What are you playing?

[Gunstar Green]

Play offensively, learn to abuse the parry (I suggest going with the Hunter Pistol at first because it's faster and longer range), and have fun. You're in for a journey into madness, in a good way.

[Tiduas]

Been playing Kingdom Hearts 3 since its japanese release two days ago. Won't spoil a thing here except that it lives up to all expectations I could ever dream of. I'm loving it! Do not be afraid to crank that hype level up to a maximum!

[Arenegeth]

Been playing Kingdom Hearts 3 since its japanese release two days ago. Won't spoil a thing here except that it lives up to all expectations I could ever dream of. I'm loving it! Do not be afraid to crank that hype level up to a maximum!

I wish I had both the money and space in my schedule to spare for both Kingdom Hearts III and the Resident Evil 2 Remake.

But it looks like I'll have to wait closer to the summer to get around to them.

I have finally restarted Shenmue, and well, I wasn't kidding about that guide I actually started writing it.

It is of course currently only for my own benefit, and it will take a lot of time to polish if I ever decide to actually publicize it, but it has proven to be very useful to me so far, and has definitely forced me to be ultra efficient, perhaps obsessively so, compared to my previous playthroughs. I have also achieved more in a shorter spawn of time because of that.

Tough there was this surrealistic moment when I was reading my own guide as I was playing my way through the game. Only problem is that it has made this playthrough more time consuming, not only because I have to write things down, but also because I tend to scrutinize everything more.

Oh well, if everything goes through this time and I end up publicizing the guide later, I guess that would make me kinda like Jesus Christ, I suffered for your sins. Humble like the Lord too!

I started to realize that Shenmue has pretty much replaced the usual JRPG mires I find myself bogged down into for months at a time, but not being one to walk away from a challenge, I will take this puppy to its final conclusion, eventually, hopefully before Shenmue III comes out...

[pook99]

Play offensively, learn to abuse the parry (I suggest going with the Hunter Pistol at first because it's faster and longer range), and have fun. You're in for a journey into madness, in a good way.

Great, I played it a little bit today but not enough to make any progress, I got frustrated, almost threw the disc across the room, but then I calmed down and will get back into it with more resolve next time.

[noiseredux]

I did start up Zelda II over the weekend. It's just as brutal as I recalled, but I also have so much nostalgia for this game so in some ways the difficulty feels sort of charming. We'll see how long that lasts, haha. Save states certainly help, though. One thing I will say - the Switch Online app needs a little work with emulator options. I've gotten kind of used to playing retro games on the WiiU Virtual Console lately, so realizing that I can't remap buttons on Switch seems like a pretty big ball-drop. (I prefer Jump mapped to B and Attack mapped to Y, personally).

Anyanyway, I beat the first palace and then made my way to the um, those caves that are like a maze. Y'know? I beefed it in there, though. There's some of those heavy hitter dudes with axes... which, it occurs to me I could have just used the jump magic to avoid them instead of fighting them. I get sort of weird about spending MP. Speaking of, is there a good strategy to leveling up Attack/Magic/Health strategically, or just take the upgrades as they come (as I've been doing)?

[blablanahoj]

Mostly CS:GO atm, while watching it competitevly

[PartridgeSenpai]

Hbomberguy's charity livestream for DK64 inspired me to finally try and 101% the game myself. I picked up the Japanese version (which they for some reason had CIB for barely more than the American version at the resale shop in town) a few days ago, and right now I'm at like only 14 bananas left at about the 14 hour mark. I'm at the point where I need to start looking up where the last few are though, because there's about 10 I just can't find at all XD

[pook99]

Play offensively, learn to abuse the parry (I suggest going with the Hunter Pistol at first because it's faster and longer range), and have fun. You're in for a journey into madness, in a good way.

I just made it to the first boss, very aggravating and unintuitive so far, I could suffer through most of it but right now the camera is kicking my ass and that is just frustrating. I may give it another go but so far there are just a lot of design choices that are annoying the hell out of me. I love hard games, but I'm not sure that this is hard for the reasons I enjoy. Typically, I am big into hardcore platformers, which admittedly, require a far different skill set than a game like bloodborne.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Yesterday, on a whim, I searched the App Store for Konami and found Konami Pixel Puzzle. It is completely free (i.e., ad free, no IAP, etc.) and totally awesome. Basically, it is a series of picross puzzles (500 by my estimate) based on classic Hudson and Konami games. In addition to obvious choices, it references games like Esper Dream, Nuts & Milk, Tokomeki Memorial, etc., and was clearly designed for the Japanese market. That just makes it even better for longtime Hudson and Konami fans, like me, though!

The only weird thing about it is that you are forced to wait three hours between “boss” puzzles. Again, the game is completely free; so, you can’t spend money or watch an ad to play the “boss” puzzles sooner. It is like Konami thought about monetizing the game, put in this waiting mechanic, decided not to monetize the game, but never took out the requirement that you wait between certain puzzles. Oh, Konami! Despite this. Afflict mechanic, I can’t complain too much. The game is completely free and there are more than enough incredibly challenging puzzles to keep me busy. Highly recommended.

[noiseredux]

My patience for Zelda II is growing thin already haha. I've grinded so that my Attack is 4 and Magic and Health are 5. I made it through the maze-caves but am now trying to go into that cave where the hammer is and getting my ass handed to me. Part of me wonders what it'd be like to just grind in the desert here until all my stats are maxed and seeing if it makes the game 'easier.' Part of me hates that I'd even consider spend that much time grinding. Which in turn makes me think that I'm not really having that much fun right now.

Maybe my so-called love of Zelda II is actually a combination of nostalgia; adoration for the music; and generally enjoying the gameplay itself, while not actually enjoying the GAME. Which is to say, that a version of the game with tweaks could be a pretty fantastic game. The gameplay is fine. But the need for grinding, the big chunks of HP that get taken away from hits - at least early on - by even basic enemies... ugh. Maybe we'll get one of those "SP" ROM hacks on Switch Online that'll make the going easier in the future haha.

As a side note - I feel like I've said this before, but there's definitely a lot of DNA from Zelda II in Breath Of The Wild. It's just excecuted better in BOTW.