Still Playing Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout as my primary game. I think I should be in the later half of the story, not sure though. Pretty much just playing this now, so should be able to finish it soon-ish.
One exception though, with all the Donkey Kong drops, I started Donkey Kong Country 2 (NSO SNES) again. And I don’t know what issue I had last time, but this time I was able to clear the first area pretty easily. Died couple of times in last level, but other than that it was pretty simple. I didn’t find all the secrets though. Only 2 DK tokens, though got most of the KONG letters, not sure about other secrets, but I am sure I missed some.
Stopped playing at first level of the second area / world. The lava one. Only started it on impulse and may play it a bit here or there, but will return to it seriously only after finishing Atelier Ryza. I really enjoyed playing it though, hope difficulty won’t spike too much as the game progresses.
What about all of you? What have you been playing?
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My plan is to continue meditating my way through Picross S 6.
Heh, cool. I am just about to finish S 4, just 5 or so puzzles remaining, then just Colour and Extra. Everything else is done.
Paper Mario TTYD is my holiday season nostalgia game. I got it for Christmas when it first came out on Gamecube, and I started playing it every year since COVID winter 2020. And now I can enjoy it in all its remastered glory on Switch, so that’s pretty cool.
Super Robot Wars V. Just hit the first hard split on the story where I could stay with the super edgy Cross Ange plot, alongside Gundam 00 and Fullmetal Panic Or, go along with the Nadesico and the super silly Mightgaine, alongside several UC timeline Gundams. I chose the latter.
I know a friend who loves Super Robot Wars, haven’t gotten around to play it myself though. How are you enjoying it?
Super Robot Wars
Did someone type the magic words to summon me? 😆 I’ve commented that I love this series in the past but I don’t think I’ve mentioned how deep I am into it with… 38 games beaten according to my notes.
So yeah, if you want to know more about the series just ask me.
Yeah, I would love to know more about the series. Don’t have any idea about it, so not sure what to ask, so leaving it for you to decide.
BTW I think we have talked about this before, but I couldn’t find it int my saved posts, so maybe not.
SRW games are love letters to fans of Mecha anime that also happens to be surprisingly good Strategy RPGs.
Gameplay loop is fairly simple, short VN-style story sections -> Customize/upgrade units -> Battle.
Stages are turn-based, and late game you can deploy around 20 units. Recent games are more on the easy side (with SRW30 being the biggest offender), but some of the older games like the OG series have a rather good challenge curve. They’re very friendly to handheld play since you can save at almost any time.
Most games are crossovers of 15+ different anime, and the main story is a combination of plotlines from those series. This is one of the reasons why familiarity with at least part of the series helps, if you know nothing at all you about them it may get quite overwhelming with too many characters and plotlines. To their credit, they do a decent job trying to ease you into it, slowly adding series and also featuring a very detailed encyclopedia with series details, character and mecha profiles.
The fancy battle animations are this game series’ trademark, mimicking in good detail the original anime series.
If that sounds interesting, there’s 4 games on the Switch with official english translation: The V/X/T trilogy and the most recent game which was the 30 year anniversary game for the series.
I personally think the V/X/T games are much better, and would recommend any of them as a starting point. There’s virtually no connection between them (just small cameos), so you can play them at any order.
They need to be imported physically or bought from eastern eShops, and one thing to keep in mind that for T you need specifically the Asian version. For V, X and 30 both the Asian and the Japanese versions are multi language.
Thanks for the info, saving it for future reference.
I don’t want to buy the physical versions, so will have to see if I should go the PC route or try to get it from another region.
Any chance any of them will be coming to west?
Any chance any of them will be coming to west?
The general consensus is “almost zero”. Would be a licensing nightmare since they’d need approval for the license holders of those 15+ different series in the US/EU. Releasing Japan/Asian versions with english support is probably their best way to support a western audience without dealing with this.
That being said, it’s not that hard to buy from a different eShop region. When I bought Atri I simply created a Japanese account using a different e-mail and got a prepaid card for that region from play-asia.com.
Yeah, the only issue is I don’t like to create multiple accounts, but I guess is there is no getting around it.
You can change your own account’s region too, but you can’t do it if you have any money in your account, even 0.01, and that’s not possible when using prepaid card.
Thanks for the info.
If you have any interest in giant robot media, or tokusatsu stuff, or enjoy tactical RPGs with tons and tons of characters, it’s the game for you. I’m really enjoying SRW V, but I’m not sure it’s the best place to start with, given how many of it’s mecha crossovers start at their “late stage” and kinda assume you’re familiar with the source material. I’m pretty familiar with the Gundams but some of the other shows I was a bit lost about, such as Nadesico and Fullmetal Panic. Then again, V is one of the most popular recent games. Every game in the franchise is independent from one another, though, and they all explain all the basics you need to understand the plot. Just pick the one with the robots/shows you think are the coolest.
I have interest in ‘giant robot media’, but the only one I have ever watched is Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan, don’t know anything about any other one. It is on my list to properly get into it one day.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan
Quick FYI that SRWX includes that series. 🙂
Ah right so THAT’S why X was on my to-play list. I keep forgetting what’s on which game.
The Akurasu Wiki is a good reference for SRW info, including series list.
Ah, cool!
TTGL is peak (mecha) fiction so thats a great one to have watched. Very much in the “super robot” camp that this series is named after, as opposed to “real robots” like Gundam, where the mecha are more akin to military machines than giant superheroes and get treated as such. SRW does a good job of mixing the vibes and themes of the two.
Interesting didn’t know there was a difference, but just looked it up. Will have to watch some “real robot” anime too now.
Haven’t found much time to play recently, but I beat the Deku area in Echoes of Wisdom today. This was probably my favorite area, mostly because we haven’t seen Deku sprouts as a serious race since Majora’s Mask. I find them a lot more interesting than the Korok, so I really hope they return in a major role again sometime.
At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m about to beat the game, so it’s time to finish off all the side content. I already finished the Dream Dojo including the advanced time requirements, which wasn’t that hard except for a select few challenges. Though even those wouldn’t have been so bad if there was a way to just restart without quitting out entirely! That’s a major oversight a game of today really can’t get away with anymore.
And one more thing I’ve been meaning to say for weeks but always forget… how is the lock-on so bad? Why does it seem like it prioritizes my own summons over the enemies? 99.9% of the time I do NOT want to lock on to the rock I placed somewhere! I’m actually unhappy that when Tri levels up, some summons become cheaper because the last thing I want is more entities to lock on to!
Yeah, nintendo can sometimes be pretty dense about QoL features. They really need to work on this.
Don’t recall having much issue with lock-on, but I can be pretty forgiving of issues in a game if I am enjoying it.
Just got NSMB for Wii working on Android, pretty stoked 😁
Splatoon 3
I been mentally exhausted a lot lately. So this game is relaxing because I only have to think about the now, and rely on reflex.
Yeah, multiplayer games be relaxing a bit, since you don’t have to care about any story or anything.
Finished Qualia: The Path of Promise!
Feels to me like the developer could not quite figure out what they wanted to do with this VN and just tried adding a bit of everything, but the end result is a very average game with nothing really strong or memorable.
It spends most of its runtime on the romance, but the chemistry between the two leads is not strong enough to carry the game, and while there are some interesting twists and themes those aren’t explored properly.
There’s one neat feature at least: You can enable two languages at the same time, which can be useful for people learning japanese. I’ve seen VNs before where you can switch between languages with a button, but this is the first time I’ve seen something like this.
Playing If My Heart Had Wings!
Resumed this game after Qualia, but didn’t get much progress this week. It’s quite good so far, I really like the way it’s deailing with the theme of disabilities and the overall relaxing slice-of-life feel of the story.
Playing Under Defeat!
Current side-game, a classic G-Rev shooter. Really hard, and the heli controls can take a while to get used to, but what a great game. Unfortunately only available in Japan right now, so you either have to get it from the japanese eShop or import the physical version.
No Vampire Hunter this week?
Do you have a Japanese e-shop account or imported the physical?
No Vampire Hunter this week?
Vampire Survivor? No, I ended up taking a break this week.
imported the physical?
For this particular game I got the physical version from amazon.co.jp. I’ve been buying a lot from there, because there’s a few interesting games that only get physical releases on Japan/Asia, but also because a lot of Switch games are multi-language and for less popular games it’s often easier or cheaper for me to get them from that site.
Forgot to mention on the post above but IIRC Under Defeat is getting a western release sometime in 2025, no need to import it unless you’re like me and can’t wait.
Do you have a Japanese e-shop account
I also do have an account there. 😀
It got it because of a VN I was really interested that for some reason is only available in Japan digitally, but I’ve also used it to redeem free codes with extra stuff on some physical games I bought from there.
lol, how did I get Vampire Survivor name wrong?
Thanks for the info.
To be honest, whilst I will do my daily ACNH routine, I will be consuming all the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle content I can.
Cool, planning to get it soon? It’s nice to see the game getting good reviews.
So far it’s been amazing. Its like being in an Indiana movie, and still being in control. Plus you get to beat up baddies! There is also SO MUCH content (and I have only traveled to two locations!). Totally engaging.
You can expect Indiana dry/wry humor and all. It is all there.
IMO worth every $. (I’m a PC gamer first, it’s a shame it wont come out on PS5 until next year, not that I have one. It will never come out on Switch, there is no way it could handle it).
DL from Steam was 100GB+
That’s great to hear. I am looking forward to it. Not a big fan of first person view in the game, but Fallout won me over when they went from isometric to first person, so going to give it a proper shot too.
And yeah, it will never come to Switch, but if it’s coming to Series S, it may be able to come to Switch 2, but only time will tell.
I am very patient gamer though, so one year delay (for PS5) doesn’t mean much to me, I am still playing games from 2015 (just finished 2014 with Metro Redux couple of months back)
Zelda, OoT Master Quest
Oooh, nice. Playing for the first time?
Yep :D
Working my way through the Mario and Luigi series on my replay tour before I start Brothership
Currently playing through Bowsers Inside Story
Nice, which one are you currently playing?
