Play
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
Turns out I last picked this up about the years ago so I restarted. I'm having a very relaxed time, erm except for one conversation which turned to shocking homophobia out of nowhere. I guess that was acceptable/expected in Japan twenty years ago?
The Messenger
I play a level of this every now and then. It has a great sense of humour.
Want
Really tempted by the Playdate. It just looks different. And the games are pretty cheap so even if half of them are just gimmicks that's ok.
I love mine dearly, but I could be tempted to sell, or lend it to you if you wanted to give it a go. Not sure when I'm next near Edinburgh tho….
PC Gamepass down as well, which is good as they were pushing their luck a bit there too.
I had a Circle Pad pro in the past - it was quite the thing. Better than the nub effort on the new 3Dses though, to be fair.
I really like the bigger 3DS. It's a lot nicer to hold, and while you can see at times it isn't as powerful as the new model, generally it's a similar experience. I like the button and control layout too on the OG model. I think, ultimately I would get on best with a new 3DS XL, but it's a close call.
Either way I am still having a ton of fun. What an amazing game library it had. I know Switch 2 is really the Nintendo handheld of choice at the moment, but wouldn't Nintendo be on to something if they reissued a 3DS 2? I wonder if that might find a market… especially with GenZ and Alpha looking for less connected devices to consume entertainment on (hence the soaring prices of 3DSes)
Anyone else here a fan of Disco Elysium? I have tried to get into it a few times, but there's something about it I find a bit too heavy going to really enjoy the process. Well, recently Esoteric Ebb has been released and I've been quite enjoying it. It's very similar to Disco, though set in a more trad DnD setting (you essentially play The Cleric, a cross between a genius and a bumbling cretin). The game is sort of set around investigating an explosion in a tea shop. Ish? Though it also isn't. It's very odd, filled with odd people, places, plot points and…. stuff.
There's reams of text and a huge amount of dialogue, but it's also very interesting. I spent about 20 minutes in the first building chatting to myself (and other people) and facing a series of vague moral quandaries. It feels very organic and funny at times, a lot like a real DnD session. It delights in breaking the fourth wall and playing with videogame conventions. It's also very well put together and feels very confident in what it's trying to do (even though it's heavily inspired by Disco and Baldur's Gate 3). It has a LOT so say about real world politics. And the art of selling milk in a pyramid scheme.
I could see this being top of a few GoTY lists this year, but also passing people by completely.
cavalcade