What are you playing?

[pierrot]

First of all, the best Zelda game of all time is the original Dragon Slayer. Nothing after it compares. Beyond that, I tend to like:

- Link's Awakening
- Wind Waker
- Majora's Mask
- Minish Cap

LTTP is pretty okay too, but I don't really love it. Most of the other Zelda games aren't so great, in my opinion. I don't know if it's a subconscious thing, or just a coincidence, but almost any time I have to "Save the Princess," I'm not really invested in the game at all.

[pook99]

I am not a zelda fan at all, I have tried a vast majority of games in the series and they seldom capture my attention long enough to finish them. The only 3d zelda games that hooked me to the end are wind waker and breath of the wild, I never gave twilight princess a fair shake so that is on my bucket list.

I loved the original zelda as a kid but have not played it since I was a kid and dont really have a desire to, same with link to the past. I did enjoy zelda 2 as a kid and want to replay it at some point because I love hard games. I played most of the handheld zelda games and got bored with them before I could finish them.

My brother is the biggest zelda fan in the world, he has sealed copies and open copies of every zelda game ever made(even the cd-i ones) and every version of the respective games. He also has an entire room filled with zelda memoribilla that would make your head spin, he has some incredibly rare and obscure items that most people probably never heard of, and for halloween he dresses as link, his wife dresses as zelda, and my niece will usually dress up as some supporting character, I think she was that annoying green fairy looking dude last year. Zelda related games are literally the only games he plays and just goes back and forth replaying each game to absolute completion.

I've always been much more of a mario guy, so to change course, what is everyones top 5 mario games?

It is really hard for me to choose since I love every game in the series so much but if I had to choose it would probably be:

1) Super Mario World,
2) Mario Odyssey, I know its still new, but this game was just amazing and I already have a desire to replay it which is very rare for me.
3) Mario 3
4) Mario 64, objectively this game is probably not as good as the galaxy games but this game has so much more nostalgia attached that I have to include this over the galaxy series
5) Mario 2...thats right, I love Mario 2 and think it is the hands down the most under rated game of all time.

The only notable mario game I never played was mario 3d world due to not having a wiiu, I am really really hoping nintendo brings this game to the switch because I played a few levels at a friends house and loved it, plus mario 3d land on 3ds was amazing.

[laurenhiya21]

When I have a spare moment, I've been playing Blue Reflection (PS4). It's a pretty simple game, but it's very chill and I really like the characters. I think I'm getting close to the end of the game I think but I'm not 100% sure.

[SuperDerpBro]

I've been really enjoying Alice Madness Returns on the 360 last couple days. Pretty sure i'm close to the end (For anyone who's played, i just went into a doll's butthole LOL). It's pretty basic in all regards but i love it, heh

Saw it digital for $5 so i bought it. Anyone want to sell me a physical? Toomuchee on eBay.ca

EDIT: Wait a min... is that a butthole.. or..

NSFW

[BoneSnapDeez]

Bought and played a bit of Battle Princess of Arcadias. Anyone ever heard of this? It's a side-scrolling ARPG / beat 'em up type game. Though released four years ago I didn't know it existed until yesterday. Seems to be a PS3 PSN exclusive.

It's alright. It's by NIS so it has that air of weeby cheapness, but the core mechanics are pretty solid.

[noiseredux]

I had a lot going on over the weekend - wake and funeral for instance. But I managed to play a bit of LTTP last night. I'm on the ice dungeon; tackling them in numerical order - nothing fancy. If I can keep pace I should be able to knock this one out in time to start playing Oracle Of Seasons for TR on time.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Bought and played a bit of Battle Princess of Arcadias. Anyone ever heard of this? It's a side-scrolling ARPG / beat 'em up type game. Though released four years ago I didn't know it existed until yesterday. Seems to be a PS3 PSN exclusive.

It's alright. It's by NIS so it has that air of weeby cheapness, but the core mechanics are pretty solid.

I have it because it went on sale once and, really, how could I resist that sweet, sweet discount. I played it for about 10 minutes; was not impressed; and put it aside. I didn’t really give it a fair shake, though, and I’m curious to find out what you think of it.

.....

Since I beat two games yesterday, I find myself in the rare situation of not having any active games at the moment. Moreover, my pick for next month’s TR - Time Soldiers - probably won’t take that long. Accordingly, I need to figure out something to play next. I can go with:

Games I’ve Started but Not Finished (Affordable Space Adventures, Alto’s Adventure, and Rush)

The Next Chapter in the Wonder Boy Saga (The Dynastic Hero)

Chris’ Adventure (Resident Evil Deadly Silence - Chris Redfield scenario)

Game Gear Double Dragon and Fantasy Zone Games (the title pretty much says it)

Another From Software FPARPG (Eternal Ring or Shadow Tower Abyss)

Detective Pikachu (because, why not?)

Help me decide!!!

[Exhuminator]

Another From Software FPARPG (Eternal Ring or Shadow Tower Abyss)

Help me decide!!!

The decision is clear to me.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I just started playing The Shroud of the Avatar, created by Richard "Lord British" Garriott and writing by Margaret Weiss. It is a Single-Player/Co-op/MMORPG. Yes, it can be all of those things. This is an MMO-style game that allows the player to play offline as a single-player experience, play with friends in a closed environment, or open as an MMO and can be switched between them at the push of a button. The story puts you in the role of a person on earth who is sucked into the fantastical realm of New Brittania as an Outlander and Avatar. After speaking to a mechanically ominous oracle, you are put on one of the paths of virtue, which determines where you start in the game and what major quest line you begin with. You later will be able to do the other major quest lines to complete the story.

The game has some very fascinating mechanics that are marred by slightly inconveniencing bugs. The major element of the game is combat and this is the most complex, but fascinating set of systems. You have a set of intro skills that all belong to the wide variety of skill categories, ranging to weapon types, magical skills as well as crafting skills and skills based on the basic stats of a player (intelligence, strength, dexterity etc.). By using the skills, you level them up and improve their potency and effectiveness. In harvesting, it improves your chance of successfully harvesting rare materials and the speed of harvesting, but with magic spells or combat abilities, it affects range, damage and chance for hitting status effects. Some other skills are passive ones that only improve when using skills related to a stat. These passive abilities improve your base stats as they level up.

In order to level up those skills, you need to have an xp pool that you earn by killing enemies and doing quests. You can also set skills that you no longer want to use to decay and put xp back into the overall pool. The pool is ginormous at the start and I have not even remotely come close to running dry as there are a ton of quests and areas to explore, plus the act of improving said skills usually involves combat and gaining more xp.

As you level up your skills, you can purchase branches of skills through their prospective skill tree and get access to new powers and abilities. These skills are also built into decks that you create. Certain skills can be combined with others to create combos that are more potent and combine status affects. There are ways you can charge up these moves and even implement a more FPS style targeting system that makes it more challenging but the abilities be more potent

What I love about the game is how you interact with NPCs. The game uses an Everquest style dialog system where NPCs include keywords which you have ti type out to discuss further. The game also features those same keywords on a small dialog bar for folks who want it laid out more easily. Also, in order to have the NPCs name and occupation to appear over their heads, you need to ask them about it. Also, how quests work is not blatant. If an NPC has a quest, you need to ask if they need help and quest types run the gamut of, "Kill this creature," to, "Interrogate NPCs to determine their guilt," to, "Track down a series of books," and on and on. The quests are more varied and not always so blatant. There are waypoints to general areas if the NPCs tell you that information, but they never outright point you to the exact location. Some quests require you to be at a location at a certain time and others are ones you DO NOT WANT TO DO as they are villainous in intent and will hinder your journey to be the avatar (it just requires you to do more good things). These villainous quests are ones that you need to determine whether they are or not and it is really important to talk to the NPCs to learn their intent. You can still do them and they can still affect your story and being villainous is an actual option with evil skills and abilities and the ability to steal and pickpocket folks.

When talking to the Oracle (which has temples throughout the world) she can actually tell you how you are doing on your path and certain tasks you did that helped or hindered your journey.

As for the world itself, it is enormous. Spanning two continents with tons of regions, it is absolutely huge. How you navigate this is through an overworld. This allows you to travel to the zones for combat and adventure, as well as the major cities and player run towns. At first, I thought this was a negative, but it feels very oldschool and interesting. Think of it like a modern version of Zelda 2's overworld. There are enemies you can see that when you engage them put you into a combat zone which you can run away from or do combat in. You also can see and interact with other players here and terrain affects your speed. There are tons of zones to explore and their difficulty is notated by the number of skulls on a spike at its entrance. Exploration is highly rewarded as there are tons of quests and resources and unique enemies hidden in the world.

Jesus.... this is a long ass post.... there's more....

Player cities. Players and guilds can create cities and custom housing in the world through the overworld. There is free housing in the form of Inn rooms if a town allows it and you can freely decorate it. If you want to own a house, it is expensive in the early run, but is apparently very manageable once you get closer to the end game. Players can have custom NPCs with quests and merchants, can even create their own dungeons for players to explore and more. These places can range the gamut of being very gawdy and crowded to being very intimate and feeling very realistic. They are also not packed. The overworld is not just littered with a million player towns thankfully. Even in the pre-built cities, the player housing there (which is the most expensive) are not overwhelmingly gaudy. A lot of major guilds have guild houses located there where they congregate and recruit and it is fascinating to see people interact in-game in a this way. This is the part that I have the least experience in as I have just started, but I have explored a bunch of towns and am super surprised at the type of stuff a player is able to do.

Also with towns is the ability to be sieged. This is an optional activity for players who want to engage in PvP or in larger scale PvE (depending on the type of siege). Guilds can declare war with other guilds (they mutually must agree to it) and that opens up free PvP between them. There are arenas and in-game tournaments that have brackets and leader boards all presented in an in-character way. There are also world events that players can take part in like a special enemy that leads an army to a town. Players can fight to whittle down their forces before they reach the target, with the goal of defeating them before they kill all the npcs in the town and the town leader. There are areas that open up and are fought over for land by guilds and so much more. These things are all of course optional for players who do not want to participate in that sort of activity.

Players can also play music, write books and learn and teach other people a variety of emotes that can actually have functions. Players can use the zombie emote to avoid aggro of passing zombie mobs (but not avoid it if already in combat). In the end, the game is jam packed with content and has an amazing player-base that are kind, friendly and helpful. I have never seen a global chat that isn't spamming with obscenities. I have had an absolute blast playing the game so far and talking with folks. It is a joy to explore and interact with NPCs and the world. It is a great mix between Ultima Online and Everquest, but with the option and ability to play by yourself or with your friends without the outside noise of an MMO. Also... it's free.

Phew.....that was a big-ass post.

[Erik_Twice]

I like your big posts. Thanks!