What video games are you playing now?

[TheCapsFan]

Have you ever played Skyward Sword before? If not, what'd you think of it? Did you think it was as linear as everybody (not entirely incorrectly) says it is?

I got Skyward Sword for the Wii for Christmas back in its launch year. After seeing some people talking about how good it was on this forum, actually. I remember playing all the way through the first dungeon on launch. Eventually I ended up getting stuck on the Sandship and left that original playthrough to die.

I think I had a couple other started but never finished playthroughs between then and when I actually first finished the game, in 2017. So this was my second time seeing the game through to the end.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Picked up Breath of Fire 3 for the first time in a few days (I've been writing and dealing with RL events lately so I haven't had the chance to sit down and play). Still in the same area, grinding up the party. I've since completed all the requirements to get all the skills from Deis and now I'm working on the final Master that I need to gain skills from: Ladon (who can't be accessed without all the Dragon Genes, which I have). I temporarily swapped Nina out of the party so I could level up some of the other characters... and sorely regretted it. The area I'm grinding in has half the enemies weak to Ice and one of the two remaining ones weak to Lightning, so she's very useful in this area. And even though Ryu has Blizzard and Myollnir from his time under Deis, his Intelligence isn't high enough to one-shot those enemies, while Nina can. I even gave him an Wisdom Ring for a good +30 points boost... and it's still not enough at times.

Anyway, I also shuffled some of the Masters around while I was at it (Rei is now apprenticed to Meryleep, and Garr and Peco to Ladon) and I'm tempted to give Ryu a new Master since I'm getting a tad tired of his HP (and to a lesser degree, Defense) getting penalized under Deis (-3 on both fronts, which sometimes prevents him from gaining any points in both), though the Agility and Intelligence buffs do help (especially Agility, as it's the hardest stat to raise organically, and Swallow Eyes aren't easy to get, since you can't farm them by stealing them from monsters, unlike Life/Magic Shards, Power Food, and Protein). Also I might switch Momo back to D'lonzo since that accuracy boost can really make the difference with her. Anyway, Ryu is Lv48, Nina is Lv46, Peco is Lv46, Momo is Lv43, Rei is Lv39, and Garr is Lv34. I'm thinking that the final squad I'll pick to fight Myria will be Ryu (since you can't ditch him), Nina, and Momo due to how I've optimized them, but I still need to grind a bit before I feel they're at a satisfactory level to tackle Station Myria.

 

[Dr. Gro 3001]

I'm playing the DLC for Scarlet while trying to complete Kitakami's Pokedex. I am also playing Splatoon 3 and Breath of the Wild on the occasion.

 

[Catz]

DKC 1 + 2: Needed some good platforming action so I booted up the game and played for a few hours over the weekend and it felt pretty good. Never underestimate the power of monke.

 

[PokéSean]

Thought about continuing Pokémon Red Version and am checking Pokémon Home. It says I have a trial. But I have my account linked. I don’t have a subscription. Too bad it’s gone but I think maybe I can get Homebrew. Will continue X.

 

[colours]

i got ff7: crisis core reunion last week and that's pretty much what i've been stuck on sooooo

but man, the game is so good!!!

 

[ZekromMahDad]

Decided to play a little violet last night. Regrets come in......

 

[Stratelier]

Nothing too new from me.

Spoiler: Skyrim survival mode, day ???

I successfully acquired the (upgradable) Nightingale Blade from Karliah. However, one does not simply trek from (or to) Winterhold in treacherous freezing temperatures (proof: actually died of cold trying to trek to Windhelm in one run, aka. without diving into dungeons along the way to warm back up).

Benor glitched after beating him in a brawl, getting stuck in his "downed" animation. At least this fixed itself after reloading the save file. Avoided killing Hroggar, saved Alva from getting killed in Movarth's lair (which is presumably a glitch, but entertaining nonetheless). In the latter case, I raided the lair early so that when I went there for the actual quest objective, Movarth was the only one left to take out.

Passed by Solitude COMPLETELY forgetting about a few minor quest objectives in that area on my way to Markarth, found the second Golden Saints camp and now I have enough journal entries to know where to find their boss's lair, apparently in the "Solitude Sewers" or something.

Acquired Spellbreaker, though I did leave that dungeon nearly overencumbered (despite 3 pieces of gear with "Fortify Carry Weight"). Heavy Armor is heavy.

I am Lv.46 and STILL have not killed the first dragon that appears in the Western Watchtower.

I also might have made a mistake by installing a little something called ... "godot":

Spoiler: Godot

Apparently it's a game engine with a built-in IDE, made by the open-source community and it's pretty well-regarded.

I got curious after hearing about the controversy with Unity's new licensing/payment plans, seeing a few YouTube comments mention "Godot", and noting that Cassette Beasts was apparently developed using it. Godot doesn't port to proprietary consoles, directly that is, but they do list several publishers who are willing to handle that work themselves.

It barely required an install, it really was just download and unpack.

I opened the editor and had no idea what to do, much like if one attempts to open Adobe Photoshop for the very first time. But I fully anticipated this, so it wasn't long before I downloaded one of the sample projects and started looking at it -- and ALSO having idea how the various pieces fit together (despite my ability to inspect properties and read scripts just fine) to make something that ... y'know, actually plays.

So, on to the tutorial!

Apparently, Godot organizes functional elements into what they call a "scene", a term that no doubt intentionally evokes film or TV production. When you run the project, it loads up a defined "first scene" and any/all elements contained inside that scene operate according to their defined scripts. Internally the engine has set up an indefinite loop where it collects user input and calls a standard "_process" event for everything in the scene, which occurs on a per-frame basis, and this is where you implement (I presume) the majority of actual game logic. Which isn't too different from, say, Visual Basic (which I have had much experience with) where as long as your program loads a "Form" (UI or window dialog), the engine basically just idles waiting for you to interact with the elements on it, and shuts down when you close the window.

Anyway, step 1 of the "basic 2D game" tutorial was to create a player character, reserve some properties (like a hitbox) for future use, and make it respond to keyboard controls, while being able to test it in isolation from anything else not yet coded. Once I had the majority of steps followed, I decided to add a little variation of my own by giving the character's movement an acceleration ramp (instead of instant start/stop). After working out several bugs in my implementation (over the course of many quick iterations) I discovered a built-in function called "move_towards" which takes one 2D vector (A) and adjusts it a specified linear distance in the direction of a second vector (B) --which seems almost purpose-made for modeling acceleration and does THE EXACT SAME THING that I spent 30 minutes scripting and testing manually.

What's my endgame plan for this thing Well, my current "dream game" of sorts is a hybrid monster-hunting and monster-taming game, but it's obviously much too far away for now to talk about specifics. Yes, I have a pretty clear mental picture of SOME mechanics I want it to have, but nothing is for sure until you start actually building it. Heck, I don't even know whether I want it to be 2D, 2.5D, or 3D, which is a fairly important thing to decide before you start building assets and content.

 

[beryllium]

I also might have made a mistake by installing a little something called ... "godot":

this isnt an answer to the question the title of the thread poses, but i immediately thought of ace attorney godot and was shocked at how anyone could think downloading him would be a mistake

 

[PokéSean]

Am thinking of expanding Skylanders but am continuing X. It’s hard to battle in the TCG videogame. Could anyone tell me what free-trial is despite having a linked Nintendo Account, please?

 

[Greninjaman]

I am currently doing a playthrough of Let's Go Pikachu using a team of only Pokemon that can be found in Viridian Forest. I am not really looking forward to Blaine.

 

[Herbizarre]

F-Zero 99 ! I became an S-5 rank player today and I'm almost done with all the Fire Stingray-specific achievements !

 

[PokéSean]

I also have been playing my Wheel of Fortune in the dual Switch game.

I’m not on a free trial as I do have a Nintendo account. I hope I can import stuff to 2DS when it works again and finding away to save my Switch Pokémon games on Switch.

 

[JFrombaugh]

I've been playing Starfield, and in a lot of ways it actually REALLY reminds me of PLA - at least the main Constellation story stuff, anyway.

There's just so many things you can compare with the two:

-Both games have survival elements, yet neither is really a true open-world survival game
-Both games are about the player joining a group of explorers surveying unknown lands
-Both games have artifacts you find along the way that turn out to have a greater purpose
-Both games have two other factions that used to be at war in the past, but now are at an uneasy peace and you help both of them during the storyline
-Both have an overarching space-time/multiverse theme

Etc., etc.

Basically, the difference is that Starfield is a sci-fi game set in the future where humans are colonizing other planets. Oh, and it's rated M for violence, blood, language, and other things (although I would say it's not as bad as most other M-rated games I've seen).

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Sonic Frontiers - The Final Horizon: I'mma be honest, 90% of this update hasn't really been as hard for me as a lot of people seem to be finding it. But that last little bit? The Final Trial before the new final boss? Hellish. I've been going for a couple of days at this point and something's gonna break soon, and it's probably gonna be me. I'm almost definitely gonna have to drop it down to easy and see where that gets me.

 

[PokéSean]

Pokémon X: Got some more Trades. I don’t know how long it will be until Nintendo World cease. After Gen 8 VGCS cease production? I got mostly trade evolvutions and starters

Pokémon Masters EX: Not much accept just claiming Gems to save for more Poké Fair and Master Pair Scouts. Don’t know why the main Galar cast and Palmer & Argrenta are PF scouts.

Outside of Pokémon: Am aiming to buy more Skylanders and replacement stickers.

 

[DigitalGen6]

Pokémon X: Got some more Trades. I don’t know how long it will be until Nintendo World cease. After Gen 8 VGCS cease production? I got mostly trade evolvutions and starters

What’s Nintendo World? If you mean Nintendo Zone, that already shut down in 2018 (at least, I think it did)

 

[Lyndis]

Most of my gaming time is spent up on Apex Legends at the moment. It's quick and competitive, and I can play rounds in between my work. Probably one of my favorite FPS at the moment honestly.

My grandad and I were playing through a couple games together. We finished both Horizon games, Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, and started working our way through Dishonored 2.

 

[PokéSean]

What’s Nintendo World? If you mean Nintendo Zone, that already shut down in 2018 (at least, I think it did)

N3DS counterpart to Nintendo WFC.

 

[Norzan]

Around 70 hours into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and it's been great so far. One change i like from the first game (i haven't played the second one) is the wider level gap for enemy to be red (this makes an enemy extremely hard to kill), meaning the chance to run into enemies you can't kill is considerably smaller because of the wider level gap.

I will say that i miss armours and to a lesser extent the gem system from the first game. I know the former could mess up with the whole attack/aggro/healer system because you could just give the healers and attackers heavy armor to offset their lower defense value, but i still miss them. And with the latter while i like that you just need to craft a gem once and anyone can use it, only having three gem slots feels kind of limiting. You could make some horribly overpowered characters in the first game because armors could have three slots each, so maybe having lesser slots is done for balancing reasons.