Games You're Playing Right Now Thread VI - Even in this thread, F O E

~Beyond the Border~ > Akyu's Arcade

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Pywackett-Barchetta:
Bayonetta.

...I feel like I can leave it there, really. But suffice to say, I say a lot (primarily about racing games) that you don't really realize you've been playing a bad game until you play a great one. I've never played spectacle fighters or anything like that, and as such, I am very bad at this game. Been playing through on Normal. Hooooooly hell, does this game set my new bar for action games astronomically high. It's got the spectacle for sure! Enormous setpieces and colossal foes and action-figure-esque constant gleeful excess that just ramps up and up and up until you're firing from the hip while riding a motorcycle down an exploding highway and powersliding to slow down time to go even faster. And that's the halfway mark. But, I never really paid attention to this sort of game because there's plenty enough setpieces in the other stuff I play for me to know full well that they mean nothing without good core gameplay. In that respect, Bayonetta excels. Graceful, easy to get hold of (mostly; the floaty platforming still proves a problem for me), and consistent. Plus, you can, y'know, just keep restarting and ignore your end-of-level rank... which I've been needing to do. You get better and better at each fight not from just getting bolstered by tons of RPG-esque upgrades (those are present if you want 'em, though), but from just learning the timing and actually improving.

I've been also playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and now the dodge-kills in that game feel pitifully absurdly easy because I am now used to Bayonetta's timing instead.

In regards to racing games, of course I've got a few new ones in the rotation there. Project CARS 2 is much more simulation-oriented and thus not really for me, but I've been very much appreciating the deeper cuts of course selection there, such as historic layouts of modern-day Formula One circuits from back when they were just public roads cordoned off, and rallycross circuits in places like Daytona. I've played Daytona International Speedway in dozens of video games starting from when I was three, and I still never had tried the rallycross layout before last week. That's a nice extra.

More pertinently, I've finally come across a PC copy of Blur at a local flea market. You might not recall Blur, but you might remember it's horrendously ill-advised advertising campaign, with a TV commercial showing a cutesy mascot kart racer. One of the little characters, a tiny broccoli man, stares longingly across the fence to something more Gran-Turismo-looking, and it had a tagline of "play with the big boys".

Now, see, I complain a lot that the only racing game most people know and like is Mario Kart, but the only racing game most people know and like is Mario Kart. When your marketing campaign is "your favorite thing is for stupid baby morons, play a real game", you will fail. This, combined with being released in a window right alongside several other arcade-style racers (most notably the similarly-fated Split/Second), doomed it to the bargain bin and shuttered the development studio (eventually; they got exactly one more project in the 007 tie-in Blood Stone). Anyways. For extra irony points, the game most directly comparable to Blur is the later Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, and for good reason, as that was made by a good portion of Blur's staff. It's got realistic city courses and real licensed cars, but with tons of energy weapons and items and all. Any pretense of the game taking this very seriously was purely in the marketing and not really in the game itself; it isn't played up cartoonishly, it just sort of is. It's a video game. This stuff can happen. It's fun. End of explanation, as far as the game's concerned. I'm still only just starting out, but it's nicely hectic and arcade-style (not just in handling, I mean that each race is a short burst of total mayhem and plenty of things to get done in a few laps). I think I can safely say it's a damn shame this game got buried and I'll be quite glad to play a whole lot more of it.

Ranko:
San Andreas and Smash Ultimate!

CF7:
I've been playing quite a bit of EO Nexus, while commuting.
My first team was let's make a bad team and spend 140 hours on the first playthrough. I.e. Hero/Princess/Pugilist | Zodiac/Arcanist. But somehow said team managed to 100% the game on Heroic.
My second run was let's make burst damage team and kill things fast. Highlander/War Magus/Nightseeker | Harbinger/Gunner. 5-6 turns boss kills for this team were the norm. I made it to the post game, killed Juggernaut at level 114 and kinda called it quits, since the team does not really have defensive options. I switched to Picnic difficulty for shit and giggles and completely melted both super bosses in 5 turns each at level 116. Picninc is Stupid (with a capital S).
My third team is let's go back to the basics with some oriental flavor mixed in. I am running Shogun/Ronin, Protector/Landy, Medic/Sovereign | Ronin/Landy, Ninja/Nightseeker. And despite my initial fears the team performs really really well. So far made it to the 10th labyrinth and it's been quite a smooth sailing.
Randoms are mostly handled by Ninja sleeping all enemies and then Ronin and Shogun murdering everything.
Bosses usually go like this. First turn Ronin starts in the front line, Shogun uses Great Warrior on Ronin, Ronin uses Vanguard, Medic uses Attack Order, Protector uses Front Guard, Ninja usually uses Bone Crusher. Second turn Ronin hops to the backline and spams Air Blade supported by the rest of the team (Star Drop from the Medic to reduced boss's defence even further, Twin Swallows from Shogun and the like). Repeat until the boss is ded ded ded.
I am not sure if i would go for a fourth run using the classes i haven't used in the first three runs, but that would make an interesting team of Landy, Imperial, Farmer, Suvivalist + some other class.

Ionasal kkll Solciel:
I'd be a lot more forgiving of sub-only if the translation was actually really good. At least know your damn it's, its, and its'!

(In all seriousness, though, I'm looking forward to being back in Arland; or rather, back in the former Arls Kingdom, because Meruru is my favorite. Inb4 Witch's Tea Party was the canon Meruru ending.)

(Also also I'm apparently two months late to learn Crystar is indeed getting a translation, slated for August! I... uh... should probably get going on that playthrough.)

Pywackett-Barchetta:
Got into Persona 3 for the first time lately. It's been a relatively merciful transition going to this from P5, with the only obvious downgrades being more finicky menus and the graphics being stretched (playing the version of FES that's available for download on PS3; I miss the Wii Shop Channel and companies actually making their older games actually reasonably easy to purchase, so I wanted to show that I appreciated them doing it and go for that. Also I don't have a PS2). A bit more hectic of a schedule lately means I haven't been able to blaze through as much of it as I did P5, but I also am not learning totally from scratch this time, so that helps. That's been my main fixation as of late. I definitely am increasingly understanding why my friends have loved these franchises for so long; it's not just excellent value for the purchase price, but they're also just wonderfully deep, wonderfully fun games with truly immersive worlds and great dialogue options.

Inversely, I wanted to get a 'popcorn game' sort of mindless explosion-fest for those times that I don't have much time to dive right in, and got a copy of Watch_Dogs 2. I loved the original, but... I kinda regret getting this one. The controls are way more unintuitive, the lovable cast of characters kinda isn't (at least not yet), and I think a bit of it is just that I've grown up since the first game's release and am more obviously unimpressed by and disappointed in the shameless attempts for shock value and ripped-from-the-headlines parody. It feels more like it's trying to be GTA-esque, and I've never cared for that style. Credit where credit is due, though; the game's aesthetic seeps beautifully into every single thing about it and is an absolute treat to behold, be it the map screen being your phone's map app, the absolutely trippy and stylish mission intros, or even just little things like the studio logo intro glitching out. Every moment about it has a clear visual design that's bright and colorful and wonderful. I just kinda wish there was more solid game behind it.

Project CARS 2 has lost my interest in its career mode for the most part due to an issue with tire temperatures (they're modeled for you, but not for AI, meaning that qualifying takes you 15 minutes to get a good lap in where the AI will get pole position in one go), but it's become my go-to for just hopping on for a quick race at a specific course or just mixing and matching stuff in fun ways.

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