What video games are you playing now?

[Lone_Garurumon]

Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy: A lot of stuff happened. Drax succumbed to the Church's Promise, Mantis helped us go inside his head along with Adam Warlock to snap him out of it. Then we went back to Knowhere to help Cosmo, things're going well with him now. Then we tried to bust into the Church's capital ship, but there were a lot of ships in the way so we decided to try and get Lady Hellbender on our side, 'cause the Church is only paying attention to people, not animals. And to do this we go to fight the legendary dragon Fin Fang Foom. We accidentally kill him, that kinda pisses Hellbender off, but then Groot brought him back to life and so Hellbender's kinda cool with it enough to bring her army of monster beasts to fight the Church fleet so we can bust into Sacrosanct and get all of this stuff resolved. And that's about where we're at right now.

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: Successfully retrieved the Blue Gem from Almia Castle and brought it back to the Union. Apparently it's only enough to bring the dark stones down to about two thirds power. But Rhythmi and that blue haired girl had a yellow and red pendant that combined with Murph's to bring the shard we were testing on all the way down to 0% power. So now I'm out on patrol while the techs are running research on these new pendants and potential connections to larger gems like the blue one.

Technically not a video game but adjacent enough to count imo: The Metroid: Zebes Invasion Order adventure book: I picked up a game I started a while ago but never got around to completing, having just explored Brinstar. I then went on to explore Norfair, scooping up all them super neat collectibles, ignoring the Wave Beam though because the Ice Beam is just so much objectively better for not taking damage which you will otherwise be taking a lot of in Norfair. I then went towards and killed both Kraid and Ridley, claiming their keystones and opening up the path to Tourian, where Mother Brain waits.

 

[Tactician Karina]

I put Shining Pearl on hold for a while after beating the Elite Four and I'm also taking a bit of a break with SMTV for now. Though sometime after Christmas I might pick them back up again.

For now I went back to Hades to play another run through, because this game is still quite addicting tbh. But since it's been a while I was kinda rusty on like two boss fights.

I also just started ActRaiser Renaissance on the Switch a bit ago; I actually got this game a few days back but didn't really start it then cause I wanted to watch and read some stuff for a few hours, which then turned into a few days lol. Anyway, I'm in the very first area named Fillmore, played through some side scrolling action and now I'm currently helping the settlement I created with the villagers. Did a defense fight and got rid of two monster dwellings so they wouldn't attack the village anymore, though it seems there's two more I need to clear as well. So tonight I'll start it back up and make more developments for the village and get rid of more monsters.

Starting tomorrow I'll be replaying Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, I almost always replay a Castlevania game around Christmas for some reason so it kinda became tradition for me at this point. Last year it was Symphony of the Night, and I was thinking of playing it again this year (cause it's just that good) but decided not to in favor of one I don't really replay all that often, so DoS it is this time.

Also thinking of replaying another Fire Emblem game, though I'm conflicted on if it should be GotHW or Radiant Dawn. I might just go with the latter though, since GotHW is tied with New Mystery of the Emblem for my constant FE replays, and sometimes that can get a bit stale (which is why I'm now burnt out a bit on Three Houses); or I might just replay either one of the two TearRing Saga games, mainly cause (surprisingly) someone else posted a track of Berwick Saga in the VG music thread, and I love going back to good old Kaga made games.

 

[CynthiaLover]

I decided to start a new file in Breath of Fire 2. This time I'm now armed with multiple bits of knowledge that I had forgotten about when I did my first run so I was able to cover more ground more quickly this time. I'm also playing more intelligently, such as exploiting that glitch early to get a lot of money so I can stock up on various healing items sooner before Ryu has to run solo. I'm up to where Ryu, under the name of Baba, is going to fight Katt at the arena. He currently has all the best equipment he can get right now and I'll be soon putting all my glitch-gained funds into the bank so I don't lose all of it to Rand when he asks me to give him all my money to buy antidotes in order to prevent the disguised demon's plans. Ryu is currently Level 8, which is higher than he was in the previous playthrough at this point, so that shows that I've taken what I've learned from the previous run and used it to better map out my game strategy. Right now the Switch Lite is recharging so I'm stopping for the night.

 

[Okido]

Paper Mario, on the Nintendo Switch Online N64 app. I adore this game, so I'm very happy to be able to play it again (and maybe actually finish it this time, since 7-year-old me wasn't capable of that the first time I played it).

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: Retrieved the Red Gem from Boyle Volcano after proving myself to the guardian Heatran. Took the gem back to HQ where we got a report from Keith, said he's doing fine, just hitched up a tiny bit on the gem guardian. I believe him. I have confidence in my friend from school who also shot up to Top Ranger within a tiny stretch of time. Chairperson Erma thinks I should head out and provide some backup though, so I headed off to the desert. Along the way though I ran into a Dim Sun unit trying to poach a Wailord to replace the cargo ship I trashed. I handled that, but the made off with a Wailmer that I figured I should probably also rescue. Wailord helped me follow them to an old Altru Inc. oil rig (now hmm, why oh why does Altru Inc. keep coming up around Dim Sun operations? Ah well, I'm sure it's nothing) where I joined up with Sven who was also there to rescue Wailmer and inspect this Dim Sun base.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Solved the situation. I also feel like I might've got the best form of the climax because I can't think of a character interaction that ever actually went poorly. Especially when the climax starts paying off the things you've done in the story, every thread I could remember us starting to tug on came into it in a positive way. Overall a pretty good game. Just a solid, well-told story with a good emotional core, surprisingly good integration for the extremely disparate episodic events the start of the game was setting up with, and pretty decent gameplay put in. I liked it.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy: Doing a new playthrough just to set the stage for the rest of the series I'm planning to play right after. It's funny 'cause I went into it thinking "I'm not going to make a big deal about completion percentages, I'm just gonna do enough to finish the game.", but then I accidentally went and just completely cleaned out all the power cells for the first, like, half of the game, at which point I just figured "Well, I've gone this far. Might as well turn it into an all cells run I guess." Definitely still not making a big deal of the orb counts so long as I get enough to pay for all the cells, but I am going to finish this game with 100 power cells. I'm currently up to the spider caves. And yes, there are spiders in the spider caves.

 

[PokéSean]

Still playing C and got my next two badges. Didn’t know that I could get the TM06 Psychic nor battle to find a wild Dark-type Mon but I had a good team of my Fregrilatr, Togetchic, Graveler, and Nidoqueen plus Muscle the Machoke and Paul the Xatu.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Since I had a fair bit of downtime today while waiting for Christmas dinner to cook (which was already pretty easy, as we decided to keep it real simple), I got a lot done in Breath of Fire 2.

First off, did everything in the arena town, including recruiting Rand and the technically first "permanent" party member, Katt. After that Ryu and Katt helped my second favorite Nina save Mina from Joker and his goon squad, which means she's now a permanent member. After returning Mina to Wyndia and getting Sten into the group I spent some time grinding for levels, as the upcoming boss at the town Captain is the toughest one at this point in the game. After getting everyone around the Level 11-12 range I took on the rescuing the child and villagers mission. Man, that boss was a tough nut to crack. It sure loved spamming Fire Breath, forcing me to spend entire turns healing, but I eventually killed it. After rescuing all the villagers I took Ray back to the newly built hideout, aka Township, and gave Nina the Renew spell, as she has the AP to make use of it. After all, Bow and Rand will eventually get the spell naturally, Katt and Sten have terrible AP pools, and Ryu's AP is too precious to use once he gets the soon-to-be acquired Dragon Clan powers, as the damage his dragon form's breath attacks deal are tied to how much AP he has. Now it's time to head back to Captain. At the moment my team consists of Ryu, Rand, Nina, and Sten, as I've "boxed" Katt for now so I can get Rand's Level up (plus I need to get him better equipment now that he's free to travel).

 

[PokéSean]

Playing Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure I just got for Christmas today and I finished my Giants and got the Boulderbadge in C. I almost made it up to finish Red but I can wait and just train Lv. 65-75.

 

[Tactician Karina]

Guilty Gear Strive on the PS5. Got this as a gift today from my brother and it's pretty fun so far, as per usual I've been alternating between May, Ky, and Axl as my mains; Nagoriyuki is fun to play too, so he might also be part of my main lineup. I wish Testament was playable in this installment though, he's always been fun to use occasionally against other players.

ActRaiser Renaissance. I got to Kasandora recently and my settlement is at level 2, soon I need to fend off a raid against the village; luckily I got these bells that attract the monsters, so picking them off should be somewhat easier hopefully. I like the Champion for this region so far, his adventurer/cowboy-esque design is pretty cool (even though it's the odd one out so far in this high fantasy setting).

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow. I'll be fighting Zephyr soon, just did some general and soul grinding for a bit. Not too worried for this boss since he's pretty easy, I'm just slightly more concerned with the boss after this one, Rahab; he's not hard, but I generally don't like boss fights that take place in the water.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Still working on Breath of Fire 2. I've returned to Captain only for Sana to drag Ryu to perform Shaman fusion, which resulted in Ryu awakening his dragon powers and obtaining the first three dragon forms (the puppy dragons), but now I have to hire a carpenter to build up Township. So, fortunately, I know which carpenter to hire and picked the one that can cook items together to become stuff like Stamina, Luck Candy, Gold Bars, etc, making him quite the game-breaker when used properly. After that I helped Jean by heading to Nimifu's tower. This time I was better prepared for it, as I not only spent some time grinding for levels prior, getting Ryu, Nina, Rand, and Sten around the Level 14 mark, but I returned to Captain to stock up on healing items. After that it was time to traverse the tower and fight Nimifu. After defeating her I obtained Seso the Water Shaman and had poor Nina take one for the team by kissing Jean to return to normal. Now, with Jean in tow I was able to get Ryu's next level of dragon powers. Then I backtracked to Township, as the carpenter had finished with the first three empty houses and raided anything I could from them before I started hunting for residents. I've since filled up the first three houses, so I'll be heading back to Township to pay the carpenter to make three more houses, along with using my hard-earned funds on the new shops that I opened up in Township. After that I'll be heading over to the Wildcat Cafe to get Chop Chop. Currently my team is Ryu, Rand, Nina, and Jean.

 

[Bigfoot_the_Pokémon]

I've bigfooted this thread

• Among Us
• Rocket League
• Minecraft
• Forza Horizon 5
• On occasion Splatoon 2

 

[CynthiaLover]

Got some more done in Breath of Fire 2. After filling up the first three houses in Township I paid the carpenter to make three more, entered and exited Township 8 times so the final buildings will be completed. After that I recruited two more residents to Township. I also spent a fair bit of Zenny on equipment for the team (sans Bow, as you can't give him anything yet) before trudging my arse all the way back to the area where SimaFort and Wildcat Cafe are. I went to the Wildcat Cafe first, as I wanted to get Chop Chop from Wildcat, as you can only get it before the area becomes plot-specific. I gave the skill to Nina, as it outclasses most of her spells atm (sans Sonic Boom), plus it ignores defense AND costs 0 AP, so she now has a pretty useful skill (which will come in handy when it's time to grind on the giant monster island). After that I finally move on with the story. Went to SimaFort and dealt with the imposter. While dealing with the underground dungeon this time I was much better prepared. However, that damn J. Worm's Sweet Breath really gave me grief. But, in the end everything was resolved and I "acquired" Yuna Patty the Phantom Thief so I can clear Bow's name. After hauling her all the way back to HomeTown I did the events with Trout, followed by Ryu and Bow infiltrating his home (and spent some time battling Footmen to raise Bow's Level to a more desirable spot) and destroying him. Now it's off to find Spar the Grassman, which means I need to head for Whale Cape and do Grandpa's "dungeon". My team right now is Ryu, Bow, Nina, and Jean.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: Kicked Kincaid's butt at the oil rig, and also made off with Isaac who was apparently also there working for them. It's cool though, he's sorry now that he realises what he'd done. Also it turns out that it was probably a good thing Erma sent me to check up on Keith, since he kinda got captured and held for ransom once I grabbed the yellow gem, so now the Dim Suns have that, I guess. Also Isaac gave us the password to access the blueprints for "The Incredible Machine" which Dim Sun is planning to use for unknown yet definitely malicious purposes. It's Altru Tower. The thing Altru Inc. has been building for, like, a year now. It's finished tomorrow... Well fuck. Hastings is trying to come up with some kind of plan for what the heck we're supposed to do in this situation, so I'm out patrolling while we wait for The Plan to come in.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy: Cleared the game, 101 power cells. There's honestly not much more to say, really. It's Jak and Daxter. It's a solid game.

Jak II: Renegade: Just reached the big reveal that Haven City is actually the future. Jak II is... Definitely a PS2 game trying out a new style for the first time. Slapping gunplay onto Jak's base movement from the first game just doesn't work because the movement was (very understandably), not made with effective gunplay in mind. There's no strafe function and so little auto-aim as to be practically nonexistent, which means it's incredibly hard to line up a shot, especially in crowds, and enemy attacks have so little wind-up and your movement options are so limited (because again, they were made for a platformer with a significantly slower pace) that dodging is incredibly difficult and melee is simply a non-starter because they'll whack you by the time you're close enough. Also the camera is just awful. There's no two ways about it. It is a bad camera. I'm still going through it because you can generally manage ok with a bit of finagling, but you're fighting the game as often as the enemies. Also I love these boys, the character work in these games is actually great.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Got a lot done in Breath of Fire 2. I did Whale Cape and saved Grandpa the whale from the stone doll. Which meant I was able to get the "secret character": Deis/Bleu, which I did. I then took care of the quest that you need to complete in order to save Spar before defeating the demon guy and freeing the Grass Man himself. Then, after fusing Spar with Seso the Water Shaman I used Grandpa to take me to the island just northwest of HomeTown (not Island of Giants, that's northwest of Wyndia) so I could complete a few things and take advantage of the fact that I could grind against the monsters there with a convenient healing spring until I got my team at least to Level 20 apiece (sans Deis, obviously, who starts a Level 35). I also got some useful items there, such as a more powerful whip for Spar and even got a rare drop of a ShinyBR, which gives the user total immunity to status ailments. Since Ryu is always in the party I gave it to him and I'm hoping to get another one sometime to give to Nina. In the meantime, I equipped everyone else with D.Earrings to prevent the most debilitating status ailment in the game: Sleep, from one of the shops that I opened up in TownShip. Now I'm grinding at Island of Giants, trying to get everyone at least to 25 (sans Ryu, Nina, and Deis, as they're all in their 30s now). My team is Ryu, Jean, Nina, and Deis.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Forgive the double post (although it's been a few days) but I got a lot more done in Breath of Fire 2. After doing enough grinding on Island of Giants to get most everyone up to Level 30 (sans Katt, who is at Level 28, while Ryu, Nina, Deis, and Spar are over 30) and exploiting the usefulness of the cooking carpenter to make various stat boosting items and such I continued with the main quest. Spar talked to the Great Tree but I need to recover the Therapy Pillow from Tunland in order to help him. So, off to the land of music and scantly clad chicks. Sadly, because the party can't understand the natives without a musical instrument it's off to Highfort to get the famous flute, much to Sten's dismay. Here we learn of Sten's past as a soldier and we thwart Shupkay's plans to turn Highfort into a flying fortress, though not without a fair bit of damage to the area, and Sten supposedly dying. Or not, as he's alive and well after we got the flute. So back to Tunland, where we now need to find the wizard who specializes in diets to save a fat queen from becoming a demon. After pulling a Magic School Bus/bizarro episode of entering the queen's body and eliminating the "fatty" (aka: monsters) to slim her down it was time to get the Therapy Pillow and head back to the Wise Tree. The party enters his mind and fights off against the demon that was destroying his memory, who also revealed to be the source of Ryu's pain in his childhood, as he erased the memories of the villagers in Gate. Now, with the Wise Tree safe it's time to head for SkyTower to disperse the fog that is blocking our path to the next area. My current team is Ryu, Rand, Nina, and Jean, as Rand has an important event coming up soon, so I want to give him a few extra levels before then, and I haven't used Jean in a while.

 

[Aulos]

With Christmas money, I finally was able to get FFXIV Endwalker, so I've been playing that. I'm still very early on in it and am amazed with how many areas we have explored and yet the quest level is still at 82. lol

 

[Bigfoot_the_Pokémon]

Still rocking the same games

Will update when I get a new one or something

 

[colours]

just beat dbz: kakarot! it's a pretty fun game and worth getting tbh, especially for the pretty visuals.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia: Operation Brighton complete! The Shadow Crystal is rendered inert and peace returns to Almia. Now it's just down to the postgame quests, capture arena, and filling out the browser.

Jak II: Renegade: I have won the Class 1 race and earned my ticket into the Krimzon Palace. It is time to invade.

 

[Fatima Shadow Frost Witch]

Pokemon Shield

Returned to it after a few days away from it didn't do much other than just go watt hunting and I officially found my first Shiny Pokemon(Orange Rhyhorn)so I caught it