What are you playing?

[Konacha]

Right now I'm between two games.

Yakuza 0- I've been playing this game off/on for a while now. I'm in the middle of Chapter 7. I love the business that you do in this game. I've been playing a lot of the Cabaret Club business. It is interesting getting girls, making sure they are good for the right person, trying to read hand signs. Just overall really well thought out. The story itself is great too but I keep getting lost in playing the business and randomly stories.

Epic Mickey- I've own this game since it first came out but it has been sitting on my shelf. I'm a huge Disney fan and while some of their games have been hit or miss, this game is along the hit area. I love the old references to the Disney movies, shorts and concepts that are within the Walt Disney company. The overall controls are ok, wish it wasn't motion control but I like the idea with the painting and thinner within the world. The camera is ok, feels too 90s even though it came out in 2010. However the game is fun but very repetitive going though the game more and more with each world. I also have to give the game a rest every once in a while since my wrist acts up and hurts a bit whenever I use the motion controls.

[noiseredux]

Continuing on with Final Fantasy IV, and having a really good time with it. I grinded a bit so Edward could survive a fight. His Hide ability helped make that happen too. Then we went and explored the Antlion's cave. Dungeons are fun to explore in this game since (at least in the DS version) you get some extra loot for opening up the full map. It gives incentive and makes it feel less tedious. Having said that, I zigged when I should have zagged and entered into the bossfight prior to finding a safe place to heal up and save the game. I didn't realize the eye color thing on the Antlion right away, so got beat up pretty good. So unfortunately I had to redo the whole dungeon over again, which killed some time. The Antlion was no problem the second time around.

Went back to rescue Rosa and then picked up the bald karate dude and now we're chilling just outside a village north of the icy mountains there. So making some good progress. I'm glad I'm taking the time to really focus on this one. I've played a lot of Final Fantasy games over the years - the majority of the mainline and quite a few spin-offs, and I'm already feeling like this one is absolute top-tier.

[Arenegeth]

Pokémon Go

I was finally able to evolve one of my Shiny Meltan's into a Shiny Melmetal, but my second (normal) Melmetal that I plan to move onto the Eevee version of Let's Go, is a long time away. Now that the Mystery Box has moved to every 8 days again, I estimate around two months worth of Mystery Boxes until I get enough candy for the second Melmetal.

Other than that, I must be driving some of the locals that play this game crazy, as I single handedly take over the two very specific Gym's (unless my team already has them, which often they don't) that are in my dog walking route pretty much every night.

Though I'm getting very low on Revive's now, I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it going, but last night I was able to take out an entire Gym with one Minun. Since people have the propensity to use their Shiny's for Gym defense so they can show them off, or good attacking Pokemon that are great for taking over Gym's instead of defending them, instead of a Snorlax or a Chansey who are good at defense.

But meh, who cares, I'll keep playing this game until I get my second Melmetal and then I can delete the game off my phone for a bit, pretty sure Nintendo is gonna shove it, either to Sword and Shield or another Pokemon game down the line as long as is popular, so I'll probably have to return for some cockamany reason at some point.

Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!

Still doing the daily Gym runs but I slacked off the last two days and didn't do them properly. I make up for it by doing an Elite Four run + Green sometimes, but again it has diminishing returns, since I got a ton of money and don't have much need for them anymore, plus EXP gain is slow compared to chaining Chansey's.

However, I do have a Shiny Melmetal I need to level up now, but my Persian, who is already 100 but has a week of Pokeball walks left in him before he is fully candied, is cock-blocking my Melmetal from getting some Pokeball action, and Arbok is still hanging there in the late 80's. I could probably take on the Persian master trainer without going on with full candies with the right moveset, but since I already invested in him, I might as well go all the way.

In the next week when I move in a Shiny Meltan from Go, I think I'll be stopping with this cycle, will keep farming Gold and normal Bottle caps, since they can be useful, PP Max's also, but there's no need to go for a round of the Gym's anymore, I rather spend some extra time one day chaining Chansey's to catch everybody up, than spread the time over several days now that money isn't an issue.

After that I think I'll stop playing this game in general, outside of the occasional visit to get the candy from my Pokeball walks, until I get the Eevee version and another Switch, since is been holding me back in finishing the Pokedex or building my perfect teams.

Shenmue

I'm slowly trudging along but I've finally got through the Warehouse skipping day section again, this time I missed out on 10 whole days to get all the scenes from the Old Bum.

If my calculations from my previous run were correct, I should have plenty of time to do everything by February 3rd, I even accounted for spending a total amount of 10 days at the job at the Harbor so I can get two compete sets of the racing Forklift figures so I can sell the extra set in the second game (also this time is perfect to gather money for the capsule toys).

The were no sacrifices this time, not even a minor Fuku-San hint scene was missed, there's the first two of the three Notebook entries you would miss no matter what, but that can't be helped, and soon I'll be hitting on the third one and after that the two entries missed for beating Chai.

But other than that, this should be a complete playthrough, with the exception of maxing out some specific moves, which much like those Notebook entries, might be impossible to do anyway, my move maxing rate has been also optimized for this run, so every move should be maxed out sooner rather than later.

Having said that, I kept a save right before the Warehouse night just to be safe in case I will need the extra few days in the end, and if I need to compromise, I'll be coming back to that save.

[noiseredux]

I just checked a walkthrough to gauge how far I am into Final Fantasy IV. It looks like I'm just about 50% through, as I'm sitting at the boss battle against Scarmiglione. I am absolutely loving this game. Exploration is so rewarding. And because your party is constantly getting switched up, it makes grinding feel interesting and meaningful. As it stands, this is easily in my Top 5 FF games of all time right now.

[BoneSnapDeez]

As it stands, this is easily in my Top 5 FF games of all time right now.

I think "everyone" ranks this one pretty high.

Glad you're enjoying it duder.

[Sload Soap]

I've been playing a few games online and a few off. Online I've been on Apex Legends and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2017). Apex is okay but it's not my sort of game. I kind of get the appeal of these battle royale shooters but the majority of matches are spent not really doing anything meaningful, then there's a short burst of violence and they end. It's also free to play and an EA game so it's riddled with microtransactions and stunted progression mechanics because of the microtransactions.

Much like Battlefront 2, which is now a bit better almost two years on. It's still not actually good at anything aside from being very shiny Star Wars porn but at least it has a bit more content than it did. The game is still an absolutely unbalanced mess though the starfighter and Hero Vs Villains modes can provide some fun. I only really play this because my online friends are massive Star Wars fanboys and unlike them I don't really care if I win or lose so it's fine.

Offline I recently beat Magical Hoppers which is the Japanese version of Pandemonium!. I would type up some thoughts in the games beaten thread but it's not really worth it. Very average 2.5d platformer with some nice music, some awful graphics and some godawful difficulty spikes.

Thankfully Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon is giving me a good 5th gen fix. Really enjoying this one, it's definitely rough around the edges but for a game that initially came out nearly a year and a half before Ocarina Of Time it's still pretty impressive. There's a lot of weirdness as well, be it nonsense spouting NPCs, Ebismaru in general, or the fortune teller who screams "PULASSSSMAAA" when you visit him. And the music is muy catchy.

[noiseredux]

I didn't have much time to play FFIV last night, but made it to what I think is a pretty big milestone in the game: Cecil is now a Paladin. Winning a battle against his own dark side by NOT attacking was a pretty great touch. Of course it threw me off to leave that battle and realize that becoming a new class meant that he was now lvl 1. Yikes. So I'll do some grinding and go buy some new armor and everything. But that's what I am loving about this game - it just keeps tossing curveballs, which isn't always what the Final Fantasy series is known for.

[noiseredux]

Final Fantasy IV continues to be awesome as I approach about the ten hour mark. I've had a tough week, and this game has been a great way to unwind before bed. I spent some time grinding Cecil back up to level 20, and it fit well with listening to The Office on Netflix. Then went back to Baron and found um, the bald dude again. I'm so bad with names. You know who I mean. Anyway, we did some sneaking through some underground tunnels and backdoored our way into the castle. There was a big battle against this water based boss and that was a ton of fun as three members of my party had access to thunder so we roughed him up pretty good. Then I sat thru a long Kojima-ish cutscene that at least had that classic soothing Final Fantasy title screen music that lulls me so well. Then I noticed that I should have already been in bed.

[pook99]

Still playing DMC V, still absolutely loving it. Just got up to the dante missions and, unsurpisingly, he is a ton of fun to play.

I love the character switching in this game, all 3 characters are very unique, all are very fun to play, and between the constant switching between them and the huge number of upgrades this game always feels fresh. I'm about 7 hours in right now and I wish I had more time to play it.

[Nintendork666]

I didn't have much time to play FFIV last night, but made it to what I think is a pretty big milestone in the game: Cecil is now a Paladin. Winning a battle against his own dark side by NOT attacking was a pretty great touch. Of course it threw me off to leave that battle and realize that becoming a new class meant that he was now lvl 1. Yikes. So I'll do some grinding and go buy some new armor and everything. But that's what I am loving about this game - it just keeps tossing curveballs, which isn't always what the Final Fantasy series is known for.

I've actually never played any of the FF games prior to FFVI

Sounds like you're having a lot of fun though man, glad to hear it.

I personally just started up a new game in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

The deus ex games are just so perfect. I love the world: all the cyberpunk and augmentation stuff; the story, the stealth aspects, hacking, customizing my character as I continue to fit my playstyle. I dont know why the series never caught a break. It's like cyberpunk fps splinter cell w dialogue choices which alter the entire story. I still have yet to play the original. My first exposure to the series was Invisible War on the original Xbox, and I went to Human Revolution from there.

...I wonder how similar MGS V is to this (I've only played Metal Gear on the NES). I got that, and the Ground Zeroes expansion together for 5 bucks last month/