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Started Youkai Watch 3 a few days ago! I haven't had much time to dedicate to it yet, but I'm having a lot of fun! They totally revamped the combat system. It almost looks like they've taken some cues from the Three Kingdoms tactics game they did with Tecmo Koei for that bit. It's a lot better than the old one at best, and even at worst it's still a great breath of fresh air. The music in American region is also freaking fantastic!

My theory I had at the end of Youkai Watch 2 turned out to be correct. YW2 was really more like YW1.5. A hurried out sequel that adds a little but is mostly there to augment the original without really trying to hard to improve the good it already had. YW3 is a true sequel to the original game(s), and I'm so excited to keep going!

At the end of Link Between Worlds, just Lorule Castle left. Overall I had a nice change of heart on this game. Still nothing amazing but I'm happy to finally get another solid overhead Zelda. You can see tons of Breath of the Wild influences started here, for better or worse. The dungeons are small and shorter, but I guess I didn't totally mind. I wish the Heart Containers and big rupee chests were swapped though, ie... those cool little mini dungeons with some item gimmick always led to rupees and that was just a really boring reward for those cool mini dungeons (shrines). I'm at 9,999 rupees after buying everything, getting the 5th bottle after 3,000 rupees donated to that one fairy, etc, so yeah the rupee inflow is pretty generous. Although I don't think this game is even close to Breath of the Wild's level, they are pretty different, but I liked how this one still kind of had that classic Zelda progression. Even though you rent/buy most of the items, there was still a handful along the way gained from quests and such. Though I hated how the Pegasus Boots were throwaway here really, I just looked that one up and it's pretty much only good for those maimai's in the trees. Maybe it just rubbed me wrong getting it late game, when you get this very early in LTTP and it's something I constantly use there. Beyond that though you are constantly getting stronger and cool things along the way, but the back half of the game becomes insanely easy, just like Breath of the Wild. They need to figure out some balance.

I'll wrap it up tomorrow night or sometime soon. I still like LA and the Oracle's more, but this is a good Zelda for sure in my book. A solid 8/10 or so.

Undertale.

Segata wrote:Undertale.

Is this your first time playing it? With all the hype built up around it, how are you approaching it? Let us know your thoughts!

Ignored the hype and just wanted to see how much I'd like it on its own merits. I did it expect it to be more like Earthbound in structure but it sure does have that games humor. It's extremely rare I laugh at a game trying to be funny but this game does it. I also did the whole dognate thing and it was worth the grinding for the cash.

Well, as I'm wrapping up the final achievements of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, I've decided to go through my Steam inventory for the next game on my list to knock out. I'm now looking at the extended edition of the psychological horror game Anna. I'm not quite sure what to expect of this title. Anybody played Anna? I'm sure it will be interesting, but I don't know if it will be good.

I am mostly a multi-format retro gamer but I still I like to play some other stuff ,mostly PC like Euro Trucker 2 when I get home from work as I find it relaxing and it helps me unwind . Apart from that I downloaded some other stuff off Steam such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl which is kicking my butt , but I did complete Dark Forces which I enjoyed a lot more than I was expecting.

Ack wrote:Well, as I'm wrapping up the final achievements of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, I've decided to go through my Steam inventory for the next game on my list to knock out. I'm now looking at the extended edition of the psychological horror game Anna. I'm not quite sure what to expect of this title. Anybody played Anna? I'm sure it will be interesting, but I don't know if it will be good.

Well, this was gonna be the case. And then I discovered the devs apparently wanted me to register a CD key on Steam and then an email address with their sketchy service. This is a single player indy game... So I am setting it aside, as throwing up this many hurdles for a legitimate player sends up a red flag for me. I will do more research into these folks before Anna gets played.

In the meantime, more Torchlight and a puzzle platformer called Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory that a friend bought me as a joke. It's not Super Meat Boy, but I certainly am not good at it.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar

Booted up Fire Emblem Warriors today, and it's pretty neat so far! It really feels like a successor to Hyrule Warriors in the gameplay department, except with some Fire Emblemy things thrown in. I just wanted to get to the point where I could do 2 players this morning, so it'd be all ready to play with my bro next weekend, and to do that I'm fairly sure you need to beat the first 4 missions (which will take like an hour, as they're not too long, but it's still annoying ).

Interesting notes:
-The weapon triangle is present! It affects everyone, from you to allies to big enemies to even grunts, but you can see whether or not you'll be good against an enemy captain with your current weapon by just looking at the big arrow above their head or on the map. Pretty cool, but Dynasty Warriors proper has had a kind of elemental weapons triangle in it since at least the 8th one from a couple years back, so it's nothing crazy new for the series other than now it depends on certain weapons.
-You can change playable characters mid-fight. Each character can only hold one weapon, so to try and diversify what weapon advantages you can get you gotta diversify your team's weapons. This is a switch from how DW8 does things, where to balance which advantages and disadvantages you can get, you can just switch between the two weapons your dude can carry.
-You can order your allies around the map. On the pause screen, the map is broken up in a FE-style grid, and you can tell them to fight a specific enemy by selecting and dragging where they are to where you want them. It's a pretty cool way to incorporate the FE system of tactical movement! Paired with the character swapping from the last point, this can be a great way to maintain a larger map-presence with only one character.
-Weapon durability is not a thing. You find a new weapon, you can use it as much as you damn well please, but only one character can use that weapon at a time.
-The game runs really well! Tons of dudes on screen and I didn't notice any frame-drops. Perhaps that will change in more graphics-intensive maps or in split-screen, but the base game runs just fine
-The English voice acting is alright, but I'm fairly sure a good portion of the VO's from the 3DS entries have been changed. Luckily, just like with DW8, the Japanese VO is free DLC, so you can use that if you wanna
-Controlling the game with just one joycon is possible, but I wouldn't recommend it. You'd probably want a second actual controller.
-None of the amiibos give you any special weapons like they did in Hyrule Warriors, at least so far as I can tell from my own experiences and reading online.

Verdict so far: Pretty fun! It's more Nintendo Dynasty Warriors, and it's still quality fun. I'm not sure the overall theme is as strong as the Zelda one, but if you like FE and Musou games, this is probably a safe purchase