What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter LordOfDarkness
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Dark Drakan
Well-known Member
Spider-man on my SteamDeck, blows my mind that a handheld device can run games like this so well.
Our PS5 arrived at the end of last month, so I'm playing Elden Ring and Demon's Souls. Somehow oneshotted three bosses in a single sitting of DS (which has never happened to me before on any other FromSoft game??) and now can't make it to the next boss. .-. Also finished Stray a couple days ago. -hides face- No, I'm not still crying over it, why do you ask?
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PS4) - I played the Japanese version on T-16, but never got around to committing to it. I might go back to that one, because of the save states. Right now, I made it to Stage 5 and stuck there at the moment. I already unlocked Maria, but she's basically the game's easy mode. As far as the Holy Grail of Castlevania games, I think RoB has been overpraised due to lack of availability at the time. I remember all those retro reviewers and old-school experts goings nuts. Saying it's a "must own or worth the money to import!".
I will say the game has impressive achievements in terms of art style, graphics, tech, and ending the system on a high note. Music is a banger and I love the remixes they throw in. There are alternate paths you can find and women that need rescuing, if you want 100% completion. That includes fighting bosses too. The good news is that you can select any stage you beat at any time, by going to stage select, so you can alternate paths, or rescue the women. My problems are Richter is slower, lacks mercy invincibility of past and future vampire hunters, and does not get the mutli-directional whip. He doesn't even get Johnny's downward whip jump, nor upper angular whip/whip swing. I know Rondo came out first, but Super Castlevania IV came out before Rondo with all of the whip improvements What doesn't help matter is that enemies have way too many advantages over you or move quicker Richter. This supposed to be a young guy, he should be able to move faster than that. I know it's old-school difficulty design, but it's what I don't like about some of the older Vanias. Rich has that backwards flip, but it's only useful for speedrunners and very specific situations. Also, most bosses have a suicide/last desperation attack after draining their health. I don't care much for them. Thankfully, they don't insta-kill you, but you're gonna want to have at least half health before it happens. I am glad Konami never tried something like that again.
Rondo is a good game to be respected, but it takes some steps back and age only hurts it further. I do like the game, but Bloodlines still the best of the 16-bit Classicvania games.
I will say the game has impressive achievements in terms of art style, graphics, tech, and ending the system on a high note. Music is a banger and I love the remixes they throw in. There are alternate paths you can find and women that need rescuing, if you want 100% completion. That includes fighting bosses too. The good news is that you can select any stage you beat at any time, by going to stage select, so you can alternate paths, or rescue the women. My problems are Richter is slower, lacks mercy invincibility of past and future vampire hunters, and does not get the mutli-directional whip. He doesn't even get Johnny's downward whip jump, nor upper angular whip/whip swing. I know Rondo came out first, but Super Castlevania IV came out before Rondo with all of the whip improvements What doesn't help matter is that enemies have way too many advantages over you or move quicker Richter. This supposed to be a young guy, he should be able to move faster than that. I know it's old-school difficulty design, but it's what I don't like about some of the older Vanias. Rich has that backwards flip, but it's only useful for speedrunners and very specific situations. Also, most bosses have a suicide/last desperation attack after draining their health. I don't care much for them. Thankfully, they don't insta-kill you, but you're gonna want to have at least half health before it happens. I am glad Konami never tried something like that again.
Rondo is a good game to be respected, but it takes some steps back and age only hurts it further. I do like the game, but Bloodlines still the best of the 16-bit Classicvania games.
Alternating between Devil May Cry HD and BloodRayne: Terminal Cut/Revamped.
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I've had the Anniversary Collection for a while and thought RoB was on it, but only discovered like last week it wasn't. I was sad.
So, there's no new major game coming out that I feel the "need" to play until mid-February (Like a Dragon: Ishin, maybe Atomic Heart, and maybe Wild Hearts). So I've been just casually playing my backlog since the turn of 2023. This includes:
Chrono Cross
Metro 2033 Redux
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2
Outland
Batman - The Telltale Series
Void Scrappers
Risk of Rain 2
Little Noah: Scion of Paradise
The latter 3 are roguelites, so I'm not really prioritizing them. But I'm hoping to finish at least 3 of the first 5 by mid-Feb. Hopefully all 5. I'm about 2/3 done w/ Chrono Cross, but am only a couple hours into the other games. So we'll see what I can do in the next 4 weeks.
Hitman 3, timeshift and a doom clone called bullets per minute which is super fun
Shadow Warrior 3 I already find it better than Doom Eternal. Sure, the game is shorter, and there's not as many weapons (even compared to its prequels), but each weapon has these cool upgrades. What I love about Shadow Warrior 3 over Eternal is that platforming does not get in the way, is simplified, and flows with the action better. The traversing does remind me of DmC, but I didn't have a problem with this. There were people who did, but they're acting like it's the worst thing. It is not.
I love the use of environmental hazards and traps you can inflict upon goons. Executing different enemies yields different rewards and power ups. Executing common mooks gets you at 200+ health, while executing ice enemies allows you to throw ice grenades for example. The game is challenging, but does not go overboard, nor force you to play a specific way like in Doom Eternal. You have weapon upgrades and character upgrades. Weapons use grey orbs, and your character upgrade uses purple orbs.
I do wish that when FHW released this game, they gave it another month to have NG+ and chapter select at the start, instead of giving it an update later down the line. Also, had the game released at $35.99-$40, there would not have been as much controversy over the price. Though I got this on sale with all of the improvements. I know COVID was rough to developers these past couple of years, but that is why you should not rush these games out. I do recommend you get this game on sale right now or paying $40 when the sale ends on the 19th of this month. I've only done the first two chapters so far, and I will be playing more tonight.
P.S - This is an odd thing to say, but after playing this game, and completing Evil West and Hard Reset Redux, Flying Wild Hog will probably be my favorite FPS and TPS developers. Odd, because I don't like their past titles: Shadow Warrior 1 & 2.
I love the use of environmental hazards and traps you can inflict upon goons. Executing different enemies yields different rewards and power ups. Executing common mooks gets you at 200+ health, while executing ice enemies allows you to throw ice grenades for example. The game is challenging, but does not go overboard, nor force you to play a specific way like in Doom Eternal. You have weapon upgrades and character upgrades. Weapons use grey orbs, and your character upgrade uses purple orbs.
I do wish that when FHW released this game, they gave it another month to have NG+ and chapter select at the start, instead of giving it an update later down the line. Also, had the game released at $35.99-$40, there would not have been as much controversy over the price. Though I got this on sale with all of the improvements. I know COVID was rough to developers these past couple of years, but that is why you should not rush these games out. I do recommend you get this game on sale right now or paying $40 when the sale ends on the 19th of this month. I've only done the first two chapters so far, and I will be playing more tonight.
P.S - This is an odd thing to say, but after playing this game, and completing Evil West and Hard Reset Redux, Flying Wild Hog will probably be my favorite FPS and TPS developers. Odd, because I don't like their past titles: Shadow Warrior 1 & 2.
Just beat Shadow Warrior 3! Best of the reboot trilogy. A nice way to end it, if they're not making anymore. I beat the game on Normal and got most of the achievements. Thankfully they're all possible and not super frustrating to obtain. The game does have an explosive finale. There are 11 stages in total, but most are plenty lengthy. Which explains the 6-7 hour mark. I'll list my pros and cons.
Pros:
High paced weapon switching action and mix of platforming that mostly works.
Levels are varied, great visuals and coloring, an each one is different.
Combat arenas are engaging, and I find much better here, than in Doom Eternal. I do love the arenas with the environmental hazards/traps, but you see less of them the further you go. Aside from explosive barrels.
Wang and the other 3 characters, Zilla, Motoko, and Hoji are hilarious as all hell! I didn't hate a single joke or lampshade hang.
Weapon upgrades are unique and varied. There are not as many permanent weapons, but you will take weapons/power ups off of an enemy after executing them.
Cons:
Platforming can be finnicky at times. It usually works, but I've had a couple moments where my grapple hook didn't register to the green ring and fall to my death. Sometimes Wang wouldn't stick to the wall even though was just on it. This didn't happen too often, but it does get annoying.
There are only two bosses in the entire game. The first boss in the 4th stage, and the final boss in the last stage. The latter is basically a final Contra boss, but in 3D. Not the issue, but both bosses have no checkpoints. Dying means starting them all over again. Why? There is no reason not to have checkpoints in-between phases. Once you get the patterns down, it becomes manageable, but it's no excuse for no checkpoints.
There are some stuttering issues when loading into cut-scenes. This seems to happen no matter which version you're playing. I don't know why the game does this, but it does not happen too often. Still odd though.
I do recommend you get this game while it is on sale at PSN store. Sale ends this Thursday.
Pros:
High paced weapon switching action and mix of platforming that mostly works.
Levels are varied, great visuals and coloring, an each one is different.
Combat arenas are engaging, and I find much better here, than in Doom Eternal. I do love the arenas with the environmental hazards/traps, but you see less of them the further you go. Aside from explosive barrels.
Wang and the other 3 characters, Zilla, Motoko, and Hoji are hilarious as all hell! I didn't hate a single joke or lampshade hang.
Weapon upgrades are unique and varied. There are not as many permanent weapons, but you will take weapons/power ups off of an enemy after executing them.
Cons:
Platforming can be finnicky at times. It usually works, but I've had a couple moments where my grapple hook didn't register to the green ring and fall to my death. Sometimes Wang wouldn't stick to the wall even though was just on it. This didn't happen too often, but it does get annoying.
There are only two bosses in the entire game. The first boss in the 4th stage, and the final boss in the last stage. The latter is basically a final Contra boss, but in 3D. Not the issue, but both bosses have no checkpoints. Dying means starting them all over again. Why? There is no reason not to have checkpoints in-between phases. Once you get the patterns down, it becomes manageable, but it's no excuse for no checkpoints.
There are some stuttering issues when loading into cut-scenes. This seems to happen no matter which version you're playing. I don't know why the game does this, but it does not happen too often. Still odd though.
I do recommend you get this game while it is on sale at PSN store. Sale ends this Thursday.
Replaying through rage 2 on series x on new game plus and having a blast
Looks so much better with auto hdr too
Looks so much better with auto hdr too
It really is @Meg , it is basically a slowed down doom/wolfenstein meets mad max
And i have enjoyed it both playthroughs
And i have enjoyed it both playthroughs
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