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

Hyrule Warriors: AoI, Sea of Stars, Undertale(my 3rd playthrough), Metroid Prime 4, Pokemon Z-A, FF7 Remake.

I got a bonus

@Jhena That's exactly how I'm playing it, GOG bundled it with DOSBox. I bought the game during GOG's winter sale last month, been playing it since. Thanks I've been enjoying it. Especially after I figured out how to defeat a cyberdisc with some laser weapons. Oh yeah, the words "hidden movement" can be scary, lol.

X-COM UFO Defense even made me pick up XCOM Enemy Unknown again, so playing both games.

@Buizel I got to the VERY end of Uncharted 2 and getting a little burnt out by all these shootouts in the last area haha. I know I'm probably less than 30 minutes from the end credits but at this point I have almost no motivation to wrap it up (except that I really wanna play 3 and 4)

I'll likely get back to it at some point! Currently just fully enamored with Forza Horizon 5 - it's been taking up all my free time for the past week

More X-COM UFO Defense on PC today. Figured out that landing and aborting a terror mission is somehow a valid strategy. But didn't leave without blowing up a Cyberdisc, because I can. Now I defeated and captured an alien called a Muton, which according to the game wiki, is one of the toughest aliens in the game. Of course I have my base doing research on it.

Also played more Tuff E Nuff on Switch via Nintendo Classics today. Even though I already beaten it, I just enjoy playing through it. I main Kotono now, and know all her moves.

I haven't been really into a game for a while. Casually, I've been playing Team Kirby Clash Deluxe and Kirby Planet Robobot on my 2ds, with a bit of Sonic Racing Crossworlds on my Switch. But I think I found something to really get into: Dillon's Rolling Western.

Dillon's Rolling Western is a 3d action adventure/tower defense game where you spend your days gaining materials and building establishments to prepare for the Grock(rock monsters) attacks. I got it in 2023, before the 3ds Eshop closed. It was digital only, so it's technically gone forever. Despite putting in 16 hours at the time, I didn't beat it due to it progress system (which I won't get into here). Hopefully this time will be different (tips are welcomed in case anyone's an expert on the game).

Just recently started playing my mama's physical Switch copy of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Pirates of the Disturbance, which is a visual novel based off of an anime series that I watched a few months ago and really liked. Plus, it's published by the same company that publishes my beloved Neptunia games ☺️!

I've also been playing a fair amount of Animal Crossing New Horizons and slowly creating the rest of the hotel rooms, as well as massively rearranging some things on my island. It's been a good year since I had a massive project in ACNH like this, and this is probably going to be my last major project in the game as well. I also want to fit in some Among Us soon, to get that Stardew Valley cosmicube.

My return to Dragon Quest XI will have to wait a bit longer 😅.

Last night, had a late night session of X-COM UFO Defense, and got the bad ending. Every country in the world formed pacts with the aliens, and it was game over. Yeah, this is definitely a game I will never beat, and I was playing on beginner difficulty too.

I enjoyed the battle system in it, had fun with developing laser weapons and using them on the aliens. I'm not the best at strategy games, but I do enjoy them, moving units and fighting an enemy. Going to start a new game and play out battles for fun, because I like the turn-based combat.

Will admit, I'm still surprised I defeated the toughest alien in the game. I played X-COM Terror From The Deep in the past, and the next to impossible to defeat Lobster Men ruined the game for me. UFO Defense is definitely the easier game and had more fun battling aliens in this one.

I should give Mario + Rabbids another go since it is a turn-based strategy game similar to this series.

@Nep-Nep-Freak Color me surprised, I didn't even know My Next Life as a Villainess had a video game. Remember watching the anime at one point and really liked it.

@Sunsy The original X-COM can be a difficult game if you're first starting out. You're on the right lines with laser weapons, though. They're very powerful and should put you on a level footing with the aliens. Plasma weapons are even better, but that can wait a bit.

The key to stopping the bad ending is that, for a country to defect to the aliens, it needs them to build a base there, using an infiltration mission. That'll only happen after they succeed with a bunch of preliminary missions, using progressively larger ships. It's much easier to take down the scouts than the battleships, so build up a network of radar bases and intercept everything. Some will still slip through, but it'll buy you time.

You only really need one base for your aircraft, at least to start with, so more bases with just a large radar and a barracks is better than building them out fully. Just don't blow the budget too much, as that also gives the bad ending, and you can sell off all the alien gear you don't need, to fund things. Hang on to the Elerium though, you'll be needing that later.

I picked up Ball X Pit in the sale for the new update thinking I'd mess around for an hour or two and bounce off (pun not intended). I have put in almost 15 hours in two days, while still working full time and doing / playing other things. It is just so addictive, so playable, and unlike a lot of roguelikes (in my experience anyway), progression is constant, clear and tangible so you never feel like you're just grinding the same thing over and over waiting for RNG to fall right for you. Making that most deadly type of "one more run" game and four hours go by in a blink.

@Matt_Barber Thank you for the tips, I'm going to keep at it as much as I can.

Whoa, you mean Elerium-115? I just started a new game this afternoon (I had a bit of time, so wanted to start it) and I managed to get some after the first battle. Instead of crashing, the ship just landed, and sent my troops towards it. I also managed to collect a UFO power source, UFO navigation, and alien alloys. Yes, I took a screenshot of the results screen, which is where I'm getting this info from.

@Sunsy Yes, that's the good stuff. You can only get Elerium from crashed or captured UFOs with the power source intact, so it has the potential to become something of a bottleneck in the late game where you need it for practically everything.

Keep all of it, sell everything else, except one for research purposes, and you should go far.

Just wrapped up Pepper Grinder
A must-play. Yet it's all held back by it's lack luster missmatched out of place disppointing Soundtrack, and hunting for every last piece of treasure per stage feels nearly pointless when the money itself is just used for buying stickers to use on multiple sticker books that you buy throught the game. A boarderline useless and unsatifying feature that will appeal to like 1/10 gamers.

Instead, you should of been given a badge for 100%ing each stage by aquiring every last piece of treasure, which would of ramped up the fun factor and sense of reward.

Either way, it's still absoloutely worth checking out. With it's unique game play mechanics, great visuals, combined with one of the greatest and most INtense challenging final boss(His second form that is) battles I've ever encountered in a video game. I gaurantee you've never played anything quite like it either. But to think, with a more serine and approriate OST, and treasure collecting system that rewarded you with a 100% badge for each stage would of greatly enchanced the experience. It's really all about finding the hidden 5 coins per stage and just getting through them. Gotta appreciate the fine minor details in the sprite work too. Really well crafted artistically.

As good As PG s, i still had a better time with Bomb Chicken and Freddy Farmer. Those two are boarderline S-tier in the land of indies. Can't forget Shovel Knight too!

The only track, of maybe the two, below, in the game that stood out as something note worthy.

This afternoon, did another playthrough of Tuff E Nuff via Nintendo Classics. While playing, got two perfects as Kotono today. On PC, played more X-COM UFO Defense in the evening. Wanted to do a new game for fun, but ended up winning three battles and collected Elerium again. Ended the month with an excellent rating.

@Matt_Barber Cool. I also collected it again in a different save file. I was thinking about it, I wanted to do a second save to not affect that save, only for it to have it backfire as I did better in the new save file, lol.

Booted up my Wii U to play some Star Fox Zero this morning. It's been years since I've played this one, so it feels good playing this one again. Also, had a good game of X-COM UFO Defense last night.

@Sunsy
How did you survive in Star Fox Zero?
The control of the game was really hard to keep the plane stay on the line and shooting the incoming targets from any directions.

@Anti-Matter It's been a long time, after figuring out the controls, I use the left joystick to fly, while using using the stick and motion controls to aim, also needing to look at gamepad at times. I did forget about several things, like the right joystick to barrel roll, boost, and brake. I didn't have too much of an issue with the controls, and even unlocked Titania today (a level I didn't play during my original playthrough of the game), which was a Landmaster level.

Though playing Titania threw me for a loop. I'm thinking Slippy was the one who fell to the planet, not Peppy, then I got reminded that was Star Fox 64.

Tonight I played Mario Kart World with a buddy online. We played some Knockout Tour races and we had a lot of fun... great way to blow off steam after a long day. I even got 1st in one of my races!

Played some more X-COM UFO Defense last night for Saturday's game session, on a different save. I've gotten the hang of getting Elerium-115 in the early game. Just go after a UFO that landed as opposed to one that got destroyed and crashed. This morning, played through Tuff E Nuff on Nintendo Classics again.

Just finished my playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on Switch 2 NSO last night.

I enjoyed the start and the end of the game but the middle portion just dragged on a bit too much for my liking. As the world opens up and there are lots of things to explore, unlock and collect it just takes too long to travel/sail everywhere (the fast travel definitely helps). I assume this is fixed with the HD remake and the swift sail so I'll have to play that some time in the future (if it ever gets rereleased!) I try to 100% as many games as I can and did a lot with this game but didn't do the Tingle Tuner stuff or the Figurines in this playthrough. Also the Savage Labyrinth was very fun!

8.5/10

Check out my HowLongToBeat to see the other games I've completed or if you want to discuss my thoughts on anything else I've played recently.

The next game I'll be playing is Cyberpunk 2077 and I'm really looking forward to it!

Had a really good session of X-COM: UFO Defense tonight. Playing again on my "for fun" file, I did research and manufactured armor and put them on my soldiers, I got that figured out. Also, ended up having a really good battle, alien fired a few shots missing my soldiers, and I got the alien first laser one of my guys fired. Then when I got to the UFO, the aliens backs were turned, so I got the two aliens with some lasers. Collected more Elerium-115 from the mission too.

Good classic X-COM session tonight!