Discuss games you've been playing

[DarthConker]

Dark Souls II was my least favorite of the Souls trilogy when I first played through all three games back at the beginning of 2020, but I've slowly been growing more fond of it lately. For every awful design choice the devs made there's a handful of really small yet neat little details that haven't been tried in the other Souls games like the torch system, or actual new things happening on New Game + cycles. Still not a fan of the movement and the unfair spamming of enemies (at least in the Sins of the First Scholar edition; apparently this wasn't as big an issue in the original release of the game), but the shift from Dark Souls 1 to 2 reminds me a lot of Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask. There's a similar feeling of despair in both MM and DSII, not to mention some odd design choices that I think can be overlooked due to the quality of everything else.

Anyway, I went to continue my save from last year and finish up some bosses I skipped (including finally getting around to the DLC areas) but somehow my save data was deleted (and annoyingly DSII doesn't use Steam cloud save backup), so I guess I'm starting yet another playthrough of this game.

[CaptainDredlokk]

It's been a few months since I finally got around to beating it let alone 100%'ing it, but Yooka Laylee was not anywhere near as bad as it was made out to be in my opinion. It isn't without flaws - some of the Pagies were very obtuse to in their puzzles (I spent a very looong time looking for the gas valve in the casino for the jacuzi in the ice level due to the strange texture choice on the jacuzi itself and eventually gave up and googled the solution) and despite there being nearly 20 tonics I almost strictly used the one that makes hard to find collectables whistle, Despite this and the occasional annoying pagie, it definitely gave me that satisfying Banjo collectathon challenge, and in spite of the boss fights on the easier side, Capital B was a pretty good final boss that tests most of your kit.

I was pretty satisfied with it in spite of it not being the greatest game in the world. Too bad it wasn't as well received because I'd love a renaissance of that style of game - really felt like Microsoft was gonna do something crazy and announce Banjo Threeie when they let Nintendo use the rights to BK, but it came and went without a peep from MS which is a shame as it would be a welcome announcement what with them reviving Fable and getting Rare working on something new - even if they had another team working on the game. Then again, 343 is really fumbling the bag with Infinite so maybe it's best that BK doesn't have a Nuts and Bolts 2 as a sendoff...

[DementedSun]

Finally got around to finishing Breath of the Wild, having never seen any spoilers since the game released somehow. I absolutely hate weapon durability being so low, made me never want to bother killing enemies in the field - especially after I learned about the invisible XP you gain that makes enemies stronger, but hardly benefits you at all. So glad that Tears seems to fix the durability issue by letting you mesh items together to 'repair' them. Still, after finishing BoTW, it really doesn't feel like a Zelda game. I'd definitely give it maybe a C, and even Skyward Sword would get like a B-. I really wish games would stop being 'open world' for no reason. The lack of dungeons and unique areas made it feel so empty. I hope this isn't a permanent change to the Zelda formula, because it isn't special.

Drift/randomly not walking full speed with the pro-controller is also so freaking annoying. How did Nintendo mess up SO bad designing this gen's controllers, when the Gamecube was peak design.


OH, also 100%'d Bugsnax before it left gamepass. Probably my favourite game I've played this past year, and this is exactly what a new style of Pokemon game could be like.

[CaptainDredlokk]

I finally managed to squeak out a victory on

Spoiler: (highlight to view)

Jevil

and man Toby knows how to make a tough optional boss. I also forgot how good Deltarune chapter 1 is; the writing is great. I'm on chapter 2 right now, right before

Spoiler: (highlight to view)

I fight the queen. I've already beaten Spamton NEO and while I love his psychotic, disturbing character more than Jevil, I was a little disappointment with how much easier he was - with me beating him on my first attempt. Still, I haven't attempted the Weird route yet and I know he's tougher there. I just have to be able to bring myself to actually play through that sadistic playthrough...

Overall, I have no idea why I put off playing it for so long when I was beyond hyped when it first dropped. Playing through both has definitely rekindled by excitement for the chapters to come though and made me bust out the Gaster evidence boards and my tin hat all over again lol

Originally Posted by DementedSun

Drift/randomly not walking full speed with the pro-controller is also so freaking annoying. How did Nintendo mess up SO bad designing this gen's controllers, when the Gamecube was peak design.

I'm on I think my 3rd Joycon thumbstick repair at this point. I hadn't had that issue with my pro controller, but it's a damn shame that a lot of things on the device are such poor quality in terms of durability. Like, I understand the plastic screen and "soft but tough" philosophy with the core console since it's supposed to be a toy the children can use, but the controllers are the antithesis of that design and stuff like the body bending to the point the dock doesn't work and the screen literally scratching from using the dock are really embarrassing for a $300 device...