As time goes on I lean more and more into PC gaming with emulation for older systems. Resistant to hardware and disks/cartridges failing and there are fewer concerns with online functionality going away completely. There’s a lot to like about the Switch but with it being literally their only console that still has any online features, I have serious concerns about longevity.

If I had to pick one it would be Terraria. But there are many good options.

It’s a lot of fun. Got me to get a stylus to use for card games on my Steam Deck.

Boss blinds that hard counter you late in the game feel pretty dang bad, but that’s my only big complaint thus far.

This strikes me as though the TOS existing is one of the (seemingly few) things out of their control when using the ip, but they went and made it as pro-consumer as they could.

Hopefully this is a net positive. I’m guessing with the partnership they still want to work on Crash and Spyro, and I hope they do. They’ve been held in limbo for way too long. Would be pretty crazy for Crash to have an indie dev.

The Crash remake is definitely an improvement for the first game as it lacked analogue support. The others, at least as a lifelong fan, bit of a mixed bag. Good and well done, but I prefer the PS1 version of the second two games. The physics are less precise in the remakes and the graphical and musical changes give it a worse atmosphere for me. But for a newbie, they’re still great.

I’ll add Chronicon to the list! Its approach to endgame is quite similar to D3, but more entertaining imo. It was also made by a solo dev, which is very impressive.

I don’t understand why a company would even want to use the music if it means they can only sell the game for so long. Obviously, it’s not the current reality, but I would outright refuse any deal that involves a limited amount of time to use material that goes into a video game, movie, any form of media except maybe live services that are constantly changing anyways (which is a separate issue).

At the very least, people should be made aware of a game’s sale period, though I’m sure that’s kept under NDA.

ProtonDB claims that it works with proton-ge. I may have to give it a try sometime soon. It was my 2nd game on Steam (after Terraria).

Nothing against you specifically! It would be more accurate to say that the people who will die on the hill of roguelike being something very specific wear me out. I certainly didn’t intent to make a dig at you, so sorry about that!

The conversation around the two really wears me out. IMO, there’s no need to be so restrictive. We can call them traditional roguelikes, platform roguelikes, whatever, and I think that’s fine. If anything, I think we should have better terminology to differentiate games where the runs are isolated and those where there is meta progression. I don’t think roguelite a good name for the latter.

I wonder how it’ll stack up next to Grim Dawn and if it’ll get spruced up for Steam Deck.

Generally agree here. Makes me feel not so crazy having seen almost everyone gush about it but I’m also not sure how to fully articulate my issues with it. To me, I think the biggest thing is that it feels like the game knows the diving mechanics don’t have that much going for them and so is constantly throwing distractions at me. Stardew Valley works because your quest goals are things you probably wanna do anyways to develop your farm. Meanwhile, I feel like stopping to fish in Diver Dave actively detracts from my ability to complete the constant stream of quests.

Monster Hunter Rise. Just got into Sunbreak a few days ago. This is the first one I’ve really been branching out on weapons since I started in 3U. Gunlance and hammer are proving to be super fun, on top of my original love: SNS.

Step 2, part 1: Release OLED.
Step 2, part 2: Release roadmap.

Humble Choice isn’t unknown, or at least hasn’t been for a long time. I’m subscribed but they also give the option to skip as many months as you want, which I unfortunately take advantage of like 75% of the time.

Hoping the design for this one is a bit. . . tighter? As much as I liked the original, runs usually turned into hopping around trying to not get hit while you hope for enough space to actually use your abilities; or if you had busted items you just about instakill everything. I never found much of an in-between and felt that the sequel handled playing from behind situations much better.

It originally was a dlc. They decided the scope surpassed that, though, and they also felt constrained by the class and upgrade system of the base game.

I randomly got hit with the urge to play the ps2 mascot games. I’ve started picking them up for cheap to rip and load onto my Steam Deck. I’ve finished the first Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper games. Now started on Going Commando, with plans for the rest of both of their ps2 games and the Jak and Daxter trilogy. I’ve played all of Ratchet and Jak before but Sly is new to me, minus maybe half of his 4th game.

And still chugging through BG3 with my wife. It’s been hard getting time for the longer play sessions it requires lately but we’ll get through it eventually.

Now I wonder how long it stays online before all the money the asked people to throw at it literally turns into nothing. Kinda surprised a mobile Mario Kart didn’t have more legs on it.

I do feel Halls of Torment does a good job of separating itself from Vampire Survivors. There is actual aiming and an attack button if you want and there’s Diablo style gear you can equip before and during runs.

What it is not good at is visual clarity. I very frequently take damage or even die because I couldn’t see something over all the stuff my character was throwing out. VS also has this problem but it’s lessened by the fact that by that point everything’s probably dead in 2 seconds anyways.

Who needs Diablo IV or maybe even PoE when we have Grim Dawn and Chronicon.

Finished up Banjo Kazooie last night. Always good for a quick playthrough. Still BG3 with my wife as time allows. Not quite sure what solo game to pick up next.

Really unfortunate. There was such missed potential in Awesomenauts, imo. Despite them being an indie team I really think they could have taken the game so far. They had the passion but just made too many mistakes along the way.

It’ll be super interesting to see how shapeshifting fits into the dual class setup.

My hope is that the more pro-consumer storefronts like Steam and GOG will help stave that off. At least to the extent of ensuring both approaches remain as options (especially now that one of them makes handhelds). Time will tell, though.

BG3 with my wife. As great as it was I’m already enjoying this a lot more than DoS2, I just enjoy DnD mechanics more and those shields felt suffocating on build options. When she doesn’t feel like gaming, I’ve also been working on Disco Elysium, which has also been great. I’m not really sure how I wound up in this double whammy of games about WORDS. MANY WORDS.

I love roguelites and the genre melding you can do with them. I’ve been searching for one that competes with Risk of Rain 2 for me. I’ve played all the big ones but none have had the same staying power.

The biggest bummer for me is Dead Cells. For most of the run, I slaughter. First two original bosses I can pretty consistently no-hit. Then I get to the hand of the king and die in about 5 seconds every. Single. Time. It’s 100% a skill issue but I feel it just asks so much of me compared to the rest of the game on the same difficulty, and I’m only on boss cell 1. I’ve even gone I to the training mode vs him and his tells paired with my time to respond just have not clicked.

There’s also Enter the Gungeon. I also have struggled with it but actively plan to get back into it to work through it.

Lastly, shutout to Dicey Dungeons. It’s lesser known and I think everyone should play it.

I feel I could handle a reasonable amount of complexity if I could respec my build. Let me experiment without having to roll through a whole new character. It’s a big reason why I prefer Grim Dawn so much. Not because of the complexity but because I can adjust as I go if a part of my build didn’t work out the way I’d hoped. Definitely my biggest hope for POE2.

I wonder how that’s gonna work gameplay wise. Do we spend maybe 50-75% of the game with all these cool symbiote powers that then go away forever? Not pre-critisizing, just very curious how they’ll make that still feel good to play if they go that route.

IMO the industry overall is in a truly horrible place, but only the AAA and part of the AA space. Indies have been and continue to hold up the industry by themselves.

IMO the industry overall is in a truly horrible place, but only the AAA and part of the AA space. Indies have been and continue to hold up the industry by themselves.

Removes mask They were a glyphid all along!

I very highly disagree but to each their own, of course.

Can’t go wrong with Stardew Valley for something chill and Terraria is among the best games ever made.

A big one I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is Plate Up. The best way I know to describe it is roguelike Overcooked with more agency and a slower curve into the stressful moments. We much prefer it as a result. It’s been getting free content at a pretty solid pace, too.

We just started it too! Not far in, though, should be almost at boss #2.

It’s amazing to me how short-sighted this decision is. Yeah sure keep wide access to CoD for 10 years to get the FTC off their back and then watch all that fall away immediately after. For us this is potentially decent gains in the short term but certainly contributes to this industry turning to crap long term.

It’s really great, my wife and I need to finish the last few acts at some point.

It did have 2 pain points for me, though. For one, there are some encounters where you can get stomped because of you initial positioning, which made us reload and basically game the system for a better start, which felt a bit weird. The other is that, mostly because of the shield system, you can’t really make a hybrid character. You’ll end up chipping away at 2 separate health pools when you should be focusing on one of them. I haven’t played many rpg’s like this, though, so maybe all this is standard and/or I’m just bad at the combat.