Currently Playing

[nocturnal YL]

Didn't have much time to play lately, thanks to all those Smash news and such. I spent much time watching what limited gameplay that's there in the demo. Besides that, I was doing some requests in Atelier Lydie & Suelle, which didn't really matter as those don't unlock any extra cutscenes or anything else.

I just started playing The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, which I bought a few weeks ago. It's a short platform puzzle game not unlike those browser games of the same genre out there. There are probably freeware games longer than this, but I spent HK$468 (US$60) on this. Yay for overpriced games. I'm surprised that this isn't download-only, which is good news because I'd outright ignore those.

Price aside, it is a beautifully made game, with a nice sketchbook style telling a story of a wolf monster who grew fond of a little adoable prince who's just so pure. D'awwww. (There's stylized, animated blood, though. Who'd have known? Apparently, this is only enough to raise the CERO rating to B, whereas FE Warriors got a C by simply including Camilla. Get your priorities straight, CERO.)

Not showing any story trailer here, because even that could be a spoiler. Currently available in Japan for PS4, PS Vita and Switch. No words on a western release yet.

[nocturnal YL]

I just finished The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince. I got everything, except 6 trophies relating to speed runs and pacifist runs and a "get all trophies" trophy (Platinum trophy in PlayStation terminology). Online guides say those aren't very difficult, but I think otherwise.

This game is rather short (a good player should reach 100% completion in 10 hours) and has quite a lot of obvious bugs, but is otherwise a very considerate game. It lets you skip the game itself if you're not good at action puzzles, which is good since the story is much better than the gameplay.

I like its premise and presentation. Don't think it's worth the official retail price of 7500 yen (PS4 / Switch) / 6500 yen (PS Vita), though. It seems rather common for these small-scale games to be more expensive than full-fledged games, but this is going too far. Still, personally, I don't regret this purchase at all.

[Shadrio]

Well, I recently got myself a Switch about a month ago, and though I haven't had much free time, I've really sunken my teeth into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, trying to do as blind of a playthrough as I can. Other than that, I also picked up Kirby: Triple Deluxe a few weeks before that, and I've been playing sporadically, though not as much thanks to BotW. I'm almost at 100%, but what's left isn't that enticing.

What I definitely need, especially for the Switch, is a game that I can play on and off without getting sucked into it for too long, something like FTL. Thing is, most games I see for the Switch are the types of games like BotW, in which just a half hour play session feels lacking.

Does the Warriors type games (Fire Emblem / Hyrule Warriors) fulfill that criteria? If so, I could pick one of those up, even though in the past I've always been kind of disparaging when it comes to those types of games.

Also Hi

[nocturnal YL]

Hi there! It's been a while!

Can't speak for Hyrule Warriors, but I have 400+ hours in Fire Emblem Warriors and I still haven't maxed all support levels for the DLC characters. I don't grind specifically, though.

But if your goal is to just finish Story Mode and History Mode, it's not that long (although it does get boring). Also, Fire Emblem Warriors has short, 15-minute play sessions as opposed to having a large playfield like a lot of RPGs do.

If you're looking for games what you can play on-and-off, I suggest getting one of those platformers with short play sessions. Kirby Star Allies would fit that requirement (a few minutes per stage, about 20 hours needed for 100%), unless you want to finish the extra Guest Star mode with all characters.



While I'm here, here's some updates on my side:

• Got all trophies in The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince. Other than the hardest pacifist run, none of these are difficult at all. In the end, it took me 6 hours to finish a game that's advertised to be 100% clearable in 5 hours.
• Got a few more support levels in Fire Emblem Warriors. Its action game nature makes it a bit more annoying than the very repetitive but fast Awakening and Fates.
• At the beginning of Chapter 5 in Ys VIII. So far, it exceeded my expectation of what one of the oldest and greatest ARPGs would offer (I especially love the ability to view past cutscenes). …Except not having consistent voice acting in all cutscenes. FE15, ♯FE, Liar Princess, Zelda BotW, Atelier 19, even the old FE10 exceeded it in this aspect. (More on this game when I do beat it, which could be a while.)
• 3DS activity is completely dead. I expect to play WarioWare when it comes out, and after that I will no longer be playing it actively.

[Leon]

I have actually been playing quite a bit on my 3DS lately. I bought Miitopia when it released last year, but I only played about an hour or two. Now I'm playing it for real, and it's actually a really awesome game. The rich sense of humour and absurdity makes it a real joy to play, I'm hoping somewhere down the line we can get Miitopia 2!

[The Qu]

Finishing up the deeply frustrating but gorgeous Darkest Dungeon and gonna follow it up with Vanquish.

[nocturnal YL]

...Got WarioWare Gold. It's going to take me forever to unlock all the Toy Room collectibles.

Also, why is Kat & Ana's boss game so difficult?

[Nester the Lark]

Been slowly working my way through Torna: The Golden Country. Since the story is supposed to be fairly short, I've been mainly focusing on doing side-quests and exploring to make it last a bit longer.

Also playing Lightening Force/Thunder Force IV. I managed to 1CC it last night (although I've done it before on the original cartridge), and I made it to #34 on the online rankings for expert mode.

[nocturnal YL]

I got Super Mario Party and Mega Man 11. Played a little bit of both.

Super Mario Party's menu design is rather confusing. I just wanted to play some banana matching with my coworkers, how hard is that?

EDIT 1 — Oh, so banana mode is a secret mode. So much for being a pick up and play game.

EDIT 2 — Yep, Mega Man is difficult indeed. This is normal mode (intended for veterans).

EDIT END

Also, I'm still playing Project DIVA Future Tone DX. And I keep getting these almost-perfects.

For songs I actually perfected, see this playlist. I'm satisfied with these, and I won't even bother to attempt 0 FINE like this player does.

(For reference: COOL = hit within ±0.03 seconds, FINE = ±0.07 seconds; SAFE is not safe at all and will break combos. mirai 2/DX has a far more lax timing, with COOL = ±0.06 seconds.)

[Bloodmancer]

Last Nintendo game I played was some Mario game... can't remember what it was called.

[Nester the Lark]

^ Well, that narrows it down.

[nocturnal YL]

Currently playing… nothing. Okay, I still play Kirby Star Allies and Project DIVA Future Tone DX as time fillers. I want to hear about new games on one hand, but not getting anything is actually helpful for me to perfect games that don't need to be perfected.

Previously playing: Super Mario Party and Mega Man 11.

Super Mario Party is basically a mini Mario Party (so not quite an "11th main game"), with short sessions and a very easy way to unlock minigames (you always unlock new minigames in the board games' minigame roulette if possible). The worst part is River Survival; you get only 10 minigames (which get boring quickly), but you need to play it 5 times (which amounts to about 70 minigame sessions).

Mega Man 11 was a short but fun game. Complete newbies who can play action games just fine (like me) should play Normal or Superhero despite descriptions saying they're for veterans. Mega Man's ability is upgradable, which should cover the skill gap just fine.

I'm kind of bored. But no, I don't need to get new games now.

[Nester the Lark]

I've been having a bit of gaming ADD lately. I've not yet finished Torna: The Golden Country, but I think I'm near the end. I also have not yet finished Ys VIII, but I think I'm getting near the end of that, too.

Because it's October, I started playing and streaming a game of Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness, but I stalled when I started having technical issues. Recently, I also squeezed Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water back on my Wii U (had to delete a bunch of things, including all Smash Bros update data), so I've been playing that a bit.

And I've also had the urge to play some Fire Emblem, of all things.

So, yeah, basically playing a bunch of games and not finishing them.

[Swedol]

Right now I'm playing Super Mario Galaxy. A game I never ended up buying back when it was released, as I was waiting for Mario Kart and Brawl and my budget was limited. I ended up buying it back in 2012 together with a pile (probably 30 or so, many that I still haven't played) of other Wii games but I didn't begin to play it until now, 11 years after its release. I had only played it for about 1 hour back when it was new with a friend of mine.

Not much to complain about, although shaking the Wiimote gets a bit tedious in certain levels. I totally like the pointer though and there are many interesting things. The gravity physics are cool, although sometimes I miss the exploration element of Sunshine or 64. I sometimes get confused with these levels. At least I don't have to collect blue coins or do those 100 coin stars anymore though.

Currently about 40 stars into the game, so there's a lot more to do. Not sure if I will play though the game as Luigi though, it feels a bit cheap extending the game like that, but maybe in the future.

Great game!

[Nester the Lark]

As I've said in the Fire Emblem thread, I'm playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. I'm up to chapter 18 now. I don't think I've ever been past chapter 14 before, so I guess I'm not doing too bad.

However, I've been grinding my units by abusing the arenas with a little help from the Wii U save states, so some of them are a bit overpowered at this point.