What are you playing?

[prfsnl_gmr]

I’ll jump in!

Right now, im playing:

The Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword (Wii) - This game laid the foundation for BOTW, but it is a huge step back from that game, IMO. It is as linear and easy as BOTW is open and challenging. While I appreciate the elaborate dungeons, it’s just hard to go back to this formula after the sublime freedom of BOTW.

Detective Pikachu (3DS) - I like the concept, and I’m excited about the movie. The game, however, is pretty much a walking-and-talking simulator, though. Really having to force my way through it. I’m almost there!

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA) - This is a really awkward follow up to Donkey Kong (GB) that I’m playing for this month’s TR. As I noted in the TR thread, some of the design decisions are really strange, and the game plays like an amalgamation of Mario’s off-brand adventures. (There are a lot of characters and gameplay elements borrowed from Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and, strangely, SMB2.). It’s really challenging and addictive, though; so, I’ll probably spend a bunch of time with it.

Konami Pixel Puzzle (iOS) - Best...Picross...game...ever. So much content! I’m just over halfway through this completely free game’s 500 puzzles.

The Witness (iOS) - My son and I need a new puzzle game to play over breakfast twice a week. I chose this. So far, so good!

[noiseredux]

The Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword (Wii) - This game laid the foundation for BOTW, but it is a huge step back from that game, IMO. It is as linear and easy as BOTW is open and challenging. While I appreciate the elaborate dungeons, it’s just hard to go back to this formula after the sublime freedom of BOTW.

how's the motion controls? You HAVE to use them, right? Can't use a classic controller? That's what kept me away from Skyward Sword for years, though more and more I've been thinking about giving it a chance.

[Arenegeth]

how's the motion controls? You HAVE to use them, right? Can't use a classic controller? That's what kept me away from Skyward Sword for years, though more and more I've been thinking about giving it a chance.

Yes you absolutely HAVE to use motion controls, they are not optional in any way.

But, they are not so bad, I would even say the flying bird sections are probably better with motion than without, though I could honestly do without the sword motion controls.

The game only works with the Wii MotionPlus as far as I can remember, which is more accurate than the vanilla one.

I did everything there is to do in the game, and the motion controls didn't annoy me as much as other design decisions, so if you had to begrudgingly deal with motion controls before, this game is not going to be any worse, since they are actually responsive most of the time (just remember you only need to flick your wrist not hold your hand in the air like the kids in the trailers).

Also remember Skyward Sword is considered the worst 3D Zelda game for a reason, but if you are fan of the old recipe, is worth playing just because of that.

[prfsnl_gmr]

That’s right. You have to use them. Sometimes they’re great, and I must admit that they add depth to the combat. Sometimes, however they can be a bit annoying.

[ZenErik]

Finished Xenoblade Chronicles 1 earlier this week. I was pretty addicted and due to a lot of snow this past Monday also had an extra day off. Took a little over a week to complete. Last time I went that hard on an RPG was probably Persona 5. Would say it's one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Easily top 5 for me personally. As much as I enjoyed XC2 it's not hard for me to say that I enjoyed XC1 much much more.

XCX I couldn't get into. Started that before XC1 with the intention of playing it through before playing Tales of Vesperia, but after 6-7 hours I decided to swap to XC1. Made the right choice.

About 4 hours into Tales of Vesperia now. Playing on the Switch. There's a lot of micro stutter/frame pacing issues outside of combat. The same sort of thing that was also in issue in the PC releases of Zestiria and Berseria. Is Namco just that bad at optimizing games? I read that people are having the same frame pacing issues on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions of Vesperia as well. Disappointing, but the game is pretty good so far. Definitely didn't start off as strong as XC1, but it's in line with what I expect from a Tales game.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Zen mf'ing Erik!!!

[ZenErik]

What's up? How've you been? I rarely check the forums here anymore since I mostly got out of collecting/retro gaming, but I'm still around. Mostly playing JRPGs these days.

[Arenegeth]

Shenmue

Last night I finally did, the very first, very full day of Disc 2 in Shenmue. I also managed to get the second Mr. Yukawa Easter Egg during the cutscene at Bar Yokosuka!

But let me take it back a bit.

I discovered a weird bug, early in Disc 2, in which all my moves (I assume it was all of them) got a slight boost in their progression out of nowhere. Now that may sound like a beneficial bug, and it could be, if I had accounted for it in my playthrough or included it in my guide, or was even sure what caused it so I could replicate it. But in practice, is was actually pretty negative for me, since I had three moves 'prepped' right under the 'Moderate' line and this slight move progress bump pushed them over the line, thus making them a lot harder to max out.

So I restarted from my clear save, did everything the same (though a bit slower since I was checking the Moves Scroll all the time) with one very minor exception. I bought the right side coffee for the old bum at the harbor rather than the left one.

I don't know if that's what causes the bug, I don't have the energy to experiment further, since without being able to go back days, so I don't 'prep' any moves before starting the Disc, I can't take advantage of it for the slight bump it may have given to the throwing moves.

In any case, I restarted yet again, to make up for my slowness the second time, picked the right coffee again, and the bug didn't activate this time either.

So crisis averted I suppose? Though I'd be nice if I had known of the bug in advance and exactly what activates it, so I could prepare for it, but I doubt that the slight boost I might have missed from an unintentional bug, would make the difference whether I could max all those throwing moves or not.

I any case, as I said the first day of Disc 2 was pretty full, QTE's, Easter Eggs, raffle prizes, very optional and easily missable cutscenes, and a lot of training, Lapis visits and Notebook entries.

Only slight problem I have is guide related, you see I'm not sure if the Mr. Yukawa Easter Egg, requires the figures like the other one or not. There's no clear information about it online, in fact it was pretty hard to get it to activate in my game also, mostly because I didn't know you had to enter Bar Yokosuka after 11:00 pm for him to show up (the cutscene is available and entirely missable if you go home directly since 7:00 pm) if you enter before 11:00 pm there's another random dude sitting next to Akemi. Which means I did actually miss it in my previous playthrough.

Now for the purposes of the guide, I need to know for sure whether you need the figures or not, because keeping the Dural's instead of both of the Mr. Yukawa's figures would lock you out from getting this Easter Egg.

I don't suppose any Shenmue fans out there would be willing to do a dry run for me all the way to Disc 2 to test it out? No? Oh well worth trying, I doubt anybody reads my ramblings anyway.

I really don't want to waste time on this right now, given that I'm still catching up on progress I made back in late January, and since I can always correct the guide after the fact, I'll run a quick test after I'm done with the whole game to confirm it.

Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!

Not much to report here, doing my daily grind, getting less and less from it. I moved Persian over to the Pokeball now that Mewtwo is done, and like the others it will take him about three weeks to be fully candied (I'm nearing the end of the first week).

I will have to stop with the daily grind eventually, I got a bunch of Pokes in the pipeline for Pokeball trips to last me a few months, and since I'm not sure when exactly I'll be taking my trip yet, and since I can't just start playing anything along with Shenmue (in case it gets too distracting), I'll keep up with it for the time being, we'll see for how long.

Pokémon Go

I'm finally very close to having enough candy to evolve Meltan, 54 still needed to be exact. But at the same time, as a consequence of the Shiny event ending I suppose, the Mystery Box can be activated every 8 days now, instead of every 3.

That's not the end of the world for my first Melmetal, since I'm pretty close to it, but my second, just got pushed back by what is essentially months, especially if the rate the Meltan's show up in during the Mystery Box use is lower than it was during the event.

I don't know how the game calculates 'distance' I mean if it counts it like a pedometer or based on actual GPS data, but since I'll be taking the trip (and considering my 4G will work during roaming) it will be a good opportunity to score a few extra candy, through long ass bus rides or whatever (wish I could have it on, on the plane). Because otherwise, I might have considered giving up on my second Melmetal.

What I said previously about benefiting from Pokeballs, and having over 100 will last me a long time? Well no, the Meltan's last time wasted a lot of my balls, so Pokestop and Gym visits have a benefit now, since there's no point waiting on a Mystery Box without Pokeballs.

One thing positive I have to say about Go, is that it doesn't create artificial limits to force you to spend real money as a lot of these types of games do, at least not as much as I expected. They are making a fair bit of coin by selling your GPS Metadata and the few impulsive whales they get I suppose.

[prfsnl_gmr]

What's up? How've you been? I rarely check the forums here anymore since I mostly got out of collecting/retro gaming, but I'm still around. Mostly playing JRPGs these days.

Good to hear from you! We’re great. Same crew as usual. Playing all sorts of stuff. Stick around and talk about JRPGs!

[pierrot]

I doubt anybody reads my ramblings anyway.

I do. I just haven't had as much time to actually post lately, and have been prioritizing actually playing games with the time that I do have right now. You're also way beyond my realm of my investment with the game at this point. I actually decided to just blow off the other three certificates (I left one of the save files I was save scumming from, though), and continue on with the game so that I can actually replay Shenmue II before III comes out. I got a little fed up with my A/V setup for the Dreamcast though, and finally just ordered a Toro, so I'm waiting on that right now. The rust is real on the forklift, though.

Anyway, while it could still be incorrect, this webpage - http://www.g-rev.com/Special/Shenmue/shenmu/Aitai/YaGyou.html - says to have both of the Yukawa figures in order to trigger his appearance in the bar.