Welcome to the last weekly thread of 2024! We are going to skip the next weekend as some of you (including me) might be on holidays. So, Happy Holidays!

Still Playing Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout as my primary game. I am getting near the end, but I have been ignoring alchemy for a little while, so may have to spend few hours catching up. Should be able to finish it next week though.

Just got Vampire Survivors from Epic store for free, so have been playing that for last 30 mins or so. I liked the trial on Switch, but didn’t get it there cause I when I am on Switch I would rather play other games, on PC though, I can play it sometimes when I don’t have access to consoles. Not sure how long or regularly play it, but enjoying it for now.

And since this might be a long weekly thread, what are you planning to play over the holidays?

I am thinking about starting Yakuza 6 on PS. I was planning to replay the first 5, but going to skip them now and go straight to the next one.

On Switch, will continue Donkey Kong Country 2 after Atelier Ryza. Not sure if I’ll have enough to finish that too or not.

What about all of you? What have you been playing?

  • MisterDeutsch@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    As a teacher starting his Winter Break, I’ve got my eyes on the Laughing Man (that’s the Famicom Detective Club VN). But most likely, I’ll be continuing to plug away at Picross 6.

  • De_Narm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Still on Witcher 3, just finished the Bloody Baron arc which has been great! Looking forward to more.

    Probably won’t play anything else anytine soon, the game is massive.

  • xyzzy@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard and moved on to Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Nearly polar opposite RPG experiences.

    At some point I’ll come back to Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. I’m around halfway through it, so I just need to spend another 15 hours or so.

    • slimerancher@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      How’s the Veiguard? Want to play it soon-ish.

      KC:D is pretty good, but very slow. You shouldn’t try to rush through it. Just take your time getting better at things.

      • xyzzy@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Rushing it isn’t my style (with any game). I don’t use guides and I take my time. KC:D strikes me as very similar to Morrowind in a lot of ways.

        Veilguard, well. My opinion improved gradually over the course of my nearly 100-hour play through. I got 100% on the game, but in the end I felt like it was a 7/10.

        The dialogue is very bad at times, particularly in the beginning. Maybe I just got used to it.

        I felt like some of the characters were very annoying in the beginning, but by the end I had found a couple I really liked, and I softened on some that annoyed me at first. I disliked one character throughout the entire game.

        The story was heavily dependent on the established lore but tried to also be a fresh start since the last game came out a decade ago. It didn’t entirely succeed on either front and I felt like it was fairly predictable throughout. There were some exciting moments, mostly in the middle.

        I disliked combat. I don’t have a strong preference about action, turn-based, etc. as long as it’s fair and complex enough to hold my attention. With a good combat system I’ll play on the hardest difficulty and enjoy the struggle; I turned Veilguard down to Keeper (easy) just to get through battles faster. Your companions in this game are basically just extensions of yourself, and don’t draw real aggro (even with short-lived taunt abilities). I played as a squishy mage, and every and I mean every enemy just beelined straight past my companions toward me. Normal battles were fine, but for bosses there’s no practical difference between melee and ranged since they can teleport or fire continuous area attacks. During a boss battle, ten enemies will spawn at a time, all coming for you. And for at least one boss you spend more time fighting the geometry of the fighting area than the enemies. So anyway, maybe it’s more fun with a different class, but I didn’t enjoy it until I turned it down so I could speed through. By the end it was way too easy with all my upgrades, but I just left it.

        At the beginning I would have given it a 6/10. It improved one point because some of the characters grew on me. I’ve played every Dragon Age as they were released, and it was my least favorite.

        Sorry. Your experience might be different; I’ve talked to some people in person who really liked it.

        • slimerancher@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          That sounds really bad. Thanks for the detailed response. I was thinking about playing mage but will remember your point and do a bit of research before starting.

  • Phelpssan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Playing If My Heart Had Wings!

    Not a ton of progress, but I’ve completed the “prologue” and the Soaring Club is reborn! Lots of bonding moments with Kotori and Ageha so far, and I’m curious to see how long until the twins we saw in the opening join.

    Playing Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea DX!

    Had a rough week at work, and few games are more relaxing to me than the Atelier series so I decided to replay a bit of this one. Unsure if’ll go for a full run, but so far it’s doing its job in making me feel better. Last time I beat this game I went with Shallistera for the protagonist, this time game I’m going with Shallotte, the other “Shallie”.

    I feel the game wants you to play Shallistera first, she’s much closely connected to the earlier plot beats, but there’s some good reasons to play with Sharlotte, like the fact that you get best girls Miruca and Wilbell as your initial party members. Also, I love when characters have unsual weapons and she uses a goddamn broom.

    Playing Crimzon Clover - World EXplosion!

    I was going to stick with Under Defeat as a side-game for a while, trying to unlock enough continues to beat it, but then this showed up as “on sale”, and a decided to pick it up since I had heard a lot of praise for it.

    And holy crap, what an amazing game. I’m a huge shoot’em up/shmup/“bullet hell” fan even though I lack de skills to beat them, so I’ve played a lot of games in this genre and this is quickly climbing the ranks of my all-time favorites.

    It’s a love-letter to the genre, clearly inspired by Cave classics but having a lot of interesting and unique ideas. I love the bomb/break system, where instead of a stock of bombs you have a charging gauge that can be spent for a screen-clearing bomb, or give you a massive score and power boost if you last enough to get it full. Stages and bosses are very well designed and fun, the sprite work is fantastic and the OST keeps the adrenaline pumping.

    The different modes also deserve praise, “Arcade” is a crazy-hard difficulty for the experts on this genre, while the “Novice” mode feels just right for my somewhat limited skills, challenging and adrenaline-filled but something I can realistically attempt to get a 1-credit clear. And then there’s “Arrange” as a middle ground, plus a few other modes like a time attack.

    • slimerancher@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

      Yeah, I am becoming a fan of Atelier games too, its only my first one though, so would need to play and like a couple more games before I can call myself fan of the series.

      I like schmups, but not bullet hells, unfortunately they both go side by side. Would love a schmup, that isn’t a bullet hell.

      • Phelpssan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        4 days ago

        Would love a schmup, that isn’t a bullet hell.

        Have you tried Drainus? Really good Gradius-like shmup from Team Ladybug which also made two of my favorite metroidvanias in recent times (“Touhou Luna Nights” and “Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth”).

        • slimerancher@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          I remember you mentioning it, I think I added it to my wishlist too. Haven’t played it yet though.

          • Phelpssan@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            I’ve asked around for more “non-bullet hell” shmup recommendations and heard good things about Super Hydorah.

            Also got a few comments to take check the Darius series. The CS Core version of Dariusburst which people say is the most complete one is on sale, and there’s also G-Darius and two different collections of older games (one for Arcades, one for Consoles).

            If you don’t mind older games you can get 19xx on the Capcom Arcade for $2. Input lag on that collection is slightly high for my tastes (I play a lof of Gigawing there), but it’s still playable, and it doesn’t get much cheapter than that.

              • Matija Šuklje@toot.si
                3·
                2 days ago

                @slimerancher @Phelpssan, a few more non-danmaku STGs that I’d suggest:

                vert (T = tate support):
                • Anger Force (T)
                • Astebreed
                • SophStar (T)
                • Dragon Blaze (T)
                • Gunbird 2 (T)
                • Sisters Royale (T)
                • Moon Dancer (T)
                • Missile Dancer (T)
                • Dimension Drive – weird
                • Shoot1Up – weird

                hori:
                • Sine Mora
                • Blazing Star
                • Black Bird – weird
                • Rigid Force Redux
                • R-Type Dimensions
                • ProtoCorgi – weird
                • Aqua Kitty UDX
                • Andro Dunos 2
                • Thunder Force IV

        • MisterDeutsch@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          4 days ago

          I am so happy to have read this comment. Drainus looks like a perfect return to my college days playing Gradius.