What are you currently playing?

[MetalCaveman]

There goes all interest I had in Khazan lol, Sekiro is as far as I'm willing to go in terms of this style of git-gud games.

 

[danielpholt]

  On 4/18/2025 at 5:42 PM, MetalCaveman said:

There goes all interest I had in Khazan lol, Sekiro is as far as I'm willing to go in terms of this style of git-gud games.

 

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I've just hit another boss and once again I'm asking if it's worth it for me to continue on playing on 'normal'.

 

Save yourself. 

[danielpholt]

Bionic Bay

 

I think it's doing the game a bit of a disservice to say that it's Limbo meets Meat Boy but....kinda that?

 

I'm playing it on my Steamdeck. It runs fantastically, it looks beautiful and it's got some really nice sound design and music. It's not overly difficult (as of yet), although there's definitely a level of challenge here that requires one to have a decent understanding of ones controller, and whilst it does have a few tricky puzzles along the way, the games very respectful of your time in allowing almost instantaneous restarts at the very frequent checkpoints.

 

Really enjoying it so far, and it's a nice change of pace from Khazan which is still tormenting me. 

 

 

[Mister Jack]

Since I've reached the end of current ZZZ content and am just doing dailies that are quick to plow through, I decided to try some of the other Hoyo games. Tried giving Genshin another shot but it really didn't age well. The graphics look hideous today and the grind is far worse than it is in ZZZ. I doubt I'll stick with it. However, Honkai Star Rail was a nice little surprise.

 

It's a turn based RPG where the combat focuses on elemental weaknesses, which is nothing new, but they do a few things with it to give it a different flavor. Enemies have something called a toughness bar along with their HP, and if you attack them with the wrong element then they take very little damage. The best way to kill enemies is to break their toughness with elemental attacks which stuns them, does a big chunk of burst damage, and causes a status effect depending on which element it was. Because elements are so crucial every enemy is going to have at least two weaknesses, usually three or more. Each character in your party corresponds to a specific element so while they can only use one, the multiple weaknesses thing means you usually won't get caught without at least one appropriate party member. When you see enemies on the field you also see a list of their weaknesses attached to their name so you can switch party members if you have to, though I don't often need to do that. Getting in a preemptive strike with the right element gives you an early advantage though.

 

Commands are very simple. Party members have a basic attack that recharges action points, skills that consume action points (shared among the party), and an ultimate that slowly charges as they give damage, receive damage, or use certain energy boosting abilities. Ultimates can be used outside of a character's turn so if your healer gets charged up right before the boss is about to take their turn you can interrupt them to protect your party. Skills aren't always just about doing damage either and some enemies are designed around them. For example, some enemies have an ability called lock on where they aim at a party member for a turn and then do a really strong attack in their next turn, but one of your default party members has a skill that not only shields characters but also counterattacks if anyone attacks the shielded character. Or you could have someone use a skill to remove the lock on debuff which causes the enemy to waste their next turn. For such a basic system they still made it so you can't just hit the basic attack button the whole time. There is an auto battle button and the AI usually makes smart decisions but it can't be used for bosses and you have to turn off letting them use ultimates freely or they'll just spam them as soon as they're charged.

 

Negative points? Well, it's a gacha. You can get by just fine with the default party members for the story content, but obviously the limited party members are stronger. Even putting aside the gacha mechanics, it's pretty immersion breaking to go through a story while having a party member who has no reason to be there. The cutscenes will still use the appropriate characters but I pulled a nine tailed fox alien with a very Japanese, fire based theme who is currently fighting in battles with my party while the story has them stuck on a snow planet with not a single fox alien to be seen. Don't get me wrong, she's great in battle and I'm glad I have her but storywise I have no idea who she even is yet. I assume she shows up on a later planet but right now she's just there because I unpacked her like a Pokemon card (using free rolls mind you). But hey, I'm not gonna complain too hard when I love her design this much.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

 

So far really loving this game. The active combat system is really cool, where it's turn based but you can dodge/parry enemy attacks or increase your own attacks with well-timed button presses. Think Paper Mario. It makes it a lot more engaging, and it feels so satisfying when you counter an enemy.

 

Beyond that, it's an RPG with a great cast of characters and a compelling setting/story. Really enjoying it so far (about 8 hours in).