What videogame are you playing recently?

[Akibiyori]

The PS2 held up fine going through Dragon Quest VIII again. A great experience reliving this game in its 100% original format. If you’ve got a CRT around, get it out and use it - these games still sparkle with the right equipment!

Didn’t do the Ultimate Dragon, just too much time to get back up there each time, do both fights each time, and then do the gauntlet at the very end, but I did the true ending. Didn’t finish the Monster Arena this time either. Should have Rank A but that Treevil ruined the final match by reviving the Rockbomb. Would have won if I hadn’t lost that extra turn. Decided to just stop at that.

One thing I definitely don’t like about this one is that bosses really overuse the Wave of Ice technique, both in the number of them that use it and the frequency with which they use it. Not really a big problem, but it’s odd to remove your game’s whole slate of mechanics and reduce things to a basic level so often. “Fine, Empyrea, I’ll just pull out Hero and Yangus’ critical hit techniques then, how do you like that?” (Really, that’s how you should do that fight.) Captain Crow was way easier than I remember - basically, defend after he gets up to high tension and you’re golden (apparently this fight can go very differently, I just got lucky this time and he kept to the strict tension pattern.) I’d say the second form of Dhoulmagus was the battle that put me on edge the most, it can go really bad fast if you’re not careful.

Holy Protection/Holy Water is your friend in this one. Normally I don’t like using stuff like that but it’ll help you keep your levels down and expedite exploring the countryside for treasure. It really smoothes out that aspect of the game - the overworld can feel a bit too large for its own good. You don’t need to get any higher than level 40 to finish this one (Ultimate Dragon, though, does require a bit more than that.)

These days, I’d rank XI, V, and IV above VIII but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Dragon Quest VIII.

[Akibiyori]

Played the Super Famicom remakes of Dragon Quest I & II. These are great! It helps that these are second playthroughs and I’ve picked up some tips from speedruns but, still, these streamline and quicken the pace of both games in an extremely impressive way. The first Dragon Quest isn’t “Grinding - The Video Game” at all in this case. I must have cut at least half of the time I spent with the NES version off of this one. I wound up at the same level as the NES version when I finished it, might have been just at 18 if the Dragon Lord didn’t get a surprise attack at the start of the second fight, obliterating me with two straight breath attacks. Difficulty seemed mostly the same as far as enemy strength, it’s just easier to progress faster (a little more money, enemy placement at certain points seemed more generous.) Dragon Quest II will still require a little bit of a grind at the end but it’s nowhere near as bad as the original version in this regard. A little easier, I suppose, though it’s hard to tell for certain (psychologically, definitely, but I’m not sure in practice how much these changes actually affect the difficulty.)

This collection bumps my estimation of both games in the series up considerably. Good stuff!

[pressureworld]

I'm playing The Division 2 on Series X. On the old 360 I'm playing mostly Cave shmups Mushihimesama Futari 1.5, DoDonPachi Ressurection or Raiden Fighters Aces.

[HipsterTrash]

Gave up on RDR2 long time ago. The early game is a bit of a slog so I couldn't get past that.
So I dropped that and gaming for a bit. After a while I got back and decided to play Sleeping Dogs, the definitive version. Despite it being a tad dated and buggy, it holds up and is a delight. Makes me wish there was a show of it on HBO.

[Akibiyori]

Received my copy of Dragon Quest VII (PlayStation version) in the mail today. Got it for an acceptable price - $70, without the manual, but the discs are in nice condition and, after some case surgery and cleaning, it looks good.

(But, really, why couldn’t I just get this for $10 from the PS3 PSN store? Oh well…glad to have it!)

Played a bit of it a long time ago. About to start it for real but I took a quick look at it earlier to make sure it worked. Still don’t like this rotatable overhead view, just like Xenogears. If the game had to look behind the times (terribly so,) I’d much rather the developer just stuck with what they had achieved with DQVI and the fabulous DQIII remake (one of the best looking SNES games,) improved by the PlayStation’s capabilities. The least they could have done is add analog support, even if it was just digital-via-stick, to make the movement less taxing and perhaps also allowed camera movement with the right stick. They had more than enough time to allow for this (3 years!)

Good lord, that CGI! They shouldn’t have bothered.

But despite all that, I’m excited to start and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it very much!

EDIT - Ah ha! I tested it earlier on the PS3 but I’m using the PS2 now to play it. You can use the analog stick! Great! It also looks much nicer on the PS2.

[red_5ive]

Finally got around to Rise of the Tomb Raider. It's only been sitting in my Steam library dormant along with maybe 3, no wait, 4 thousand other games.

[loosegoose80]

games I'm playing

God of War for my Playstation 3
Ni No Kuni II, Zelda Skyward Sword, Bravely Default II and Monster Hunter Rise for my Nintendo Switch Lite

[Akibiyori]

Finished Dragon Quest VII (well, mostly.) I rank it in my top 5. It improves most everything VI did - a renewed emphasis on exploration and mystery after the very story driven V - but feels much more a whole experience (VI had bits that seemed completely undeveloped, like that business with Muriel and Terry and their hometown.)

The one place where it falters is difficulty. It seems like it’s going to be fairly challenging during the first part of the game prior to getting access to Dharma but that early roughness soon dissipates. The first boss fight immediately after class changing will wreck you unless you happened to get very lucky with the enemies’ attack choices. It’s basically telling you, “Go grind your first jobs to get some new abilities.” So you do that and you now have access to some key attacks that level out the difficulty completely and remain useful for the rest of the game (Roundhouse) and it’s not long before you’ll wind up with one of the best attacks altogether (Paladin’s Vacuum.) Add in good healing options, a regular Healus user and the eventual Sage’s Stone, and you won’t have much trouble for the rest of the game. It’s a minor issue overall, balance issues in your favor are standard for JRPGs, but still a little disappointing (I think of how VI’s final boss can easily mess you up even with plenty of good classes mastered; you can’t say the same for Orgodemir.)

(One random difficulty spike very late in the game - those HellHawks in the fire path of the final dungeon. Holy crap! Those guys can kill you from out of nowhere! The worst random encounter in the game for sure!)

DQVII has perhaps the best group of NPCs I’ve ever encountered. You’re going to do a lot of talking and there’s a seemingly never ending amount of variations in what these people have to say aside from the main story content, not to mention your party’s reactions to all of these interactions (the first game with Party Chat!) I can see how people find this excessive but just when I thought it might be stretching things thin, I’d come across a new episode like the Forensic Files-meets-Soap Opera business in the herb garden town or the lousy people who lied about their town’s history or Loomin, the town you have to keep going back to save, culminating in the adorable Chibi the Hellworm story. Loads of good stuff!

Wonderful music, quite a change of pace compared to the previous DQ games, low key and mysterious.

I got used to the pseudo-3D style. Getting to use the analog sticks helped big time. I wish that remake of IV for the PlayStation made it out over here, I’m dying for a good remake of that (TV capable; don’t want to do handhelds these days, my computer isn’t good enough for emulation of systems past 2000, and the mobile version isn’t controller compatible.)

As for the post-game, I beat God (28 rounds at level 43) but I’m not eager to grind out all those levels in order to get the three tablets for the second bonus dungeon. I hear the four Elements aren’t very difficult, so I’m setting it aside for the meantime.

Pretty much done with DQ for now, can’t do IX or X at the moment (handheld/multiplayer content that needs to be revised/re-released and an MMO, which is a complete non-starter for me.)

[HipsterTrash]

Beat Sleeping Dogs. And jus tin time for Halloween/October. So now it's time for Doom, Resident Evil, Outlast and Alan Wake.

[Kid Boruto]

PS5:
Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed. I'm currently playing thru the Takoshima missions.

PS4:
I recently beat the AC Ezio Collection and have started playing Assassin's Creed 3.

[Warren Viddick]

I try myself in online-shooter games. Don't know why, but i find them quite entertaining and staff)) Actually tried to play theese games when i was 16 and wasn't good enough...everybody called me noob. Now i try Valorant, and i guess i'm not as bad as was in 16, but still not a top player. I was even thinking about boosting an account https://anyelo.net/valorant-boosting. Quite interesting possibility. There is an option to give my account to top player or play with him in one lobby. Maybe than i will play better))Who knows

[Mike0284]

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments.

[Akibiyori]

Started Chrono Cross recently but once I got to Fort Dragonia I stopped. Just wasn’t feeling it. The various characters aren’t that appealing and there’s no real hint of danger at all until you get to Fort Dragonia. Still has a great soundtrack.

Going to start the Final Fantasy XIII sequels soon so I decided to give myself a refresher course of FFXIII, finishing all of the Cie’th Stone missions this time. Vercingetorex surprised me - it seemed like poison alone would be enough to take him down. Extraordinarily effective and you can get a good score (4) with it doing the bulk of the work. Whether I go for five stars on all of these…maybe…but that’ll be another time. Also have the Long Gui to take on, which seems very much like the Adamantoise battle strategy but with more strict attention to paradigm changes necessary. I’ll give it a good go eventually.

The one thing about FFXIII I really don’t like is the equipment upgrading system but after this I have to say it’s really not necessary…or at least you really don’t have to do any more than get your weapons to level 2 and mastered for the tougher optional content. The level 3 weapons and accessory upgrades seem completely unnecessary.

Not ever going to try for that trophy for obtaining every item in the game. What a total f’ing waste of time that crap would be.

FFXIII - definitely a firm member of my FF top 5 now, no question.

[Low123]

Wow
It's very cool.

[Luke Dodge748]

I still like to play my N64 and 3DO once in a while. And I've been meaning to hook up the PS1 for some Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

But lately I've just been playing the Sega Genesis mini 1 and 2. Gotta admit it feels good to play these games again. I wish I had kept my Genesis collection, but these minis area nice alternative. Because it's gotten too expensive to start collecting the system again. Except for a few of my favorites.

This system is finally allowing me to play a bunch of stuff I always wanted to play but never bought/rented back in the day. Love these things. Just wish they had some 32X games, but looks like I'm going to hack one of these.

[lalbers]

I was one of the few people in the world who enjoyed the first game, and I absolutely love the second. I enjoy playing in freemode with a friend, the strategy involved in co-op missions is really exciting, and I've always been interested with the aspect of hacking.

I plan on getting For Honor soon, because I played the beta with some friends and I HAD A BLAST. Seriously, it was something unique and extremely fun. We'll see if the full game itself can live up to the hype. Nowadays though-I've found myself in an entirely new situation: slots! They're not just fun; You can read all about them here at Bitdreams if you like risky bets or occasional lucky winners - because trust me when we say these machines will test anyone's luck

[Akibiyori]

Had another run through A Link to the Past the other day, been playing it for over 30 years now and must have beaten it at least 30 times.

Playing Final Fantasy XIII-2. Just past the Flan monster in Sunleth. Hmm, reminding me of FFX-2 - a lot of thought put into certain things but a lot of it comes off kinda half-assed too, and the things that they did put some thought into seem way overdone. Writing certainly isn’t anything to be hopeful about. God, that scene with Snow and Noel at the end of the Sunleth episode - yech! Speaking of Noel, totally unlikeable, both as a character and absolutely as a character design (like Tidus’ dorky brother with those ridiculous pants - a true Nomura/Naora hybrid terror, one of the worst character designs in the entire series.) Not crazy about it right now but there are some nice areas to look at, some okay music, and it’s brisk enough that I can play it every now and then. I don’t think it’ll achieve the same amazing turnaround the original did for me, though.

[Doc Samson]

Started playing Dead Cells yesterday. Really cool game.

[mysticwaterfall]

Been doing Dragons Quest XI S lately. It really sucks you in, and being able to alter the battles be Ultra Fast is certainly a nice improvement in grinding. This actually only my second DQ game after playing IX on the DS years ago and loving it. Someday I'm going to try some of the older games.

[russweiss1]

Just finished Tales of Zestiria this morning. Will probably start another Tales series next.