What Are You Currently Playing?

[ShugoHanasaki]

I'll be playing Tales of Arise in the future when I have the money as I have a bit of a backlog

Beat Atelier Ryza 2. Great game!

Now I'm playing DBZ Kakarot

[Nobiyuki77]

Just finished Metroid Dread 100%. Amazing game, can't wait to replay on Hard. Also recently completed the Tsukihime remake, the artwork is lovely.

[Sonic#]

I've been playing **Dungeon Encounters**, the Square Enix dungeon RPG, on the Switch.

The game is basic and has virtually no story, but it has my pulse gameplay-wise. The game starts from a simple premise: ATB gameplay with two basic types of attack/defense (physical and magic) and Pac-Man-style dungeon grids (the more tiles you explore, the more ability points you get). The presentation is minimal: every location, event, and enemy is marked by a two-digit hexadecimal number on the grid. No battles are random, and players can even choose between weapons that deal the same damage every attack and weapons that deal random damage (between 1 and X, where X is relatively high).

Then the game gradually introduces its features - an enemy with a status effect attack, a new armor that protects especially against magical damage, a weapon that neutralizes all enemy armor, an ability that allows one to hop over a space. The game has me checking every new item drop I find and experimenting with new abilities like evasion.

I'm at the point now, about 30 levels in (out of 99), that I can see how the game carefully manages player risk. It's entirely possible to play exhaustively as I have, exploring every tile on every floor, doing every puzzle fighting most enemies, and examining new items and mechanics at leisure. That provides a decent but manageable difficulty with fun exploration. With the tools I've encountered (abilities, equipment), it would also be possible to deep-dive this game, going deep in the dungeon as fast as possible and looking for the right items or tools to take down late-game content early. The game has me thinking about how to speedrun it, which is not usually how I think about games.

Anyway, for me the game is a good illustration of the difference between minimalism and cheapness. Dungeon Encounters feels minimalist because it makes the most out of very little, because (for me) that pared-down aesthetic contributes to the focus on mechanics. I'm a literature person, a story man, but it's nice to occasionally play an RPG that tickles the gameplay side.

[VidKid369]

I beat Tales of Destiny II (PSX)! I kinda lagged on this one cause I've been exercising. What a fun game! I thought it was so much better than the first Tales of Destiny. I can't believe I've glossed over it in my collection this whole time.

Next, I kinda wanna play Suikoden V just so I can complete all the main-games lol. But, who knows.

[ShugoHanasaki]

Still playing DBZ, but i'm now also playing Diablo 2 (^.^)

Next is hopefully Tales of Arise

[VidKid369]

Just finished Grandia II for PS2 I loved it! Loved the combat system and the specialty skills points were so easy for me to understand.

Moving on, though... Kinda thinking about playing Xenosaga 2 next or just *something* on the PlayStation 2...

[ShugoHanasaki]

Grandia II is great & the trilogy of Xenosaga is fantastic!

[VidKid369]

^ I thought Grandia II was actually pretty great. There were some problems w/ the PS2 version like sometimes the menu screens would turn opaque and the characters would turn into a skullgray color during battles, but the game never froze on me or anything. The background music seemed ripped right out of the Lunar soundtrack like some of the songs seemed straight out of Lunar it was uncanny. My favorite was the battle system it was so easy and the skill points were not complicated at all. The game did seem a little easy and I never had to grind if you just fight every single monster you encounter on-screen. One of my favorite RPGs I've played thus far recently in my collection!

I popped in Xenosaga 2 and I couldn't sit through chaos and Canaan talking in the opening intro. Sometimes I prefer text with no voice acting...

I popped in Vagrant Story and I'm playing it right now.

[ShugoHanasaki]

"I popped in Xenosaga 2 and I couldn't sit through chaos and Canaan talking in the opening intro. Sometimes I prefer text with no voice acting..."

I mean....I don't even know what to say to that, lol. Your loss I guess (^^;;)

[Angelalex242]

Xenosaga 2 is the least impressive of that series, but it helps if you have a level 99 Xenosaga 1 save. You can transfer the skillpoints to everyone except Jin.

[Sonic#]

I've been playing Shin Megami Tensei V. I'm traveling through the second major section of the Underworld, about level 32, and I'm about ready to stop.

The exploration is great. The game strews tokens and other findables across its landscape. The use of vertical space in a non-platforming game reminds me a lot of Xenoblade Chronicles. I also enjoy fusing new demons and seeing the designs and allusions. That has kept me going for 15-20 hours.

However, I'm starving for story here. I'm kind of curious about the overall setup (the setting seems to be firmly post-apocalypse, but many of the angels and demons still seem to think they're at war), but the character dialogue is minimal. I don't know why I'm not fascinated like I was with Shin Megami Tensei IV. Maybe IV provided more enticing rabbit trails of lore?

Also, I feel like I don't have time for losing progress each time I game over, or getting a game over on a boss, running around again to collect more demons / Macca to fuse better options for that boss, and dying again before I can save. I realize this kind of vulnerability is a draw, but Nethack and Hades both do it better - Nethack radically embraces permadeath but doesn't take long to deliver intriguing gameplay; Hades is lethal but gives me something each time I die. Comparatively, I feel like I don't have time or patience to play an hour of SMT V and make a half hour of progress.

--
As a point of comparison, I've also been casually playing Final Fantasy V (the pixel remaster for PC), about a half hour at a time. Having never played it before (but having played FFIV and FFVI periodically since the 1990s), I'm fascinated. I die about as often in this game, figuring out what I should be doing with the job system for every boss - I'm still trying to make Blue Mage work. Yet, rather than being discouraged, I'm still engaged both by the job system and the adventurous story. I think that a compelling story makes losing progress easier to recover from, a lesson that also applies to how I play Lunar.

[VidKid369]

Hey. I beat Parasite Eve a few days ago, I thought it was great. I like cop dramas. It kinda makes me wanna get into the Resident Evil games. Like survival horror. I just like when the character stands still and you can turn them to aim lol.

So in my journey of trying to beat my RPG backlog I've been concentrating on one game at a time but I kinda got tired of that. Usually I have more than one RPG going at once. I start the prologue/tutorial-beginning of each game so it'll be ready when I get to it. I have a couple of games going on right now I have 3 games on my plate:
--Secret of Evermore I usually play this in the mornings. I got through a chunk of it already I'm in the gothic period and the dog is a poodle. Really enjoying this one.
--Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon I play this when I want to just take a break from the serious games and have fun. I never beat it in middle school, but I remember I got through quite a bit.
--Persona 2: Eternal Punishment I'm only playing this cause I'm getting down to the last few RPGs in my PS1 collection and there's nothing to play originally I had thought about waiting to get to play Innocent Sin first but then I thought what the hey? I've started-and-stopped this game so many times since I got it and I am so determined to finish it this time that I pop it in for 1-2 hrs each day and brainlessly grind and fight monsters. I like don't even care anymore. I'm not even sure if I even like this game, or not.

Also I sent my PS3 to Manila to get repaired hopefully in a week I'll know the status of it, if it can get fixed or not. *fingers crossed*

[Alunissage]

"I popped in Xenosaga 2 and I couldn't sit through chaos and Canaan talking in the opening intro. Sometimes I prefer text with no voice acting..."

I mean....I don't even know what to say to that, lol. Your loss I guess (^^;;)

Unless the voice acting is really absolutely perfect (in my mind) and/or the entire game is voiced, I'd rather read text. It just feels like an intrusion to me to suddenly hear voices when I've been reading everything. Really bugs me in the later Ace Attorney games because no one sounds right.

[ShugoHanasaki]

Well it's something that's going to bug you until the end of time then, because that's how video games are now. If it really bugs you, then you're letting something bug you that's outside of your control.

Personally I had the opposite reaction. It was 'unheard' of (^.~) (pun) to have characters have voices in the past. But it started slowly on certain games roughly 22 years ago or so. It was exciting! To hear the dialogue in LUNAR and then hear Final Fantasy X speak and so many other games that i've fallen in love with.

Some of my favorite moments in LUNAR wouldn't be my favorite especially without John Truitt

[VidKid369]

I beat Secret of Evermore last night. I thought it was really, really good. I loved the dog! Now I'm just working on Goemon and Persona 2.

As for the voice acting--I honestly don't really mind them. I just said that about Xenosaga cause I thought the intro was really bad, I don't really like when an RPG has a really long intro you have to sit through without a save. (Valkyrie Profile) My sweet spot seems to be around the PS1 era so I prefer some-to-minimal voices like for example when characters just yell something out during a spell.

I'm slowly going through my PS2 games and the voice acting is something I don't mind, although it's annoying if you can't skip it and you have to sit through it.

[Sonic#]

"I popped in Xenosaga 2 and I couldn't sit through chaos and Canaan talking in the opening intro. Sometimes I prefer text with no voice acting..."

I mean....I don't even know what to say to that, lol. Your loss I guess (^^;;)

Unless the voice acting is really absolutely perfect (in my mind) and/or the entire game is voiced, I'd rather read text. It just feels like an intrusion to me to suddenly hear voices when I've been reading everything. Really bugs me in the later Ace Attorney games because no one sounds right.

Me too. I don't have anything against voice, but I am more comfortable reading dialogue.

Also, with the exception of autobiographical or nonfiction books narrated by their author (like Carrie Fisher in The Princess Diarist), I prefer reading to audio books.

[Alunissage]

Well it's something that's going to bug you until the end of time then, because that's how video games are now. If it really bugs you, then you're letting something bug you that's outside of your control.

Dude, I'm not an idiot. I've noticed that "that's how video games are now." And I'm okay with that being the general case, even though I have a default preference for reading, in large part because most voice acting I've heard in recent years has been quite good. I'd like to have more options for turning off voices (or switching them to a language I don't understand, so they don't conflict with however I'm reading the dialogue), and subtitles should always be available. Not everyone who plays games has perfect hearing or auditory processing, and some of us like to not inflict our hobbies on those around us and choose to play with the sound off if others are around.

And of course things outside my control bug me, because if they were in my control I'd be able to do something about them.

[Ghaleon777]

Currently trying to try and to like Final Fantasy 7 Remake on PC... I say "trying to try and like" because i cant get into the action mode that they implemented now, i loved the turn based combat with the ATB system of the original one.

Also the voice acting in english, its off. But that its something personal of course.

It doesnt help that my PC is a potato and i can barely run this 90gb monster at 30fps lol

[VidKid369]

Hey, everyone. Since I last posted I beat Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon and The Last of Us. I finally got my PS3 replaced since it broke I bought a new (used) one off an app lol. I've been on it for a few days now. I had a bad dream after beating Last of Us, I was thinking maybe it's from all the violence and gore so I'm gonna keep that in the back of my head.

I kinda gave up on Persona 2 but maybe sometime in the future I'll restart it on PS3. For the time being I'm playing Tales of Symphonia. I'm also dabbling in Breath of Fire III and Illusion of Gaia but I'm thinking about starting a bunch of games today. Hope you all have a great day!

[ShugoHanasaki]

Well it's something that's going to bug you until the end of time then, because that's how video games are now. If it really bugs you, then you're letting something bug you that's outside of your control.

Dude, I'm not an idiot. I've noticed that "that's how video games are now." And I'm okay with that being the general case, even though I have a default preference for reading, in large part because most voice acting I've heard in recent years has been quite good. I'd like to have more options for turning off voices (or switching them to a language I don't understand, so they don't conflict with however I'm reading the dialogue), and subtitles should always be available. Not everyone who plays games has perfect hearing or auditory processing, and some of us like to not inflict our hobbies on those around us and choose to play with the sound off if others are around.

And of course things outside my control bug me, because if they were in my control I'd be able to do something about them.

I never insinuated or thought you were an idiot o.o