Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 8th

Continuing Trails, now at Cold Steel (started chapter 3) and it's... bad? It feels like a huge drop in quality from the previous games. The dialogues feel too long and boring, the characters uninteresting and I'm not vibing with the school setting.

Played a couple of hours of Atelier Ryza, which I had accidentally put on hold midway through, and felt lost and confused. I'm not sure if I should restart it or push through.

Played Ys I and currently playing II. The first one was a fun simple adventure, the combat system is kinda weird, as you just run into enemies to damage them, but surprisingly satisfying. The bosses were more annoying than anything. The second one seems to have made the combat more interactive, as there's magic now, and the first two bosses were fun to fight, but the maps are a bit too big and confusing.

Still the new World of Warcraft expansion. While I appreciate Blizzard slowing down the start of an expansion, so you don't have to rush through everything to get to the endgame, this is a bit too slow for me. The next weekly reset on Wednesday can't come soon enough, so finally the higher difficulty stuff opens up.

Now that I've discovered emulators are now allowed on iOS, I'm playing through the original PS version of Chrono Cross.

The ability to use save states and jump back into a session within seconds is HUGE for me. No vendor logos, no waiting for save points. Just instant save and recall.

I started Planet Crafter and I'm hooked. It's a low budget yet brilliant Subnautica like game with a higher emphasis on crafting.

I've been playing Tyranny as well. It's a nice CRPG with factions in a bleak setting. A little obtuse with the consequences of dialog options. Still refreshing. I really could use the tank character in my party composition, but he's such an insufferable square I'd rather not use him.

These are more like last 2 week but anyways:

• Finished Agent A after a year of hiatus.
• Got hdr to work in Dark Souls 2 with the graphics overhaul mod and finished getting the 4 big Souls.
• Got tired of the difficulty of Dark Souls 2 and decided to start a new random shooter from my library.. Devil Daggers
• Had a management sim itch and gave another shot at FTL, never got to win. Half the time I lost in a single encounter to things like never landing a shot on the enemy ship due to shields + misses or 7 people teleporting to my ship and wrecking havok. Other times I got too greedy.
• Tried to figure out which way to go next in Dark Solus 2 by checking the wiki but kept getting sidetracked by things I might've missed.
• Also tried to quench the management itch with shapez, but didn't like it much. Just made me crave the factorio dlc more. Amazing music though

So it turns out Sea of Thieves is super fun when you join lobbies? I got bullied in solo for like 5 hours before trying it out 😆 Yesterday I adventured with a mute that only used preset text messages for two hours, I can finally buy a hat!

A little bit of The Binding of Isaac, and Gran Turismo 5.

A lot of Elden Ring (I'm late to the party).

I have 100% completed all the season objectives for Diablo 4: Season 5, so I'm setting aside my Necromancer and rebuilding my Sorcerer, just for fun. I thought about rebuilding my Barbarian as well, but after I heard about all the crazy changes coming to season 6 with character progression, I think I'll hold off for now.

I finally completed Alien: Isolation on PC with 100% achievements! I'm just gonna... ignore the other achievements that I have left on other platforms, lol. For now.

A re-re-released version of Doom is on GamePass since Legacy of Rust was released last month, so I've been hopping on every now and then to blast my way through demons.

Wrapping up Lies of P. Really fun soulslike. Picked up Avatar again now.

Playing Technobabylon on Deck. Been in my library for ages and I should have played it sooner. Great point-and-click.

Just finishing up Episode 4 of the Quake remaster on nightmare difficulty. Episodes 1-3 were challenging, but my god these exploding bouncy ball "spawns" in E4 are such rage fuel.

Only 3 more levels then I move on to the expansions. First time playing those, so looking forward to it!

Been playing a lot ofDeadlock still, finally getting a grasp of how to play it feels like. Took a while to understand priorities and what to focus on and how to execute builds. Still held back a bit by my aim, but found enough ability-based heroes to still be able to perform. It's a very fun game! I can't play too many games in a row because it gets intense and stressful, but I'm really enjoying it.

I've also been playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the first time as something more relaxing and story based. It's been alright so far. Don't think it's been hitting the heights of the original Deus Ex so far, but it's enjoyable enough.

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - Goofy clip of the week

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Friend came to visit from out of town, played some casual 3S for a little while. Also managed to rope him into trying out Waku Waku 7 and Twinkle Star Sprites as I wanted to show off some fun hidden gems in my collection.

Mahjong Soul/Riichi City/IRL mahjong - Remember when I said I was done grinding this game mode and wouldn't do another run?

Splatoon 3 - Haven't touched Salmon Run since the last Big Run and I'm clearly rusty. Put up a 173, which is gold, but I know that gold target isn't actually much, especially on this map. Still can't kill a damn Triumvirate, which is what I really wanted.

Bit by bit playing HellBlade 2. The game is amazing however, the story and atmosphere is so strong (for a lack of better word) that I need downtime after playing it for an hour. It’s so dark and these voices gets to your own head sometimes, especially when playing with headset.

Recently started Warhammer Space Marine 2. A fun hack ‘n slash to just play after study, work or just general a long day.

Debating to purchase Persona 3 Reload when it is on sale. I played and loved Persona 5 Royal, clocked in 124-125 hours into it. I heard mixed stories about Reload, great character but lackluster dungeons and less social elements.