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[Tobers]

...still, ni no kuni is one of the best looking games I've ever seen, if ever there was a game to sit and stare at for hours it's that one.

[vinheim3]

The 2 zelda oracle games. Goddamn they are brimming with quality, charm and creativity. About to play through the games 3 times each so that I have a perfect file on both games and it's easy to not get bored at all

[Derek]

I can't remember which Zelda Oracle game it is (I think it's Ages), but one of them has the most obnoxious swimming power-up and corresponding water dungeon. The power-up actually makes swimming harder by forcing you to continuously tap a button to move around. It's carpal tunnel city.

 

Otherwise, yeah, it's great.

[ProgramGamer]

I can't remember which Zelda Oracle game it is (I think it's Ages), but one of them has the most obnoxious swimming power-up and corresponding water dungeon. The power-up actually makes swimming harder by forcing you to continuously tap a button to move around. It's carpal tunnel city.

 

Otherwise, yeah, it's great.

OMFG I have that one on my 3DS and you described my feelings perfectly towards that power(down?)up. Also, I can confirm that it is oracles of ages.

[JWK5]

Dark Souls 2, Dragon Quest 7 (the only one I've yet to beat, and so far I LOVE it), and Rainbow Moon (surprisingly fun and addictive).

One thing Dark Souls and Dragon Quest make apparent to me more and more is that sparse dialog sticks with me far more than long-winded detailed dialogue. Dark Souls 2 keeps it vague and mysterious, Dragon Quest 7 keeps it relevant and to the point. Both keep it short and sweet. The end result is that I soak in the flavor of the setting without breaking the pace of the adventure.

I think a happy medium for me would be an intermixing of Dark Souls and Dragon Quest dialog approaches, deliberate and informative with sprinkles of open-ended mysteries. BioWare RPGs are like the polar opposite to this, you are just badgered with walls of unnecessary information causing the NPCs to feel like some random stranger at the grocery store who wants to engage you in a conversation about things you could care less about and you are stuck humoring them while the whole time you're feeling anxious to get back to your shopping.

I like how Dragon Quest NPCs reinforce your accomplishments and let you know that your efforts have had an impact on their lives and the world around them. Both the Dragon Quest games and the Souls games are excellent and providing a meaningful challenge and matching it with a meaningful reward. Good games to play when you need food for thought with your own projects.

Rainbow Moon is grind-y, but just plain mindless fun. Much like Dragon Quest and Dark Souls it gives you just what you need to know to get you going and then sends you on your merry way to explore the world around you at your leisure.

[oahda]

minish cap

animal crossing 3ds

um collected that five-piece key in volcano area in skyward sword the other day?? second playthrough

[ProgramGamer]

Playing Minecraft pocket edition made me realise how much better it could have been on the PS Vita just because of the controls. Touch screen to look around, Dpad/analog pad to move, buttons to crouch and open the inventory, right shoulder to mine and I guess taping to place blocks is fine.

Any thoughts on this?

[Praying Mantis]

Hotline Miami 2 obvs. Also replayed Hotline Miami 1 again.

My thoughts on Hotline Miami 2 are similar to that of 1: Nice aesthetic and music, fun mechanics, but overall missed potential, janky gameplay and a story that is a mess. However I will say that I enjoyed the first game more after going back and playing it. The multitude of masks in the first game is one of the best parts of the game, and its exclusion in the sequel isn't something I can forgive.

Also, I do not appreciate the new shift-look system. Spatial awareness is hard enough to get right in a top-down shooter. The change from the dynamic shift-look to a camera-snap is a step back.

There are plenty more nit-picky issues I have with the games, but I'll leave it at that for now.

[Tanner]

Playing Minecraft pocket edition made me realise how much better it could have been on the PS Vita just because of the controls. Touch screen to look around, Dpad/analog pad to move, buttons to crouch and open the inventory, right shoulder to mine and I guess taping to place blocks is fine.

Any thoughts on this?

uh, i don't know what you're asking because that exists already and works the same way the other console versions work.

so my answer to you is yeah?

[ProgramGamer]

Combine the ios and vita controls and you have the perfect control scheme, that's what my point was.

[quantumpotato]

Fighting games: Guilty Gear XRD, Project M,
Dev testing a SHMUP where the enemy copies how you killed them: Quantum Pilot on iOS
Parallax: black/white 3D puzzler

[Manuel Magalhães]

I'm playing Binary Domain. Its voice recognition system is pretty solid — I can only recall it failed two times and I kinda blame that for playing with a bad microphone. :p I'm liking the game so far.

[Slader16]

I've been playing Muramasa: Rebirth on my Vita for the past couple of days.
The combat reminds me of Dust: An Elysian Tail (one of my favorite games of all time),
the soundtrack is great, and the animation/art style is really beautiful. 

[darkhog]

Please don't beat me, but Aion Online (NA servers).

[SirNiko]

Please don't beat me, but Aion Online (NA servers).

Oh man.

I played Aion for two months at launch, and without irony consider it the single worst game I've ever played. The game design (critical class skills are rare item drops from generic monsters, massive level based damage reduction makes fighting players two levels higher impossible), the contrast between what was advertised and what was offered (so much grinding! PVP was impossible until level cap), the unwillingness or inability of the NA team to address even minor player concerns (eg, a broken fortress that eventually led to a 24-48 hour roll back despite a week of players begging to have it reset) added up to a horrific clusterfuck of a beautiful game.

I'd love to read about your experience and what you think of it. Are the factions still lopsided (with the Alyseans dominating all but one server)? Has the currency finally inflated so the NPC vendor prices are realistic? Did they ever make crafting Hot Heart of Magic for the armor quest in the very late game less time consuming and random? Have they had any more game breaking glitches like the time players starting generating infinite money from unsigned integers in the fortress taxes mechanic? Are the Fire Temple drop rates still so low that you can run it non-stop from level 25-30 and not get a single equipment drop from the final boss? Do players still complain that there aren't enough quests after level 20? Are they still making you do captchas when you collect resources, or is town still full of flying aether collecting bots?

Does the tooltip when the game crashes still say "everything is okay"?

I am very genuinely interested in hearing more about your experience.

[ProgramGamer]

MRW I realize that the same people who made Wildstar also made Aion Online.



Edit: I tried installing the game to see if it was really that bad since I have an account with their websites anyways. The installer refused to work and install the game correctly, but succeeded in installing a bunch of unwanted toolbars. Not worth the trouble.

[quantumpotato]

Please don't beat me, but Aion Online (NA servers).

I'd love to read about your experience and what you think of it.

Same! I've just been reading a bunch of essays on Virtual Worlds in Game Design Reader (Rules of Play Anthology).

[vinheim3]

Proud to have finally 100% the Zelda Oracle games with pretty much no secret or ring unturned. It's been frustrating in some parts requiring patience levels rivalling that of trying to get through La Mulana hell temple (mostly due to some grinding, but also the minigames in Ages are pure hell), but it's been worth it seeing a complete ring collection. The rings themselves, once you know how to get them, add so much to the repeat playthroughs so it was consistently entertaining despite having to play through each game twice.

You have the glass cannon playthroughs of using the power rings (attack up, def down) and double-edged ring (attack way up but damage dealt on hit), defeating facade with the bombers ring (can have 2 bombs out at once), defeating Onox first form with the charge ring (spin attack charges quicker), swimming faster with the swimmer's ring just makes travelling so much smoother, playing as a like-like, octorok, moblin, etc is nice to see, and it's empowering playing the tokay meat mini-game with the toss ring. There's still a lot to try out but it's probably the best customizability mechanic I've dealt with that's also fun and fulfilling to collect.

Also Super Win The Game is a worthy successor to You Have to Win The Game. The focus is much more different, rather than perfecting runs through each screen and finding optimal paths around a tightly knit area, the sequel is more an open-ish-world collectathon/metroidvania with a lot of secrets, more powerups that are fun to play around with and still some tough platforming tricks here and there.

[darkhog]

Please don't beat me, but Aion Online (NA servers).

I'd love to read about your experience and what you think of it.

Same! I've just been reading a bunch of essays on Virtual Worlds in Game Design Reader (Rules of Play Anthology).

Well, I'm playing casually, just to have fun (now my main char is lvl23-24), but I can attest prices are high (1 drawer cabinet for over 800k?). Though game is fun to play.

I haven't played it at launch, but from long time players I've heard it is now significantly better than it was then. Also it haven't crashed for me at all.

Also I like NCSoft approach (at least in NA region) that "everything gameplay-altering can be earned in game" which is always something I'll support (same for Path of Exile, same for Trove).

[Mittens]

i love the shitty general midi guitars in the original doom. it sounds like devo covering metallica.

I will literally never forget the melody, good times.