the same trick as Final Fantasy XIII whereby a lot of what you see is actually pre-rendered video. It switches seamlessly between pre-rendered sequences when there's a lot of spectacle on the screen, and in-engine action when there are only a couple of characters to display. It's a good trick, and it works well, only slightly let down by visible artefacting which gives the compressed FMV away.

The actual game looks quite fun too, combat is fairly simple but rewarding and the story seems good. In fact the only way it betrays its age is in the relentless focus on gimmicks from the Don Mattrick era - download the Smartglass app to look at the achievements! Shout at your Kinect to carry out an action that's just as easily achieved with a single button press! It's a reminder of how lost the Xbox was at this point in time, and far it's come.

Chastise the Kinect if you must, Gar, but I refuse to believe you don't shout at your controller to make it do stuff (probably while swearing).

PLAY
Nothing particularly new, I'm between games currently… it's just Isaac and Sea of Thieves really. I did get 13 Sentinels and Mother Russia Bleeds both on discount recently, but not really bothered with either yet.

WANT
Cult of the Lamb - is already pre-ordered and preloaded on my Switch, and it's out on Thursday. Whoop whoop!

BIN
Fall Guys - Already bored, not played it ages. Oh well.
The news - Reading it is making me depressed currently… since I can't do much about it, I'll just ignore it.

Play
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - I have thrown myself recklessly for over a week straight and it still refuses to go down, good. They really have improved most of the issues people had with 2 and even some they didn't, one of my favourite things now is instead of gacha based heros in our team we now have set amount of 'Heroes' to meet who join our team permanently after a quest and even teach us the Class they use to give to main party members so you can mix and match…from a party of seven, seven man party y'all.

Also, this game really is huge, apparently the world is 5 times bigger than 2's, I believe it. I think what it lacks in Elden Ring's polish and sheer breadth of content per square inch it makes up for in relevancy, almost everything you do and find is worth doing even if it's just coins. Case in point: the Hero Quests I mentioned earlier, the game won't tell you where they are most of the time, you will probably end up triggering them by accident for the most part and these are considered side quests by the way!

So yeah it's good but it's so god damn big.

Mega Man Legends 2
This is the kind of sequel that really just smoothed over the rough edges of the prequel and then added more functionality on top of it because the first game was the kind of prequel that was just so good that's all it really needed. It's amazing to look at this and think 'This looks shit, like some misguided attempt at Mega Man in 3D like Mario 64' but there's just so much charm here and they wisely didn't try and make a 3D jump and shoot platformer like the Classic Mega Man series, it's just a really good adventure game in its own right.

Cult of the Lamb is very good. There's a lot going on in it, a lot of moving parts with systems building on systems building on systems as you gradually unlock stuff. The dungeon crawling sections almost feel like they take a backseat at times, and I was worried they felt a bit easy… until I realised they stack, so going back to a previously cleared area makes it harder, but the rewards better.

I'm not a fan of survival management sims, but this one keeps things simple enough to have me interested while also being very involving. Getting a 'XXX is gravely ill and will die in a few days unless they rest' right as you start a dungeon run is incredibly fraught, since it means you're against the clock to reach the end (unless you have the ability to leave, which you can unlock as a choice). I'd recommend NOT calling the followers after folk you know though… sacrificing them to get more powerful isn't as easy when they're familiar faces.

Reminds me of the time I played The Last of Us multiplayer with the Facebook link on…

And the first time I played FFVII, when I renamed all the characters, including naming Aeris after my girlfriend at the time.

Sometimes it pays off though. I've gleefully murdered several offices' worth of annoying colleagues thanks to the XCOM series.

Additional back on the PLAY list:

Elden Ring - Let's be clear, I like Elden Ring. I love the style, the music, the lore, the design. I love the 'Oh!' moments when you discover something new and the 'Oh SHIT' moments when you stumble across something that seems unfathomably impossible to beat. It's a great game. But good grief, I have no idea how to get better at this.

I've collected runes, levelled up (currently lv32), increased many of my stats and yet still, all I seem to be doing is hacking the shit out of things and hoping I get them before they get me (with evasive rolls thrown in). I still have a pretty basic sword (a bit powered up) and some shitty armour I got early in the game. I have no idea about upping my Faith to unlock insane powers or weapon options, or creating builds which seem uber-powerful as shown elsewhere online. I literally only just discovered I could cast spells from the very beginning today, after I accidentally got a better version of the finger thing you start with. It's all just out of reach, while I wander around hitting things with my pointy stick (and occasionally whip, when the need arises).

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm playing it wrong. I've roamed all over the map rather than follow the path, finding grace sites everywhere and coming across things I shouldn't be right now (case in point: a giant old white dragon that I thought was dead, but wasn't and its roar summoned dozens of smaller but still bigger than me dragons with burning red eyes). I've killed some optional bosses, including a couple of those massive guardian golems! I can fight, sneak, stab things in the back and take advantage of stance breaks (?) to finish stuff off, that's not in question. But all the stuff from item crafting to Ashes of War, where to focus stat upgrades, how to fight things that are substantially bigger than me without getting killed in one hit and all that might as well be written in Sanskrit. How does one get better at this game without resorting to looking everything up online?

Do you really want to know? I could tell you. I'm about level 150, armed with excellent weapons and summons, and things the size of trees die in three hits to me. I have no skill. It's pure cheese. Do you want a taste of my cheese?

Do you really want to know? I could tell you. I'm about level 150, armed with excellent weapons and summons, and things the size of trees die in three hits to me. I have no skill. It's pure cheese. Do you want a taste of my cheese?

I only like cheese on pizza.

If it's 'Here's a farming spot for runes', I'm good currently - I found the hill down from the Bestial Sanctum with the black imps, so could spend time there getting 1,200 a kill. I also found the back route behind the elder white dragon… if I could be arsed to spend 20 minutes just smacking him, that's another 80k in the pocket.

I want good weapons. Good armour. Advice on which stats I should actually be levelling up. Where to get more summons (I have three, but they're middling at best). How the hell to best use magic (there's a difference between spells and glintstones, right?). Which Ashes of War I need and how I actually use them, because I don't have a clue. That stuff. Useful stuff. Tell me please.

Oh, and I found a chapel with a blocked door that's covered with a blue forcefield marked by runes. What.

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm playing it wrong. I've roamed all over the map rather than follow the path, finding grace sites everywhere and coming across things I shouldn't be right now (case in point: a giant old white dragon that I thought was dead, but wasn't and its roar summoned dozens of smaller but still bigger than me dragons with burning red eyes).

I dunno' if this is 'wrong' at all, if you don't stray from the path you don't find potentially powerful items, case in point with that White Dragon, like you said an extra 80k runes. It's just so big that you can also find a lot of 'not for me' stuff too.

As for 'how to get better without looking it up online', Elden Ring is super fucking big so most stuff is/has been a community effort because I don't think any one guy knew everything when they first played it.

First off, there's a respec option for items you can find around the world but you need to beat a fairly easy boss to use it first. Spoiler - click to showRennala in the Academy

Advice on which stats I should actually be levelling up

This will entirely depend on your type of build and it doesn't matter what you started as either, if you want to lean in on spells it's gonna be more Int than anything, but there's nothing stopping you going for a bit more HP if you want. Also look at the weapons themselves, since some physical weapons can scale of INT, some may scale of both INT and STR or INT and DEX but INT might be A and DEX might be B so the priority stat to increase is strength but you'll want some Dex too in that particular scenario.

Where to get more summons (I have three, but they're middling at best). How the hell to best use magic (there's a difference between spells and glintstones, right?)

I didn't use summons until the end because one boss broke me, but the best one and one you wont be at yet I don't think is Mimic Tear because it copies you and everything you are wearing. TL;DR save up Gloveworts because you meet an NPC who uses them to make summons stronger. I dunno if this helps but people seem to like the ones that summon a group of summons at once, like the Wolves but I haven't tried them so I can't verify. To use them you need the Spirit Calling Bell from Renna (I had to look this up sorry it's been ages) in Limgrave apparently, so nothing too dangerous.

Glintstones are a specfic substet of spellcasting I guess, but I never used them though I am pretty sure I saw several spells being sold from some people. The Faith sword you mentioned earlier, scales of Faith which is obvious enough but Faith is its own section of casting too, so something to keep in mind.

As for fighting in general, this game was anti melee as fuck imo and enemies can delay their next hit in a combo and catch you trying to roll away and I found without an abundance of endurance some bosses ate stamina on guard so I just had watch theirp atterns and find the safe spots to attack, if your timing is great you do get i-frames on the roll…but it is strict.

I would just focus on making a really strong weapon first of all. Depending on what you use it can be better or worse for fighting big enemies, Greatswords jumping R2 spam looks spammy but it does break posture a lot and force enemies/bosses to to fall into a stance you can do that stab animation with. If you're using Bleed weapons you want to hit as much as possible to proc it etc

EDIT - Oh lmao apparently Bleed hasn't been nerfed it's a specific OP Bleed PvP tactic/skill? If that's the case you want my advice, run Bleed and Arcane as son as you find a good Bleed weapon :^)

Do you really want to know? I could tell you. I'm about level 150, armed with excellent weapons and summons, and things the size of trees die in three hits to me. I have no skill. It's pure cheese. Do you want a taste of my cheese?

I only like cheese on pizza.

If it's 'Here's a farming spot for runes', I'm good currently - I found the hill down from the Bestial Sanctum with the black imps, so could spend time there getting 1,200 a kill. I also found the back route behind the elder white dragon… if I could be arsed to spend 20 minutes just smacking him, that's another 80k in the pocket.

I want good weapons. Good armour. Advice on which stats I should actually be levelling up. Where to get more summons (I have three, but they're middling at best). How the hell to best use magic (there's a difference between spells and glintstones, right?). Which Ashes of War I need and how I actually use them, because I don't have a clue. That stuff. Useful stuff. Tell me please.

Oh, and I found a chapel with a blocked door that's covered with a blue forcefield marked by runes. What.

There are a few chapels that fit that description. It's possible that you need to find three glowing turtles.

You don't want a farming spot, that's fine. Although you are not at the really good farming spot. The REALLY good farming spot. It's extremely difficult to get to, and involves completing a fairly long quest chain, and a perilous run through an area that it much too high level for you. It's one for later, I think, but even as it feels cheesy, it does make the game more accessible, less offputting. I genuinely believe that it is there deliberately. Don't kill that big dragon. That would be like cutting down a truly ancient tree, morally wrong.

So, good armour and weapons. With armour, it depends on what kind of fighting dude you are, really. Armour isn't actually all that important - even the starter armour sets are pretty good, especially when you upgrade them. The armour sets have a single upgrade available, it's not something you keep pumping resources into. I started as a Samurai, and the starter armour lasted me until the point when I decided I wanted a different look. The different look doesn't make me more effective, although it does make me a fair bit cooler. Anyway, the most important thing with armour is the weight. Don't go for a Heavy Load, as this severely reduces your roll speed. I play with a medium load.

My build is a magic-weilding samurai who never uses a shield and relies on dodging to stay alive. It's a fun, exciting, versatile, and effective way to play. My primary stat is Int, which I levelled up to 80 in order to use a specific spell which I have found to be too slow to use. Anyway, it means my spells and attacks with the magical katana Moonveil are devastating. The Ash of War that is on Moonveil by default (a magical version of Unsheath which I used as an unmagical Samurai for half the game anyway) is easily my favorite in the game. Your guy sheaths his sword and stands with his hand on the hilt. Then when you strike, he draws it and sweeps it in either a downward or crossward arc for Massive Damage and even more massive coolness. The Moonveil version adds a magical effect to this that effectively extends the range. In my off-hand (when I'm not two-handing the katana) I have a magical staff, and I mainly use the spell Glintstone pebble, which at 80 INT does a lot of damage for not much endurance cost.

If you are Samurai-mage-curious and want to know where I got my cool stuff, let me know and I can give some more details.

Honestly, I don't think you lose much if anything by delving into the Elden Ring Wiki a bit.
https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Elden+Ring+Wiki
The game is so deep, that I felt I had a much greater appreciation for it once I started reading bits of the lore, and how to get more out of the game. Like you, I spent a good bit of time wandering around avoiding reading anything until I reached a point where I seemed to have stalled in progress and had no clue what to do, and I read up a bit on how to build a character, how to find some cool stuff and bosses, and where to find some quests. It gave me a renewed love of the game.

Okay, I'm in for reading the wiki then I guess. If only for this:

NOTES & TRIVIA ABOUT GLINTSTONE STAFFS & STAVES IN ELDEN RING
Please note that this page used to be called Glintstone Staves, but was changed to Glintstone Staffs due to public demand. Fextralife overlords will not divagate from this decisive action, and any motion to rectify the grammar will be met with fierce intransigence.

Love a bit of fierce intransigence, me.

Edit - moved this post to the Elden Ring thread.

Edit - moved this post to the Elden Ring thread.

I deleted the game because the last boss is too hard. Just enjoy tooling about the place. If you find a spell or weapon that looks interesting respec for it. None of it matters.

I am giving the postgame to Xenoblade 3 a brief break while I check out the DLC to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 called Torna: The Golden Country and I am not struggling to to move back from 3's systems to 2's as much as I thought. I think mostly because this DLC does a great job at presenting a slightly newer, abridged version of XB2 to adjust for the shorter scope and length, it's more focused story wise and the party is pre-set so no fucking gacha Blades and I think the only new area is Torna, it's been moving along quite snappily actually, sidequests and all. (helps that the titans in XB2 are as big as your back garden in comparison to XB3's maps)

Combat too, is somewhat simplified, whereas in the main game you had to spend a while to set up fusion combos and bursts it's a lot faster this time because you can put up Orbs after every special and you don't need to follow a prescribed on-screen pathway it just made some pathways do more damage this time. Also, you fight as the Driver and Blade again, but this time there's a Rearguard/Vanguard setup where you can swap places and directly control the Blades. You can Break with the main character, Lora, then swap to her Blade, whose swap-in ability is a topple all by itself and just like that you have a Toppled enemy.

Cast is actually fantastic, some new faces like Lora and Addam as well as old like Spoiler - click to showJin and Brigid and like I said earlier, the new titan it takes place on is a pretty important part of the story to several characters in the main game so it's pretty juicy story wise so far.

After three or so tries and bouncing off, I think I finally managed to get into Stardew Valley. I just took it one step at a time, this time I started working on crops whilst I was clearing the Farm field of all that crap scattered around it instead of trying to clear that field first. Days so far consist of me watering my crops then either trying to level up my fishing or going mining, I have barely interacted with the village at all and the one time I did for the festival everyone rejected my attempts to dance, so whatever. </3

The fact that you can't really fail, I am not being punished for shunning society and I don't have to meet quotas, is a real strength to this game I think, I see why it's so popular at least.

I really like XC2 despite all the character design and gacha, but Torna was better in almost every way. If we have to live in a world with season passes, this is the way to do it.

Additional PLAY:

Cursed To Golf is really rather lovely. That is all.

That's good, as I treated myself to that and Rollerdrome last night, but have only played the latter so far.

On which note, I am both Playing and liking Rollerdrome, which is like if someone shoved Jet Set Radio, Tony Hawk and Max Payne into a blender, with a splash of the movies Running Man and (obviously) Rollerball, and just a hint of that third person high-score shooter that (especially) cav liked on the 360, but whose name escapes me.

The controls took a bit of getting used too (partially as I think it's managing to confuse my muscle memory for both THPS and SSX), and I'm worried there's potential for frustration later, as the trick mechanics are in some ways forgiving, but in other ways a bit floaty, but for the most part I'm having a blast. Since the I had the little epiphany that took me from failing to get a C-grade on the first map to getting an S (in one run) I've found myself repeatedly replaying arenas to "complete" them, and frequently entering that pseudo-fugue state you do when you're really into something like this.

Nice to finally have a reason to turn the PS5 on again too - besides a couple of abortive attempts to get into Deathloop (which I really like, but isn't dragging me back very often) I've been spending almost all my console gaming time with Sunbreak, and I need a complementary/side game or two, I think, as I try and slowly ween myself off the habit.

just a hint of that third person high-score shooter that (especially) cav liked on the 360, but whose name escapes me.

Monday Night Combat?

The Club. There was one on the Vita too.

The Club. There was one on the Vita too.

That's it. It was on the tip of my tongue/brain, I just couldn't for the life of me remember the name.

Rollerdrome's not actually like The Club at all mechanically, it's much more just 'THPS with guns', it just made me think of it quickly, for fairly obvious reasons.

The Club was really good. Bring it back!

Additional quick PLAY:

Needed to get three achievements for this week's Xbox Rewards, so used the app with Cloud gaming and touch controls on my phone to have a go at Monster Train. Pretty good, I think I prefer it to Slay the Spire which never really clicked with me. Annoyingly, the default cloud touch controls aren't suitable for play since half of them are missing (specifically, the right analogue stick isn't there, so you can't move between carriages to place units), but I fixed that. Got my achievements and stopped, but might come back to it in the future.

In my neverending quest for good games on commute/work (Advance Wars is still the absolute king but Stardew Valley is also great) I bought Project Diva: Future Tone 2nd on the Vita and to no surprise to myself I love it, no surprise because I have Project Diva: Mega Mix on PS4 and fairly recently at that. It's a rhythm game using songs from popular vocaloid Hatsune Miku (and friends) so they're not the most recognisable perhaps unless you're a huge Miku/Vocaloid fan but they are catchy.

Damn these games are hard though, the PS4 Mega Mix one even moreso, but if you've played Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, Gitaroo Man or the like you might be shocked at just how wild the 'beatmaps' are here, whereas in those games they're a steady linear stream here they fly in from all over the screen in every direction at fast speed, this combined with the fact that all songs are japanese makes it kinda' hard to enjoy reading the song lyrics you're playing out and even moreso you can barely see what Miku is doing underneath the mayhem in the video, though she's probably skipping and dancing bless her.

I also started Xenoblade Chronicles X AKA The Last Great WiiU Game yet To Be Ported to Switch and the open world fucking holds up so hard, visually AND mechanically, it's a combination of the verticality and the fact that you can climb like a damn mountain goat that really encourages you exploring the world, there's no fall damage so you don't even die if you fall off a cliff. There's a definite vibe here, like I'm playing through a series of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex with more aliens, the main story practically takes a backseat to the sidequests/affinity missions that lend to the great world building of the game. I bounced off this eventually back on launch because of some unfortunate design choices, but I'm actually not hating them as much this time.

Drafting my Apology as we speak.

Finally, the latest Patch for Final Fantasy XIV just dropped and they gave us a fucking Island to play Animal Crossing/Stardew Valley on???? It's called 'Island Sanctuary' and honestly I'm quite blind on how it works and all the more enjoying it because of it. You start off with your own personal Island and I do mean everyone gets one although I don't think they're unique or procedurally generated or anything. After a few tutorials on non class specific gathering and crafted (as in, has nothing to do with Botanist, Carpenter etc) you are told to explore the Island to find materials for a 'cozy cabin', then to make tools like hammers so you can mine ore, then nets for catching wildlife oh and there's even rare shiny spawns like Pokemon.

Eventually you will run into time gated buildings and crops and have to sort of strike out and discover things for yourself, the community is working together on this, I like that but I also want to stumble around a bit first because holy shit this is the coolest thing XIV has ever done outside of fancy fights and I want to enjoy the magic a bit before peeling back the layers. The point? Well you can buy some materials for actual XIV crafters and gatherers as well as stuff like minions with the new currency, so far it seems stress free as fuck, no relic weapon grind here. <3

This is but one part of the patch, we got the next raid tier, the continuation of the main quest (All I'll say is FFIV fans rise UP) that EFFORTLESSLY spins the new wheel of a presumed second ten year arc, they delve into the spoileriffic lore but don't lean on past expansions as a crutch either.

This is the second banger post expansion launch now, I don't think Shadowbringers even got post launch patches this good let alone two in a row.

No need to preach about the awesomeness of Hatsune Miku, Al… I believe both Gar and I are aficionados of the franchise. Most recently, I got Mega Mix on Switch and it's fabulous.

I also started Xenoblade Chronicles X AKA The Last Great WiiU Game yet To Be Ported to Switch and the open world fucking holds up so hard, visually AND mechanically, it's a combination of the verticality and the fact that you can climb like a damn mountain goat that really encourages you exploring the world, there's no fall damage so you don't even die if you fall off a cliff. There's a definite vibe here, like I'm playing through a series of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex with more aliens, the main story practically takes a backseat to the sidequests/affinity missions that lend to the great world building of the game. I bounced off this eventually back on launch because of some unfortunate design choices, but I'm actually not hating them as much this time.

You've been posting videos of this on Twitter all week and I couldn't quite believe it was a Wii U game, so I loaded it up myself and… well, it's quite a thing, isn't it? The Wii U was always considered an underpowered little device but it handled stuff like this and Breath of the Wild just fine so maybe it was that it never really got a chance to show what it could do. (Both this and BOTW ask you to install data to the internal drive to speed up disc-based loading times, but that seems like a reasonable compromise).

Anyway, I'm less than an hour in so too early to say what I make of it so far but it looks spectacular and while it hasn't explained much yet, I'm playing it much like how I remember Xenoblade 1 and it seems fine to me. I know this one is apparently more open-ended and less plot-driven and to be honest that sounds ideal.

It really is the last great Wii U exclusive, though, isn't it? Apart from Nintendo Land which is so dependent on the system's unique features that it could never be ported to anything anyway. I'd kind of forgotten how awkward and uncomfortable the GamePad is to actually use as a controller though so I've dug out my Wii U Pro Controller and that's on charge right now.

No need to preach about the awesomeness of Hatsune Miku, Al… I believe both Gar and I are aficionados of the franchise. Most recently, I got Mega Mix on Switch and it's fabulous.

Ah nice! I am a relative newcomer off the back of Mega Mix too, but whilst not being a big fan per se I've always liked Hatsune Miku, what a 10/10 iconic character design tbh

Also, Gar, you can and basically play X like 1 and 2 with positionals and stuff, but its much, much deeper underneath with some stuff being unintuitive sadly. For example, apparently defense is a dead stat and only subtracts damage incoming by your defense stat, it's resistance that is how you survive which is thankfully more flexible anyway.

Also, the Potential stat being important for how it powers certain moves and the 'soul voice' mechanic, if you ever noticed your combat cooldown triggering a slowdown effect and doing more damage you probably responded to a party members soul voice in the form of 'use melee!'.

Not stuff obvious at a glance but if you need help I will try my best.

Also the online component of X is pretty good even without co-op missions, you get assigned a squad after a certain mission and everyone in the squad gets a periodic mission to hunt certain monsters and these give you very useful grind bypassing reward tickets you turn in for materials. Also feels very much like in character BLADE work, so pretty clever sorta' world building that works better in the context of your character being a person YOU created, Shulk in canon cant work for the Courier AND Harriers…but makes more sense for your guy and my guy to though!

On that note…if you see people in the field you can temp recruit them to your party! If you see a woman with purple hair called Lily that's me! o/

Oh, the multiplayer features still work? I'd assumed they'd died when Nintendo took Miiverse out the back and shot it in the head. Are people actually still playing this?

Miiverse stuff is gone yeah, but everything else seems to be up still. All I've done is interact with the errr asynchronous and community stuff but I see no reason two people can't do online missions, which are strictly not story mode mind, even Monolithsoft have limits I guess.

Trying to rack my brain about what Miiverse did beyond players firing messages into your game world, maybe it was ironically how randos grouped online, oops.