Topic: What Game(s) are You Currently Playing?

Ys: The Oath In Felghana (PC/Steam) - According to the GameFAQs guide I'm half-following to track my progress, I'm about 2/3 of the way through. Fast-paced, snappy ARPG gameplay, very similar to Ys Origin; the latter refined some mechanics since it came later, but both remind me of top-down Zelda games (with jumping). Though I'm not overly fond of some of the platforming sections. Great music from the Falcom Sound Team as usual, and some very fun dungeons, boss fights, and locales. The plot initially wasn't interesting at all and felt quite generic, but now the proceedings are becoming very interesting. Outside of a small handful of characters, most haven't been memorable at all. At least some of the VA work is pretty decent IMO.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Switch) - I played the Jumbo Demo last summer and was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it, enough to finish it at any rate. I waited until now in order to pick it up on sale. I've returned to the Isle of Awakening after wrapping up proceedings on Furrowfield Island (where the demo takes place) and am now trying to introduce some natural beauty. Being a Builder is surprisingly pretty fun, and the game keeps it all going nicely with some reasonable objectives without becoming too overwhelming...yet. The nice thing is other characters can help out the player and build too! Some loading times are a bit long and the frame rate can chug a bit in some very busy areas, but I barely notice these issues.

I'm normally not one for sandbox-y games like Minecraft, but a clone of that game this is not. It has its own distinct identity and keeps things going by some sensible QoL changes, a decent plot, and that unique Dragon Quest flavor.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim I don't know why, but I had it in my head that this was an RPG when I first picked it up - probably because it's published by Atlus - but it's definitely not an RPG! It's actually an odd mix of Sci-Fi Visual Novel/Point & Click Adventure paired with Top-down Strategy sections.

The game is sort of split into 3 parts, each with their own progress - the 'story' part follows the 13 main characters in is in the style of a visual Novel/point & Click adventure. Having the 13 protagonists stories intertwining could've gone horribly wrong, but they've done a remarkable job of keeping all the character threads coherent here - locking progress on certain characters until others catch up. I'm about 30 hours in a this point so pretty close to the end - I think 8 or 9 out of the 13 characters story arcs are 100% complete.

The second part is the the strategy element. This is where the 13 protagonist enter giant mechs - the Sentinels from the title - and defend terminals from the attacking 'Kaiju' which, at least in the beginning of the game, are giant War of the Worlds style robot spiders. I'm not normally a fan of strategy games, but I love these sections. The variety of the Kaiju means you have to really think about which of your 13 mechs to deploy as there's a maximum of 6 Sentinels allowed in a battle. The Sentinels have different abilities too - the Gen1 mech for example has mostly ground based melee attacks, where as the Gen3 mech has long-range attacks.

The 3rd part is mostly just a reference section where you can go back and catch up with the story sections you've unlocked during the Visual Novel sections. This is particularly useful if you need to go back an remind yourself of any of the main story points. With 13 characters in could be pretty easy to lose track of what's going on, but I've honestly not needed a recap on any of it so far.

As I've said, I'm pretty close to the end at this point and I'd say it's probably the best game I've played this year.

On Switch, been playing Disney Speedstorm mostly because of the Frozen season, recently unlocked Elsa, and trying to get her to two stars. Also, some casual games of Modern Combat Blackout online.

On the PC side of things, just got the classic game Jagged Alliance, thanks to GOG's winter sale. I like it so far, will admit, the first mission did confuse me a bit since I had trouble finding the micro-purifier to complete the mission. I did it, and I like the combat system so far.

Minecraft and animal crossing.
Finished all the games i wanted to play so I'm just playing those 2.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice For All (AAT/Switch) - I'm currently in the earlier parts of Case 2 and just closed out my first investigation day. So far I like the beginning hours more than the first game - even if the Case 1 tutorial was a bit nuts with the temporary amnesia trope - though I don't know how to feel about a new mechanic yet. Just seems like more work to me. The situation is already quite interesting, and it has been nice to see plenty of characters return. I audibly yelled when Lotta Hart showed up again. XD

Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Switch) - I dive into this fun voxel-flavored DQ as my side game. I've just unlocked a lot of optional stuff to do on the Isle of Awakening, so I'll try to knock a couple of those out before advancing the plot by traveling to the next island. It's technically a type of ARPG, but with building/construction/destruction and some light automation/tower defense mechanics.

Suika Game - As it's currently free to play through my NSO sub, I've been trying it out. This is a pretty fun puzzler/score chaser that reminds me of the game 2048 when it comes to combining the fruits. I don't plan to buy it though since I learned long ago these types of games can suck a lot of hours.

I should be close to finishing both Ittle Dew, and Dead Space Remake. Once I do, I'll be onto Psychonauts 2 and on switch, not sure yet? Maybe trinity trigger. I might even fire up the ol Wii U for some color splash for the first time. Not sure yet.

Bit.Trip Beat - A Pong-style rhythm game where you have to deflect a series of balls with your 'bat' to the beat of the music. I think I might've played this on the Wii back in the day - I definitely played Bit.Trip Runner, but this seems pretty familiar too.

It appears to only have 3 levels but they are pretty long, probably a bit too long if I'm honest. I found it quite difficult to get the hang of the gyro controls at first and the game throws some cheap shots at you with the ball physics randomly changing at certain points. I guess it's fine as a filler before I play something more substantial, but I doubt I'm going to spend too much time on it.

I've gotten totally addicted to Palia. There are some things I don't like which may eventually make me quit ( the path-finding is truly awful and artificially forcing MMO aspects into a non-MMO is odd, especially on Switch and tends to slow down loading screens), but overall it's super cute, has some good npcs and world building and a lot to do at least early in the game.

Well: after gradually making my way through the series over the last 6-7 months, I think it's finally time to start the one that everyone likes :3

Update: played through it for just over 2 hours (currently about to start Mission 6) and good lord where has this game been my entire life, this is PHENOMENAL.

I didn't anticipate having a game firmly place itself in the Top 5 my favourite games list so late into the year but damnit Dante finds a way XD

Went back to TOTK after a break. I immediately went to that underground quest because I kept hearing I should get the thing it unlocks and...yep that is a useful thing. Also just got the shrine finder thing so hopefully I will not waste my life playing this game. This is the exception to the "no more endless time wasting" rule I've tried to put to myself after Xenoblade 2, but with that in mind, I don't want to waste time as much as I did with BOTW, no matter how much I actually adored BOTW. When I'm done with the main quests and all the shrines, that's it. And thank god for no DLC with that in mind.

Still playing Trolls Remix Rescue and Disney Speedstorm, however throwing in Asphalt 9's 12 Days of Christmas event, and decided to play some Sonic 1 because of the memories of playing it on Sonic Mega Collection on Christmas. Planning to play some Super Mario All-Stars too, Christmas memories of playing it too.

Played more Jagged Alliance on PC, completed day four and took back the island's water supply. This game has grew on me, and I love it now. It's turn-based strategy, and trying different ideas on going after enemies to reclaim the island sectors has me hooked. I'm glad I got this one from GOG.

Let’s see here.
Balan wonderworld (honestly not as bad as people say it is but I do agree with the control scheme being bad)
Sonic frontiers (honestly really love the combat in it and the titans and their boss themes are epic and I’m actually trying to get everything in all the islands before doing the true final boss and doing the new horizons)
Mario 3D world +bowsers fury (haven’t played fury yet but I’m almost done with the main game just have to beat the last two worlds and finish the special world)
Pokémon Scarlet (just got on yesterday to get the darkrai shiny lucario and the master ball but I really should finish the game)
And Pokémon mystery dungeon rescue team DX (I just been mainly clearing the side quest’s to the point I got to rank silver and honestly it was pretty addicting.)

Actually agree with this, I like the game. My only real complaint is the lack of a dedicated jump button forcing you to have a "jumping" costume at all times.

Just spent about an hour on the 2nd fight against Vergil in DMC3 and good lord I don't think I've ever been THIS tense while fighting a boss before in my life, this game is WILD man.

Psychonauts 2 on xbox and I've just started hades on switch. So far, its a tad repetitive after an hour of play. But I'll keep at it. After all the type, giving it an honest shake seems fair I suppose.

I have to say though, I really didn't like their other game bastion so I was skeptical coming into this game. I thought it was repetitive and boring as all get out. Hoping I don't walk away from hades thinking the same.

Disappointed that Apex did not do Winter Express, their special holiday event, this year, so I've been playing World of Tanks Blitz holiday events. Forgotten how much I enjoyed this one. Still playing Trolls Remix Rescue and Jagged Alliance, planning to start Sonic Superstars later.

I played a few rounds of Kirby Pinball Land. Because...it was Christmas...I guess? I dunno.

...It's not great but it was good enough for a 1993 pinball game with Kirby. I guess it's kinda like a better NES Pinball but with the Pokemon pinball minigames.

I just started Persona 5 Royal and I’m honestly blown away. Like, people said it would be good, but it’s way better than I could have ever expected. And the switch version seems pretty solid

Been playing Super Mario RPG on the Switch and I'm enjoying it. It's a faithful remake for sure and it's still a good game after all these years. It might even encourage me to get back into stuff like Xenoblade and Dragon Quest by the time I finish it!