What are you playing?

I've been playing some Football Manager 19 on my PC. I can't wait to go back to my dorm room though since my roommate will bring back his PS4 with all our games.

 

I FINALLY finished Final Fantasy X-2 (including Last Mission, which is 10 hours of my life I'll never get back) and now I'm taking a week-long break from JRPGs, because I am seriously exhausted.

So I'm splitting my time between 2 games - DOOM and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. Both impulse buys (well the first was a trade-in, so it doesn't technically count...according to my bank balance at least) and both surprisingly enjoyable! I say "surprisingly" because DOOM is Bethesda and Ultimate Alliance 3 I wasn't expecting to enjoy after suffering through the first game on PS4 and hearing that they'd gated off the majority of the X-Men behind an expansion pass...which I will probably end up buying, because oh god this is ridiculously fun.

At the moment I'm using Venom, Thor, Wolverine, and Scarlet Witch, and I am loving it. I'm a bit disappointed that Spiderman is basically unusable because he's voiced by Yuri Lowenthal and if I have to listen to his toxic voice shouting "Whip whip!" every few seconds I will lose the last remnants of my sanity, but there is Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales, so that's OK. I am probably going to main 8-10 characters (in addition to my current team of four I plan on using Spider-Gwen, Psylocke, Storm, Deadpool, MAGNETO, and maybe Miles too) but I am actually really motivated - at least right now - to 100% this. The Infinity trials don't seem TOO unfair in terms of the challenges (at least, I am assuming the time trial aspect can be overcome by being overlevelled) and I want to unlock Thanos because reasons.

Plus the comic nerd in me is pretty excited. The MCU has left me extremely bitter towards Marvel in general so it's nice to see this game doesn't take after the MCU in terms of gross misrepresentation of the source characters. Proxima Midnight actually looks the way she should, and they remembered to add Supergiant to the Black Order. Although I feel like the MCU has led to some wasted character slots...I mean, Iron Fist? Black Widow? Sheesh...

...I won't do all this in a week, and I am playing Dragon Quest Builders 2 on holiday, so this will probably be a long term project.

 

I made a mistake and popped Gradius V back into my PS2. The game is absolutely insane in its difficulty, yet bizarrely it's still a blast to play, probably because it was made by the kings of crazy hard yet crazy fun games, Treasure. If you like Bullet Hells I highly recommend.

 

Started yet another run in Skyrim. My Argonian assassin is shaping up!

 

I've been dabbling into this pretty obscure game. Its kinda like Harry Potter but with more medieval weapons and characters. I doubt anyone here has heard of this hidden gem, though to anyone curious, its called Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
Joking aside, I also just got Astral Chain recently and am excited to see how Platinum Games handles its first Cyberpunk setting.
On the non-Switch side, I'm trying my hand at Everspace, which is basically 3d FTL. So space, roguelike, hard, and full of stuff to do. Unfortunately I keep dying, but thats to be expected.

 

Since I've been playing exclusively on Switch, there's a couple of games that have really caught my attention as of late.

Breath of the Wild is, of course, an excellent time-sink once I jumped into it. Currently attacking my first Divine Beast, Vah Ruta, and dealing with the whole Zora situation while simultaneously attempting to track down any signs of the memories Link needs to find. Also, Korok Seeds. That'll be interesting.

Secondly, Minecraft snuck up on me and became a source of a lot of my gametime. Finished setting up a second base layered with different types of rock, like a desert. (Calling it my "Torte-ress.") And soon, as soon as I finish discovering the joys of farming, finally, I'm going to start sailing and exploring the giant procedurally generated world.

Also, here and there, I've been jumping between Hollow Knight (Got the Dream Nail not too long ago), Enter The Gungeon (Finally made it to the third level for once), Super Mario Odyssey (Finished the main campaign, just trying to git gud enough to collect all the moons), Cuphead (On Inkwell Isle Three, almost to the Devil now), and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (Managed to unlock my third form for my character, a frog).

 

I've been playing FIFA 20 after I got EA early access for like $5! It gave me 10 hours of early playing time and it was fun!

 

Well. What I wanted to do was play Dragon Quest XI S. But that didn't arrive on Friday. So what did I do instead? I started playing Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. I had finished both Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Link's Awakening by Thursday, and the post (and my life generally) sucks - I just knew if I spent Friday doing nothing in the hopes I'd get DQXI it wouldn't come, and I would have wasted a day. Ain't got time for that. So I started NNK instead, reasoning that I could wait to play DQXI if it came. I really wanted to play NNK anyway, because I didn't get on with the PS3 version at all...but I didn't get on with Bayonetta or Skyrim on PS3 and I enjoyed both on Switch. NNK would be the same, right?

...nope. I can't stand it. It's a very pretty-looking game, and the music is fantastic, but god almighty it's a boring, tedious experience with some infuriatingly stupid game mechanics that have not aged well. My instincts about what I will enjoy or not enjoy are generally correct, but Ni No Kuni has frustrated me twice - I thought I'd enjoy it twice and both times I have not. If or when I finish this pile of trash expect a scathing review warning you off. If this was a Ghibli movie it'd be one of the bad ones, like Porco Rosso, rather than one of the good ones, like Howl's Moving Castle.

It just doesn't have any soul. This is a problem I noticed with a lot of amazing-looking JRPGs from the last generation - Eternal Sonata (and god did this one upset me because it's even more beautiful than this and the score is some of Sakuraba's best), Infinite Undiscovery, Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, Magna Carta II (although okay I enjoyed this one a bit) and The Last Remnant (which I will probably buy on Switch eventually because I hate myself) - where it has all the makings of a good game but falls short because it has no real...passion. The characters are lifeless, the gameplay doesn't measure up, just SOMETHING is off. It's still off. With Ni No Kuni there is the additional problem of the messed-up game mechanics, with familiar recruitment and EXP rates being negligibly low yet the game itself still retaining the requirement of grinding and mixing up strategies to exploit boss weaknesses. The end result? Chasing Toko enemies around for hours (because they run, and vanish, and they are faster than you) if you can even find them, fighting the same monster over and over for that under 10% chance of recruitment, and barely levelling at all in the meantime. Many JRPGs have that one monster that is insufferable to find or kill but nets obscene amounts of EXP - Dragon Quest has the metal slimes, as another one - but most other JRPGs will at least make combat with other enemies rewarding. This one doesn't.

I am presently Level 51 and I have some pretty strong familiars, but getting there has been a slog that I realise could have been much, much more tedious than it was. This a badly designed video game, with very little appeal beyond pretty visuals and a fairly good soundtrack (perhaps equal to the Final Fantasy series, but not equal to the likes of NieR, Xenoblade, or Sakuraba's better works such as Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, and Valkyrie Profile) which just aren't enough when the story and characters are so flat they could be self-insert protagonists for all the difference it'd make. I think I'm about 3/4 through the game and I am going to have to grind some more before I reach the final boss, and I am not looking forward to it. Really, I should stop. But I won't. Because I am not going to have this game hanging over me any more and I am a masochist with these things - I don't like not finishing what I start. If I drop it now it'll probably be another 6 years before I pick it up again, if ever. I WILL finish it.

So, in conclusion, I am playing Ni No Kuni. I was going to do all the side quests, but at this point I just want to finish it so I can play something I might actually enjoy. Like DQXI. That amazing-looking game I have been excited about for about a month - and anyone who has read any of my posts knows it is VERY rare for me to be excited about something - and really want to play right now. Although I'll probably be so burned out on JRPGs when I'm done this that I'll need a break. But that's OK. I have Resi 4 and Ori I want to play through too.

Don't be tempted to play Ni No Kuni, people. Don't be like me. Play something fun instead.

 

I have been making progress in my playthrough of Daemon X Machina as of late. Game is great, especially with the amount of customization available for your mechs the more you play. Just wish I had more people to play with, since it does have 4 player online co-op missions

 

Juggling three games right now!

The first is Dragon Quest XI on Switch, which is pretty great. I'm not especially motivated right now because I played a fair bit on PS4 before I sold it because it was a) too slow, and b) had offensively bad music. Both issues have been fixed on Switch, so I'm looking forward to getting to where I was before and carrying on. Playing in 3D mode because I want the voice acting, but I am sorely tempted by 2D mode because it's just so much prettier. Sorry, but it is. The visuals are a pretty big downgrade on Switch from PS4 - I'm playing in handheld mode - and I just prefer 2D visuals. I may do a NG+ in 2D in the VERY distant future, but for right now, 3D mode is the mode for me.

The second is Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate...yeah, I've picked this up again. Mostly because I got the Hori Split Pad Pro and I want to see if playing the game with proper dual analogue is better...it is. It definitely is. As a gunner I hugely appreciate this. Right now I am just doing whatever, although I am sort of focusing on Crystalbeard and Drilltusk...I need those small crowns. Once I've got those two I can relax a bit, because I can easily solo the rest. I just...don't want to solo Rank X of those two potentially hundreds of times for that 6% chance of crowns. Fuck those small percentage rates, seriously. I'm not going to play this as much as I did previously, though. Maybe an hour or two a day. Anyone playing? Drop me a message on here or Discord (latter would be better) and we'll hunt! I am HR 381 and I'm up for anything that isn't an EX Deviant or 2-player Arena quest....I've S-Ranked those and I NEVER want to do them again. Especially the Barioth one. Good lord...

The third is...Far Cry 5. Yeah. I've not really touched my PS4 since I finished Kingdom Hearts III for some reason, and I decided I wanted to play something Western, because I am getting my fill of JRPGs on Switch. I'm not sure why I settled on Far Cry 5...because it's the latest one I suppose. New Dawn is a narrative sequel to it so that kinda rules that out. I'm hoping Assassin's Creed Origins will come to Switch next year, and the Gold version is still quite expensive (and yes, if I am going to play Origins I NEED the season pass content for it, it lets you fight pharaohs and Egyptian deities!) so I'm trying to resist it, despite loving the hell out of Odyssey and wanting more of that. I guess I'm trying to broaden my horizons a bit too? Not to extreme lengths - I'm not going to pick up a racing, puzzle, or fighting game or anything - but...well, I like taking chances every now and then. It often pays off, on PS4 especially.

So far, so...okay I guess. I'd be enjoying this more if it was in third person, and had a different setting. It has this Bioshock Infinite feel to it that I really don't care for - by which I mean really bad stereotypical American accents mixed with religious extremism that doesn't resonate with me in any way whatsoever - but the gameplay is pretty immersive (yes, I know it's standard for the series, but this is my first Far Cry game, leave me alone) and...yeah, it's fun. I can't see myself becoming a huge fan of the series (although I might try Primal in the future if I like this enough; I love interesting settings) but first impressions are positive enough to keep me playing.

Aaaaand that's it. For now.

 

I am currently playing Rocket League yo