What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

[Man_Over_Game]

So, after putting it off a bit as I edged up to 10 heat on each of my weapons in Hades, I finally did a run with full Extreme Measures enabled. And I did beat it - though I kind of feel like I cheated a bit, because I wound up with an Aspect of Achilles spear run with Demeter's cast and the Demeter/Artemis and Artemis/Poseidon duo boons (and plenty of levels on the cast, and other boons that supported it...), so all I really needed to do was endlessly repeat "get bull rush buff -> place crystal lasers -> dodge attacks while they do all the work for me." I did more than that, granted, but still, that's kind of a crazy easy-mode build. So I think I need to make it a goal to get a win against that with my other favorite weapon, the fists, to feel more legit.

Otherwise, thinking I'm about done with the game - I've seen the true ending, and am close to maxing out everyone's... affection meter? Whatever you call the hearts you get for giving people nectar and ambrosia. Really good game, I'm surprised I stuck with it this long, but the core gameplay really is just that good.

Next, I'd suggest Dead Cells. It's a platforming version of Hades with worse plot and better gameplay.

For me, they're about equal in terms of quality, right up there with FTL and Stardew Valley.

[Ionathus]

I just paused my latest Baldur's Gate 2 playthrough (with both the Enhanced Edition and significant tactics mods installed for the first time!) because I've finished everything and am just waiting for my NPC romance to catch up before proceeding to Throne of Bhaal. In the meantime, seeking a more action-packed experience, I decided to pick up Skyrim on the Switch, and I am absolutely absorbed once again.

Last time I played it was 2013 on my wheezy Xbox 360, and the Switch is really handling the game beautifully. I'm thoroughly smitten, and it's like I'm experiencing some of this stuff for the first time. I don't know how it's taken me this long to pick up a Bethesda game again (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Fallout: NV back in the day, in that order), but it's been an absolute blast.

edit:

So, after putting it off a bit as I edged up to 10 heat on each of my weapons in Hades, I finally did a run with full Extreme Measures enabled. And I did beat it - though I kind of feel like I cheated a bit, because I wound up with an Aspect of Achilles spear run with Demeter's cast and the Demeter/Artemis and Artemis/Poseidon duo boons (and plenty of levels on the cast, and other boons that supported it...), so all I really needed to do was endlessly repeat "get bull rush buff -> place crystal lasers -> dodge attacks while they do all the work for me." I did more than that, granted, but still, that's kind of a crazy easy-mode build. So I think I need to make it a goal to get a win against that with my other favorite weapon, the fists, to feel more legit.

Otherwise, thinking I'm about done with the game - I've seen the true ending, and am close to maxing out everyone's... affection meter? Whatever you call the hearts you get for giving people nectar and ambrosia. Really good game, I'm surprised I stuck with it this long, but the core gameplay really is just that good.

The only time I beat EM Hades was with the fists, and you're in for a wild time. It was probably the most intense fight I've ever had in a game. Finished with 10 health and no Death Defiance left and my heart was racing for half an hour after the fact. Hades is absolutely one of the best games I've ever played. It just feels so fun to play. Except the rail. I hate the rail. The rail can rot in Tartarus.

[Zevox]

Next, I'd suggest Dead Cells. It's a platforming version of Hades with worse plot and better gameplay.

For me, they're about equal in terms of quality, right up there with FTL and Stardew Valley.

Thanks, but I am full up on games for the forseeable future. Just got a few as birthday gifts, of which I intend on playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition first, and on Friday Guilty Gear Strive drops, which is one I've been greatly looking forward to. It'll be a while before I even think about looking for games I don't already have to play.

Edit: And Extreme Measures Hades beaten with the fists - though it took two attempts. To be fair though, the first one was a really crappy run. The game seemed to have decided that I just wasn't allowed to have boons throughout the first two areas (I entered the Hydra fight with only an attack boon, a Hermes boon, and two crappy support boons), and afterward decided that I wasn't allowed to have boons that synergized with my weapon at all (it kept trying to push Poseidon boons on me, which I've come to like on a lot of weapons, but definitely not on the fists), and ultimately I went into the Hades fight down two resurrects and without even a Call. On top of that, I was trying to use the Aspect of Gilgamesh, and wound up deciding that its attacks were just a bit too sluggish for Extreme Measures Hades (without a Hermes speed boost, anyway, which I did not get).

So I went for an Aspect of Demeter run next, and well, also to be fair, wound up with an extremely strong build that time - though at least not as easy mode as the Demeter Cast build. I had Zeus' attacks, Artemis' "shoot an arrow with every attack you land" boon, and Hermes bumping my attack speed by 30%; plus Demeter's special boon and a Chaos boon bumping my special damage by an extra 63%, which goes amazingly with the Aspect of Demeter's extra special hits. And that's without getting too into the weeds, because there plenty of other good ones. Hades just kind of melted under that barrage, and I still had a resurrect left by the end. Probably could've had two if I'd been more diligent clearing skulls in the second phase.

[Spacewolf]

Congratulations Hades EM is definitely a tough fight.

I've just started Kingmaker, and I'd like to say the spider swarm dungeon can F straight off. I don't see it being an issue late game but having to try and beat up these swarms with torches because my guys fluffed almost every throw roll is not a good first dungeon experience. I actually had to stop playing the game at that point for the night.

[Taevyr]

Congratulations Hades EM is definitely a tough fight.

I've just started Kingmaker, and I'd like to say the spider swarm dungeon can F straight off. I don't see it being an issue late game but having to try and beat up these swarms with torches because my guys fluffed almost every throw roll is not a good first dungeon experience. I actually had to stop playing the game at that point for the night.

Yeah, that particular encounter is one of the worst in game, kind of ridiculous for that level. I imagine that if you started with a certain class, you might breeze through, but I remember rerolling way too much to get those damn throws to work myself.

I don't quite know how I feel about Kingmaker myself: I loved the first 90-95% of the game, but that goddarn pre-final area

Spoiler: Spoiler

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House at the Edge of Time

was such a complete slog and difficulty spike for me, having to rest every 1-2 fights after breezing through most of the game, that it kind of ruined any desire for a second playthrough I had then. Ended up lowering difficulty completely 3/5's through just so I could finish the story and get my ending slides without wasting hours, even if it was less satisfying.

It's a shame, because if that area hadn't been such a slog, I'd have almost certainly gone for a second playthrough and happily backed Wrath of the Righteous. Instead, I'm cautiously optimistic in hopes they do the final areas better in that one.

EDIT: also, I really hated that locked chests worked with a d20 system, as they often contained part of collections which could become inaccesible due to pure freaking luck. At first, I saved before chests so my maxed-out lockpicker wouldn't fail due to a fluke roll, but it got really tedious after a while.

As for what I'm playing: currently doing the Consular story of SWTOR. Shadow tanking fits me to a T, I've found, and with the module thing that reduces XP gain the levelling rate is almost normal, though the difficulty remains ridiculously easy if you don't set your companion to passive. Will probably be able to put quite a bit of time into the playthrough.

[Ionathus]

Aspect of Demeter is far and away my favorite fists aspect. Those Special hits just feel so delightfully crunchy.

I favored the fists a LOT in the first half of my Hades experience, but feel like I've really drifted away from them in favor of bow, spear, and even sword. If you made me pick one weapon it would be the Hades aspect spear, but one of my favorite gameplay aspects is how truly different each weapon feels. It's like playing 6 different games, honestly.

[Zevox]

Aspect of Demeter is far and away my favorite fists aspect. Those Special hits just feel so delightfully crunchy.

I favored the fists a LOT in the first half of my Hades experience, but feel like I've really drifted away from them in favor of bow, spear, and even sword. If you made me pick one weapon it would be the Hades aspect spear, but one of my favorite gameplay aspects is how truly different each weapon feels. It's like playing 6 different games, honestly.

Mine's the Aspect of Gilgamesh, for very similar reason - the claw strikes feel very good, satisfyingly savage. And the maim condition gives dash-special a reason to exist as a distinct attack. But the Aspects of Talos and Demeter are quite good too.

Fists are probably my favorite weapon overall I'd say, in part because I like all of the aspects (although I don't know why I'd go with Zagerus' over the others, but to be fair that applies to all of the weapons except the sword and gun). For me it pretty much goes: Fists (Gilgamesh > others) > Spear (Achilles) > Gun (Zagreus & Lucifer) > Sword (Arthur > others) > Shield (Zeus and Beowulf) > Bow (Chiron and Hera). The Bow and Shield being the two I'd probably use very little of were it not for the game's random weapon blessing that lets you earn bonus resources. Those particular shields can be fun from time to time, and the Chiron bow melting things with the right boons is sometimes satisfying, but overall I just don't much like their play styles, which feel a lot more hit-and-run than the other weapons.

But yeah, they did a largely good job of making each weapon very distinct, and most of their Aspects so as well. While I don't like all of them, I was especially impressed with the fourth Aspects in that regard.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Been playing a little Slay the Spire again, and just had a stupidly good run as The Defect:

Spoiler: Image

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EDIT - Image should be fixed now. If not, I will be forced to wash my hands of this technology.

Swapped my starting relic, got Pandora's Box which traded out all my strikes/defends and gave me, among other things, Consume. Doubled down on that, building a deck that could always be cycling high-focus Frost Orbs through its relatively few orb slots, with Loop+ to capitalize even further. Kept the deck thin so I could guarantee getting frost cards, until I also got Mummified Hand (playing a Power makes a random card free) on top of the Heatsinks I already had (playing a power lets you draw a card), and then started adding some powers to take advantage and some more cycle to ensure I'd reach Consume/Heatsinks/Seek quickly.

My highest scoring run to date, beating my Grand Finale run with the Silent by a few hundred points (probably by virtue of being on a higher Ascension). Barely took any damage, Perfected all four bosses, and generally steamrolled (albeit extremely slowly, due to having Zap, Core Surge, and Sunder as my only damage dealing cards for most of the run). Then right at the end got Echo Form and Creative AI... which kept giving me more Creative AIs in the fight with the Heart, so powers and the occasional Consume+ were basically all I played after the first 5 turns or so.

[factotum]

(Not sure why the quality is so bad; I'm just pleased to have figured out how to do this.)

I'm not sure you did figure out how to do it, all I see is a grey No Entry sign?

[Rynjin]

The image was there earlier, but it was the size of a postage stamp.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I'm not sure you did figure out how to do it, all I see is a grey No Entry sign?

The image was there earlier, but it was the size of a postage stamp.

:headdesk:

Okay, after far too much fiddling, I think I've fixed it. Worked for me in incognito mode, anyway, and the quality and size are now both correct as well.

[Ionathus]

Those particular shields can be fun from time to time, and the Chiron bow melting things with the right boons is sometimes satisfying, but overall I just don't much like their play styles, which feel a lot more hit-and-run than the other weapons.

But yeah, they did a largely good job of making each weapon very distinct, and most of their Aspects so as well. While I don't like all of them, I was especially impressed with the fourth Aspects in that regard.

The shield was big for me when I was just starting out -- I got my first win with it, long before I won with anything else! But I also grew away from it quickly after that...for such an obviously defensive weapon, it really does require you to run away a ton, rather than get up close and personal.

[Starbuck_II]

Started playing Marvel Avengers, pretty good main story so far.

[Resileaf]

I've completed Psychonauts! Very fun game, glad to have crossed it off my backlog.

Next up will be the Mass Effect trilogy on Steam. Or at least the first game. I've beaten it before and really, I should be up to ME3, but I feel like completing the entire series in one go.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

On a whim, signed up for a Halo Wars 2 tournament. So now I'm practicing that so my inevitable defeat is slightly less humiliating.

[DBear]

Having a blast playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning. Missed it first time around.

[factotum]

I've completed Psychonauts! Very fun game, glad to have crossed it off my backlog.

You're kind of lucky, if you'd played it when it first came out you would have had to play the original version of the Meat Circus, which *sucked*. They improved it massively now.

Having a blast playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning. Missed it first time around.

I played the original and was suitably entertained for 50 hours. Unfortunately the game took 65 hours to complete, the last little bit really seemed to drag for some reason.

[Zevox]

So Guilty Gear Strive is finally out, and I have spent most of the past 24 hours playing it. And damn is it good.

Main highlight: best online performance in any fighting game I've ever played, bar none. I cannot stress enough how good this game feels to play online. It puts games like Street Fighter 5 or Dragon Ball FighterZ to shame, and even eclipses my experiences with other rollback netcode fighters like Mortal Kombat 11 or Them's Fightin' Herds. You basically feel like you're playing offline, all the time, unless you actively seek out people from regions far away from you with poor connections. It's incredible.

Also incredible: the soundtrack. I go back and forth on whether Sol or Ky's theme is my favorite, but there's plenty of close runners-up behind them, such as Millia's or... okay, I need to stop that or I'll be linking to most of them (I'd basically just be leaving off Faust's and Zato's, maybe Potempkin's). I am certainly going to have these stuck in my head for a long time. And they kind of make me want to try some of these characters more just so that I'll hear them more, since a lot of people online probably leave the music selection on "auto."

The tutorial is also very well done. Well, the actual tutorial, which is called Mission Mode, anyway - there is something labeled the tutorial, but bizarrely it doesn't teach you anything besides "move with the control stick/d-pad, attack with the buttons, reduce your opponent's health to 0 to win." The devs had an explanation about not wanting to overwhelm new players with info, which I could maybe understand, but that tutorial still teaches so little that it may as well not be there. Fortunately Mission Mode makes up for it, divided up into 5 tiers of short tutorials for very specific things, which generally do a very good job of both explaining whatever it's teaching and giving you the opportunity to practice it. The first tier teaches the things that should've been in that basic tutorial, then the ones above it get progressively more advanced, until the final tier has some things that even I struggle with (goddamn it Potempkin, why can't I get your kara throw to work?!). The only thing missing is the combo trials - there's one mission in each of the top two tiers with one combo per character, but the combo trial mode that's been standard in the genre for a while now is otherwise MIA. I know with this game's simplified combos it'd be relying a lot on RCs for most characters past the first few combos, but still, that is slightly disappointing, since I always like those.

Arcade mode has a neat setup to it where your difficulty isn't something you choose, it's determined by your performance in your battles, going up or down as you go depending on how well you do. And the final fight gives you an AI ally in a 2-v-1 against the boss, a significantly powered-up Nagoriyuki, which is cool.

I've also watched the story mode - which isn't an error in terminology, the story is basically a 5-ish hour movie. No gameplay involved. Which I know they did in Xrd too, but I still consider a bizarre choice. As much as I'm in favor of fighting game story modes not forcing fights to happen when it doesn't make sense just to keep some imagined required frequency of fights in between story bits, cutting out the gameplay entirely is a similarly poor choice in my personal opinion. But oh well, at least they've upped the presentation compared to Xrd, and it feels like a more complete, understandable story than that game's. The series story timeline and relationship charts that the game includes also help quite a bit, this being something like the fifth main entry in the series and concluding its story thus far, and you're allowed to access those from the pause menu while watching the story too, which was a good call on their part. Without going into spoilers, it is as batsh** crazy as I would expect an ArcSys story to be, and there's definitely parts that don't make sense if you stop to think about it, characters who just kind of show up and do nothing of importance, and twists that don't ultimately end up mattering, but there's also plenty of entertaining bits. Especially from one of the new main villains, Happy Chaos (yes, seriously, that's his name). He kind of reminds me of an evil Deadpool in a way, albeit minus the blatant fourth wall breaking. I'd be lying if I said it was anything like the best story mode in the genre - overall that status probably belongs to MK11's, while I personally se the best-written as still being Persona 4 Arena's - but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and on presentation at least it probably beats everything except NRS games.

The only downside is, well, those damned lobbies still suck. At least they're a little more functional than they used to be, but it's really sad that ArcSys didn't take the negative feedback from last year's closed beta more seriously and overhaul them more thoroughly when they still had time to. But once you're in a fight, that ceases to matter and everything is great again.

So, yeah, I'm going to be enjoying this for a while.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Been playing Tainted Grail, a Rogue-lite deck-builder that's been doing a decent job of scratching that itch, now that I feel like I've seen everything in Slay the Spire and Monster Train (at least until I suck it up and buy the DLC for the latter). I like the variety in classes; there are 9, divided into 3 groups (Archers, Warriors, and Summoners) that each have a completely separate card pool, with the 3 in each group sharing a card pool but having different mechanics, which is a clever way of adding variety. Not as deep as Monster Train's paired clans; deeper than Slay the Spire's four classes.

I do have a few gripes, but overall would recommend.

Spoiler: My gripes

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The game is a bit slow-paced with most of the classes I've tried, though some of that is my own fault. On the tactical level, my winning builds have all been very slow in combat, either taking many turns to build up and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike, or using so many cards per turn that each turn takes a while (side note, I appreciate how if there's only one available target, the card only needs to be clicked once rather than clicked then aimed. It's a small but nice quality of life improvement). On the strategic level, you're best off grinding each region, fighting every single encounter so that you gain more experience and level up faster. And on a meta level, the difficulty is not scaling as fast as I would like; I've won 3 times now, each unlocking a higher difficulty, but most fights still feel too easy. Each of my winning runs have only been in genuine danger of losing one or two times. The same is actually also true for most of my losing runs, except that they died in those sudden difficulty spikes.

Gripe number two, the zones and the final boss could use some more theming. New enemies are introduced in each zone, but generally you couldn't look at an encounter and tell what zone it is in. The final boss is mechanically interesting in that you can't kill it; you have to survive for a set number of turns, and your final score is based on how much damage you managed to do while still surviving its attacks. However, there's no real in-universe explanation for why the boss is that way, or in fact why the boss is the source of the plot-problems at all, and visually it's just a reskin of the fake final boss. It would be much more interesting and cohesive if there was some sort of theme to it, like each turn was the boss taking on the form of a specific enemy/event from earlier in the game, which is destroyed at the end of the turn, and you win once it's run out of tricks to hide behind and can attack the true form.

To be clear, these are somewhat minor complaints. The mechanics are good, the character classes are varied, and the story is interesting with good voice-acting (the graphics are probably fine, but unless and until I can optimize my laptop a bit I'm stuck playing most games on the lowest graphics setting).

[Man_Over_Game]

Been playing a little Slay the Spire again, and just had a stupidly good run as The Defect:

Spoiler: Image

Show

EDIT - Image should be fixed now. If not, I will be forced to wash my hands of this technology.

Swapped my starting relic, got Pandora's Box which traded out all my strikes/defends and gave me, among other things, Consume. Doubled down on that, building a deck that could always be cycling high-focus Frost Orbs through its relatively few orb slots, with Loop+ to capitalize even further. Kept the deck thin so I could guarantee getting frost cards, until I also got Mummified Hand (playing a Power makes a random card free) on top of the Heatsinks I already had (playing a power lets you draw a card), and then started adding some powers to take advantage and some more cycle to ensure I'd reach Consume/Heatsinks/Seek quickly.

My highest scoring run to date, beating my Grand Finale run with the Silent by a few hundred points (probably by virtue of being on a higher Ascension). Barely took any damage, Perfected all four bosses, and generally steamrolled (albeit extremely slowly, due to having Zap, Core Surge, and Sunder as my only damage dealing cards for most of the run). Then right at the end got Echo Form and Creative AI... which kept giving me more Creative AIs in the fight with the Heart, so powers and the occasional Consume+ were basically all I played after the first 5 turns or so.

Been really wanting to pick it up on Mobile, but apparently the port is abysmal. Every single good review I've seen has basically said "Game is 10/10, but the port sucks".

[Rynjin]

That's a bummer, because Slay the Spire is (theoretically) the perfect mobile game.

[Zevox]

So, Guilty Gear Strive's lobbies still suck in a lot of ways, but I've found a redeeming quality. The customizable avatars. Oh, they're pretty boring at first too - the basic options for them, which were all the betas had, are pretty bland and, like of the weird psuedo-pixel-art style the lobbies have going on, don't look very good. The best option is basically to make yourself look like one of the game's characters, since it gives you all the pieces to do that out of the gate, but they're still ugly version of them. But it turns out there's some goofy, fun options that you can unlock with the in-game currency. My current avatar is a centaur with a ponytail, wearing post-apocalyptic shoulder armor, and I go back and forth between wielding an electric guitar and a lightsaber "laser sword." Oh, and one of the color variations for the centaur bottom is a black-and-white striped look, so you can also be a zebra centaur if you like. I have no idea why there's an option to be a centaur in there, given that certainly has nothing to do with Guilty Gear, but it made me happy to find out that there was anyway, and I hope there's more ridiculous options like that which I've yet to unlock.

Anyway, besides playing a lot of Guilty Gear, I've also begun playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition, starting with the original. And oh boy, it's one thing to remember how clunky this game was compared to its successors, and another to play it again and experience it all over. Especially the Mako - I thought I'd seen some report that they were doing some changes to how it controlled to improve it, but it feels just as bad as I remembered, if not worse. The visuals haven't held up the best either, though I guess after 14 years that shouldn't be surprising (though let me tell you, looking up exactly how old it is was surprising to me - probably because I didn't play it until shortly before ME2 came out, but sill). I also can't help but be annoyed by how, well, lame the powers of the game are - playing as an Adept, Warp feels useless, Throw's short range makes it usually useless, and those are the only two damage-dealing powers. So most of the time an Adept is less space-wizard and more space-cleric, using support abilities like Lift, Singularity (which is basically the same thing as Lift...), and Stasis to shut down enemies, or Barrier to protect themself before doing all of their actual damage by just shooting things. Maybe I should've started as a Sentinel or Engineer in 1 and switched to Adept for 2 or 3. Oh well, too late now.

Still, it's not like I'm starting to think it's a bad game or anything, it's just nowhere near as good as its sequels, so I look forward to finishing it quickly and getting on to ME2.

[Silverraptor]

Playing Mass Effect Andromeda for the first time. Picked it up in a super sale. I remember getting hyped for its release then all the bugs coming out and everything wrong was revealed, with the explanation of the problems such as being owned by EA, using a different engine, trying a new combat system (which I think may have been apart of the Anthem combat system. Don't know for sure, never played Anthem), staff restructuring, having critical expectations following the disappointing end of Mass Effect 3, and being owned by EA. I remember that people were saying about a year after that most of the bugs have been fixed so I decided to try it out. I do see some visual bugs here and there, but they are not game breaking. So far and I've been enjoying the game. I haven't gone very far into the game yet, just now got to the citadel-like hub. The story so far is intriguing and I'm eager to continue through it. Please no spoilers, I'd like to be pleased as Bioware wanted me to be and disappointed as EA wanted me to be like everyone else.

[Man_Over_Game]

That's a bummer, because Slay the Spire is (theoretically) the perfect mobile game.

I thought so, too. Used to play it when I had the XBox Game Pass for PC. Might pick it up on Switch, we'll see. There were some gameplay issues I kept running to, like how some builds felt like dead-ends, but thid was early in its birth so things may have changed since then.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Yesterday I found SNKRX, a game that combines the Rogue-Like genre, Snake, and Dota Auto-Chess. Very addictive, lots of fun.

[Zevox]

I astonished myself tonight by winning my way into Heaven.

To explain: Guilty Gear Strive, rather than a typical ranked mode the way most fighting games do them, has its pseudo-ranked mode set up as a tower with a series of floors (lobbies), from 1-10. The better you do in your matches, the higher the floor you're assigned to, making your floor basically your rank. Do well enough at floor 10, and you get an invitation into the "secret" eleventh, highest lobby, Heaven. Once invited, though, you have to earn your right to stay, by winning five of your next six matches on that floor. Two losses before that fifth win, and you're booted back to floor 10. And tonight, I actually managed that. Had four previous Heaven invitations that I quickly got booted from, never won more than one match. But after a series of nail-biters against three different players today - two of whom had already earned the right to stay in Heaven, only one was a fellow challenger - I won my right to stay in Heaven. At least until the end of the month, since anyone who's not sufficiently high on the leader boards at that point has to go through the challenger status again to stay after that.

This tells me one of two things: either I'm better at this game than I think, or it's too easy to earn your way into Heaven given it's the game's highest "rank." I lean towards the latter, personally. Because I have never come anywhere close to the top ranks of any other fighting game's ranked ladder. So, yeah, that's crazy to me.

Also, wrapped up Mass Effect 1. Yeah, nice game for establishing the foundations of the series' worldbuilding and characters, but mechanically, yeesh. Enemies are damage sponges to the point where they can (and basically always will) just run towards you to get around your cover, and it's legitimately hard to stop them before they do so and get some solid shots on you, which is extremely weird. But by the end there Barrier was basically making me immortal, while Singularity/Lift were effectively "I win" buttons, so the wacky balance goes the other way even harder. Even the final boss was vulnerable to Lift, and I thought I remembered him being immune to it. Game probably could've done with more tweaks than just adding the ability to mark items as junk and then mass-sell them (though that was appreciated).

Also, still hate the Mako every bit as much as I remember. Screw that stupid tank and every barren, mountainous planet they want you driving it around.

[Anteros]

I thought so, too. Used to play it when I had the XBox Game Pass for PC. Might pick it up on Switch, we'll see. There were some gameplay issues I kept running to, like how some builds felt like dead-ends, but thid was early in its birth so things may have changed since then.

If anything the final release only makes that issue worse. Builds that like to cycle lots of cards are heavily punished by the final boss to the point where they're nearly unusable.

[Cespenar]

Yesterday I found SNKRX, a game that combines the Rogue-Like genre, Snake, and Dota Auto-Chess. Very addictive, lots of fun.

Yeah, I've tried that as well, not bad while learning and trying things out, but I can't see myself playing it for that long.

[oxybe]

New fortnite season has been out for a while and i've gotten more of an opportunity to play around with it.

Bows are gone and snipers are back. it felt weird getting those 200+ meter kills again after last season.

Crafting has been changed a bit. no longer are there primal/mechanical updates but rather nuts and bolts used to upgrade the tactical shotgun into a lever action one and back. I miss the variety of bows but I do prefer the craft a sidegrade option then primal/mechanical split off of a base makeshift.

Map has some changes as usual. animals are still around but only drop meat (basically a heal potion), as well as alien spaceships and npcs in set areas. You can find driveable spaceships. they're clunky and large moving targets, but still fun.

Levelling up your battlepass is... different.

it's a weird callback to the old battlepass, where tasks gave you stars instead of XP and every 10 stars levelled you up. Now when you level up you gain 5 stars and trade these as currency for battlepass items. you unlock more pages of items by levelling up the pass or buying X amount of pass content. I don't hate it but it's definitely a bit awkward. levels are gained as normal: doing common tasks like shooting people or specific quests for npcs to gain XP. You do get enough stars in 100 levels to fully buy everything on the base pass, though you'll need to play beyond lv100 to get the bonus costumes and stuff, unless they get extra star quests/event/drops ect...

I do like what they did with one of the special skins. For context, in season 2 chapter 2, one of the special skins was "Maya". She wasn't outlandish or anything but she was customizable. An army woman with various patterns of fatigues and protective armour and war paint you could choose from as you played through the season and unlocked that option. the biggest gripe was that anything you locked in, was permanent.

The new skin they introduced, the alien Khymera, has a lot of unlockable options: rubber forehead, goofy chin, eye colour, skin colour, skin patterns, armour colours, armour glowing bits colour and the emblem (one from a list or your banner). these are unlocked by finding and spending tokens that spawns in set locations on the map. these parts are permanently unlocked. It's highly customizable and I'm happy they're exploring this type of skin again. I'm not the biggest fan of the skin of yet, but I like that they're exploring that option.

[tonberrian]

Picked up the parts of Planetfall i didn't have in a sale. Having a lot of fun, much more than Civ Beyond Earth. Trying to grok how to Xenoplague Amazons right now. Also how to endgame, because I'm getting beat up by the easy computer's deathstacks once i'm in a real war.