PWB September 2024

now teach me how to play space channel 5 holy fuck i just want to like that game so bad

Easy, it's just Up Down Up Down Shoot Shoot Shoot.

Plus the Off The Record game which is a remix of the whole thing starring Frank. So they definitely milked this one for all they could.

Do I need to play DR2 to enjoy OtR to its fullest? I have that triple pack, but dunno if I install all three or just DR1 and OtR…

Nah, they’re pretty similar really. You can just jump into Off the Record if you want.

Is Frank free of the Zombrex hunt I take it?

From Wikipedia

Off the Record is intended as a complete reimagining of Dead Rising 2 featuring Frank West, the protagonist of the original Dead Rising video game, with new missions, cutscenes, environments, enemies, and weapons. The photography mechanic from the first Dead Rising is also included.

Damn that sounds awesome

Myst bundle of anyone is interested: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/enter-mysterium

Bought, thanks! I've got most of those on disc, nice to have them all in one place.

If anyone's bothered (and I appreciate it's a niche topic), there's a good HD mod for Myst 3. You'll find a guide if you Google.

Persona 5 fans rejoice, because the demo for Metaphor: ReFantazio dropped and it is literally just Persona 5 with the (superior) 'press turn' battle system from Shin Megami Tensei, in fact it is so far more SMT then Persona 5 but in terms of presentation and feel it definitely comes from that side of the fence too. I haven't finished the demo, because it's apparently the whole prologue, but apparently it has sphere grid like and class based system to it, and some decent level of character build potential to it, I've only got stat allocation at level up so far but it's nice to know I might go into this and walk away with a different experience combat wise to others playing this.

This is absolutely not going to turn the heads of someone who isn't interested in Persona or didn't like SMT5, but P5 was a Top 5 maybe 3 JRPG of all time for me so unsurprisingly this is right up my alley. And apparently the dev said the game is as long as the former, which if you have played P5…you know that's a long game, I daresay @BeanyFGC should stay as far away from this as possible lol

Really looking forward to it. I’ve already opted to skip the demo and go in fresh, and will endeavour to avoid starting anything else too long in the meantime, so I can try and get to it as close to release as possible.

On that note, and also due to my schedule in the meantime - I’m in Oslo to look after Marit a bit until the middle of next week, as she had surgery a few days ago - I’m only actually in the middle of Super Metroid and Grand Theft Auto 3 at the moment.

GTA3 I’ve played a bunch, but am genuinely surprised now at how easy and brief it feels, but then I suppose the big difference is how I’m playing it; twenty-something me had more free time and less of a backlog, and so would do stuff like go stand on top of the multi-storey car park on the one of the later areas and take potshots at passers-by to get my wanted level up and try and steal a tank, or steal a flatbed and use it to knock other road users off the raised bridges. And possibly some other things, that make me sound less psychotic.

Super Metroid is a new one on me, and I genuinely think it’s brilliant, even now. I’ve had Nintendo consoles and games in the past, but mainly after the fact, and it feels like only now I’m starting to really appreciate just how much I’ve been missing out on. I’ve just been watching Marit play Link’s Awakening on the Switch, and given how good that looked to me now I think one day maybe I’ll even finish a Zelda game. (In my defence, if it can be called that, I think I’ve only ever started two, and liked both, but drifted away before they ended.)

It may have been a mistake to try the Metaphor demo with a headache, because that hyper-kinetic UI has not helped matters.

I think it's actually more active than Persona 5's.

Super Metroid is a new one on me, and I genuinely think it’s brilliant, even now.

There are very few games from the 90s that can be enjoyed today, exactly as is (no remaster/enhancement), every bit as much as any new title.

Super Metroid is absolutely one of them. It's completely timeless. It's not quite my favourite game in the series - I think Zero Mission narrowly beats it, and Metroid Prime is its own thing - but it's easily the most atmospheric of the lot and it's as good today as it ever was.

I think the only other games that I can think of from the same period that stand up to the same degree are the original 2D Marios, Link to the Past and DOOM. But I'm probably forgetting something.

The Monster hunter Wilds hype has started to kick in, so I'm playing Monster Hunter Portable 3rd and Monster Hunter Tri at the same time, one in home and one on the go, it is pretty jarring. :)

I was lukewarm on the Metaphor demo – mostly because it's full-screen menu transitions during battles are, frankly, Too Much™ – but I've been thinking about it non-stop since I stopped playing it and I cannot figure out why.

The character designs are, broadly, pretty awful. The story is, to put it mildly, utter bollocks. But there's just something about it that's got me staring longingly at that preorder button. Maybe I just want a decent JRPG to play.

However, this is going to be a pretty expensive month if all these Kickstarters I've backed succeed, so I've managed to hold off for now. I've restarted Dragon's Dogma 2, so I'll get back to that in the meantime.

Kickstarters… anything good? Last thing I backed was that Chibi-Robo redo, but I pulled my pledge when it became obvious the console goal wasn't going to get hit. If it ever makes it to Switch, I'll get it then.

Just RPG stuff, I'm afraid. A Dragonbane expansion, a system-agnostic adventure setting, and the Salvage Union starter set.

Thankfully, everything I have pending is paid for and just waiting to arrive eventually, all board/card games:

• Critter Kitchen (set for December)
• Adventure Time: Card Wars (already on the water to the EU)
• Ahoy! expansion
• Oath expansion
• Armello: The Boardgame
• Dead Cells: The Boardgame
• Metal Gear Solid: The Boardgame

Sadly, I have a very strong feeling that all of the missing expansions for the Darkest Dungeon boardgame will never materialise, despite me and many other paying hundreds of euros for it. I'm one of the lucky ones who got the base game and Crimson Court expansion, many people still have nothing or only bits of what they paid for. Wave 2, containing the rest of the expansions, looks dead in the water since Mythic Games has gone totally dark… what a swizz. Oh well.