What are you playing?

[noiseredux]

I'd have more time for other games if Tetris 99 didn't exist. I'm up to 8 wins now.

That said, I'm still working on my crazy survey of the classics and not-so-classics. Am currently revisiting Mega Man III, and should be done with that one soon. Top of the pile includes:

Startropics - which I've never played but always looked cool and launched on Switch Online this week.

Final Fantasy IV - which I've played a bit of over the years, but never really gave it the attention it deserves.

Metroid II - or rather, Samus Returns. I played the hell out of Metroid II on GB since it first came out. So I'm looking forward to Samus Returns, although the sort of 2D polygonal look of it doesn't really excite me. We'll see.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Startropics and Samus Returns are both awesome. Have fun!

[pook99]

. I'm interested in DMC5 too, but I'm waiting til I can get it for half price or less. Same goes for the Switch releases of FFX/X-2 and XII.

DMC 5 is absolutely amazing, I'm not too far into it (haven't even unlocked dante yet) but so far is is shaping up to be the best in the series and is leagues ahead of the bayonetta games. I wish I could just sit and play it for hours but unfortunately I've been busier than I liked

Also playing:

1) Ape Escape(ps1) in the spirit of March together retro I am finally playing this game that I have literally owned since its release, so far it is a lot of fun, just slightly hampered by unrefined mechanics (ie: wonky camera, controls from early 3d platformers)

2)Landstalker(genesis) Great game, a little obtuse and it is the kind of game you should use a walkthrough for but is very enjoyable and not a conventional title.

[marurun]

Carry that monkey flag! I remember playing it a bit in Japan just a year or two after it came out and I thought it looked very interesting. It's a neat way to use 2 analog sticks, that's for sure.

[prfsnl_gmr]

All three main Ape Escape games are a lot of fun IMO. The third one, if I recall correctly, even has a pretty wild and fun Metal Gear Solid crossover. I highly recommend all of them.

[pierrot]

I'm playing Sakura Taisen 2, right now. It's interesting that, by comparison, the first Sakura Taisen on the Saturn seems a little bit like a pilot for the series, and 2 just seemed to get money thrown at it for its budget. The FMV cutscene animation looks like theatrical release stuff (or at the very least, something like the Blue Sub no 6, or Macross Plus OVAs), if a bit compressed for playback on the Saturn, and I don't know if I've ever seen better realtime polygon animation from the 5th generation than with the Koubu in each character's special attack. The strategy battles, so far, seem slightly more challenging, but mostly just because they ratcheted back the number of times Oogami can cover one of the other characters in a battle from eight times, down to three times. Also, turn order feels a bit more sporadic than in the first game, so sometimes early in the battle, I've moved certain units into more dangerous positions, not realizing that an enemy was going to be able to take a turn before the rest of my units could act. My battle record is perfect so far, though.

In the adventure portions of the game, they added some new mechanics where some dialogue choices will change or be added/removed after a certain amount of time has passed on the timer, which can be a bit of a pain. There have also been some more free form, point-and-click sections with hard timers set on them, added to the game (eg. there's a section where Sakura and Oogami are trying to convince Orihime to join them while making the nightly rounds through the theater, but Orihime prefaces the interaction by saying that if the conversation takes too long, she's just going to leave (because she's a super-pest)). The first chapter of the game was a little annoying for me, just because it sort of had the same set-up as the first game, and (while for the purposes of explaining certain things to newcomers) had really awkward conversations between Oogami and other characters, where they were talking to him as if he had amnesia, and completely forgot all of the events of the first game; Even really basic things like, 'what are Koubu,' and 'what is your daily function at the theater.'

The art style has changed subtly from the last game, as well, and I'm not totally on board with the changes to Kanna's portrait, but I'm getting used to it. The new characters, Orihime, and Lenny, are kind of annoying. I really liked Orihime's design, but then I found out that the developers decided to put a Super Sumire in the game, and I am totally over it, at this point. I'm pretty sure I already know why she's so terrible, even though I haven't gotten her specific sob story out of her yet, but it really wouldn't excuse the level of intolerable that she is. Lenny just kind of confuses me. I'm not sure if the developers just got cold feet about letting Oogami romance a 14 year old boy, or if he's just a vehicle for directing some of Iris' little girl feelings, or what. Either way, without any (visible) trust bonuses, I really don't see any reason to even try to interact with him. He typically doesn't say anything that a robot wouldn't say, anyway. (Maybe he actually is a steam powered robot; Somehow Kouran converted steam power into electrical power for the Kinematron, so--.) Also, Saki just has to be a honeypot, and I don't really care if she's married, and almost twice Oogami's age, I want Kanzaki Hinako (Sumire's mom) to be selectable as the heroine for the endgame in this one.

[ElkinFencer10]

I stared playing Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade last night; it's one of the four Fire Emblem games I still haven't finished.

[noiseredux]

I started playing Final Fantasy IV over the weekend. I last dabbled with this game via the GBA port around 2009 or so, and at the time was sort of overwhelmed by a large backlog which tended to keep me away from longer RPG's. I think at the time I was way more focused on fighting games, shmups and other arcadey experiences. And so my memory was firing the game up, playing it for an afternoon and then bailing because I got distracted by something else. It had nothing to do with the quality of the game. It was always a "someday I'll get around to this classic" deal.

A few years later when the PSP version was released I picked that one up with the intention of playing through the After Years prequel first, and then the full game. Except... I was still pretty much in that same phase referenced above.

And so... it's been a long time, but here we are. I'm now playing the remake on DS and I'm quite impressed with it. For a split second the updated graphics threw me off. I guess I forgot this was a full-on remake - which I should have remembered given that I'd played the Final Fantasy III remake a few years ago. And though the beautiful SNES sprite art is missed, I have to say they did a good job translating the visuals here.

So far I picked up Rydia and spent some time grinding so that she'd not get killed in a single hit. The benefit is that she's learned a few new spells on top of that. We met up with that guy... um, Anna's dad? His spells were pretty killer, but after we (easily) beat the kraken he got swapped out of my party for the spoony bard. We're off to kill an antlion except the bard is quite a few levels beneath Cecil and Rydia, so I'll prob want to grind him up a bit first as well.

[ZenErik]

Gotten further into Tales of Vesperia now. Still mixed opinions for me. Solid game, but I don't see how it stands out as one of the best Tales games. At least Rita is HQ. I was kinda looking forward to Patty joining the party. Unfortunately she's been very annoying so far.

Also started dabbling in emulators again for the first time in several years. This may affect my plans for what to play over the next few months. Originally everything I had planned was current-ish or at least a remaster, but now I'm really itching to play some classics that I either never played at all or never finished when I was younger. I've got several things in mind from the PS1, Saturn, PSP, and PS2 in particular. Star Ocean 2 is pretty high on my list. Loved what I played when I was younger but never finished on PS1. I've heard the PSP version is a little better so I might go with that instead.

Xenoblade Chronicles 1 also looks amazing in Dolphin! Kinda wish I played it there instead of the Wii U eShop version. But at least the Wii U eShop version helps support Monolith a bit. Overall worth it. Still I might replay it in Dolphin sooner than later because I love it. Probably a top 3-5 JRPG all time for me.

I might hold off on The Last Story now that I'm getting into emulation as well. I tried some of the intro in Dolphin, and the combat doesn't really seem like my kind of thing. Still I know it's fairly short and supposedly has a good story. So we'll see.

[laurenhiya21]

Lately I've been playing through Ar Tonelico Qoga and it's been fairly mixed so far. On one hand I really like the characters and the story is pretty interesting (although it is a little confusing at times for me), but on the other some of the gameplay sections are mega tedious. There's one area of the game which is awful to navigate through (~6 floors of windy mess, elevators that only go between 2 floors, no in-game map) and I've had to backtrack through this area way too many times. It just feels like a whole lot of unnecessary padding. Plus, unlike the previous two games, the battles are fully action based and they're not fun for me at all. The turn-based system of the previous games were so much better! I am getting close to the end of the game, so I'll stick through it though.