Oh god, I actually played this year’s ago. Great game!

When you want a trpg and end up with a weird school Sim.

I agree with you, it was too much walking Sim for my liking.

Little Kitty Big City is a much more fun cat game in my opinion. Slight mix of collectathon, platformer, puzzle game that does a good job of making you feel like a cat.

I agree with you, the game seems mediocre at everything it does (platforming, puzzles, etc.) and there are much better “games as art” out there.

http://www.gorogoa.com/ always comes to mind (although it’s definitely a “harder” puzzle game).

What shooters does she recommend, as I’ve had a hard time finding games with good multi-player and movement/controls as Cod (in my personal opinion).

It’s possible you like the risk-reward elements of rougelites? If so (and with some gambling themes) you may like these:

• Dungeon Clawler -Peglin

Note: Like Balatro both these games have android/ios versions.

Yeah, it’s possible that the group who would buy gamepass arent the norm and they’d normally buy 10+ games. But even then, they’d have to be buying 10+ games a year within the gamepass library to be canabilizing sales.

Either way, they picked a really bad time given the state of the world to be raising prices by 50%.

I feel like this is a piece Microsoft put out there to try to make the price increase feel justified.

I have to imagine they’re around the cut even point with $240/year for gamepass (given that’s four “AAA” games a year). With the price hike to $360/year, they’re assuming the average user would normally buy 6 games per year at full price. I just don’t think that’s the average gamer, but I could be wrong.

I liked Arkham City, it felt more like the game they initially wanted to make. Batmans movement is a bit smoother, you get some fun gliding elements, and it opens up the map so there is a bit more of an exploration/investigation element.

I think Arkham Knight might have gone too large, and I feel like the batmobile sections felt too tank like.

That’s another great example.

The concept is really cool, and I hope to see some more interesting attempts to incorporate more of that adaptive kind of dialogue and gameplay, but its not going to be easy to figure out how to make it work.

It’s not that the dialogue doesn’t sound right, it’s that the dialogue is disconnected from the game.

A great example was someone did this with Skyrim a while back. In the dialogue they convinced the NPC to join their party. But there isn’t any code logic to allow that, so the NPC is talking like they joined the person’s party, but the gameplay itself doesn’t support it.

Now for animal crossing you could make it work a bit easier cause the character can’t directly interact with the NPCs, but then again it also makes the endless dialogue less impactful.

The biggest issue I have with all of these is that the dialogue is never connected to the actual actions of the npcs.

Its easy to have an npc say something, but tying it to gameplay mechanics isn’t. So we end up with people asking for this in new games, but all you get is conversations disconnected from the gameplay. I’m sure there is someway to make it feel more “right”, but we’re a farcry away from making true open world games like this.

Given I think BOTW was just fine, I’m a little worried about Metroid 4.

I’m not sure if it’s worse that it’s releasing on the switch and not just the switch 2.

It really shows they held back on 3D All-Stars just so they could re-release Mario Galaxy 2 now.

Not actual cash, but they require in game currency.

Given that baltoro, monster train, and now silk song have been my most played games recently, you might be on to something.

I thought most equivelant gpus to the ps5 start around $200 on their own.

Baba is you is one of the best puzzle games I’ve ever played

Shapez is a great factory/automation game. Maybe better on a computer, but still good on the phone.

There are also a lot of good boardgames with android apps: Star Realms, Dominon (expensive), Splendor, etc.

I’ve played it on mobile and it plays really well. I used touch controls, so not sure if controllers are supported, but honestly I think touch is better for a game like this.

While it got a lot of flack, I thought the smaller contained worlds of Outer Worlds can be a better in between. Open spaces to explore and run into things accidentally, but constrained enough that the world and plot can still flourish.

I thought the world and travel mechanics were fun, and the leveling system was cool (basically get better skills by using other skills).

Overall though, it falls into the trap of most open world games. Big, beautiful, and boring.

But I also don’t care for BOTW and TOTK over more traditional Zeldas, so maybe I’m just anti open world games.

You can have mysteries where progress and knowledge aren’t tied to each other. For example in Professor Layton games, there is an overarching “mystery”, but it’s a linear game you progress by solving effectively random (and mostly disconnected) puzzles.

I thought it did a good job at capturing the Star Wars feel, but yeah it feels like every open world game. Lots of fetch quests and running around in a massive world where every encounter/quest/battle feels the same as the last.

It may just be me, but most open world games suffer from trying to be too large. Although I think BOTW and TOTK are some of the weakest Zelda games, so maybe my opinions on open world games aren’t popular.

I appreciate you adding your review!

Seems like you and I had similar opinions. I don’t have the dlc, but ended up reading up on it. It seems like they were good additions to the game, but I didn’t feel strongly enough to go back and get them.

If you liked the fishing theme with some plot, Dave the Diver has some parallels. I think the gameplay loop is a bit better, but it goes more for goofy/zany rather than Lovecraftian.

I didn’t even know it had a mobile release (it’s slow paced enough I could see that working okay)!

I was actually able to finish it over the weekend and overall I think I’d give it a 6-7/10:

• Gameplay: Solid. The mechanics are fun, but don’t really evolve beyond the first couple hours of gameplay
• Graphics: Great. The open sea is both inviting and omnionous, while the characters and fish all have a nice flair to them
• Story: Okay. The story being revealed in messages and encounters is fun, but the stakes never really seem to change, and I think if the world got pulled more into your descent it would make it more impactful.

If that’s your kind of game, Unfinished Swan is another thats more plot based, but still has some fun puzzles. Doesn’t get mentioned as frequently so usually one people haven’t seen/played before.

Antichamber is another that feels similar. Although Antichamber doesn’t really have a plot.

Yeah, I finished the game wishing it would be a higher recommendation, but it just falls short on a lot of things. I don’t mind the price I paid for it, but it’s a hard sell even at $29.99 (summer sale price).

The top things to me were setting, animation (feels like clay/stop motion in a cool way), and setting. But the fighting is only okay (never really evolves beyond button smashing and dodging), the story doesn’t really build on itself, and the platforming is generic and linear.

It also doesn’t help this is an Xbox studios game, since it seems like a bit more time/money would have gone far for this game.

I just finished South of Midnight , it’s a mediocre action game with a decent story, but pretty good music specifically written for the game. It kinda feels like Alice Madness Returns meets Disney’s Princess and the Frog (without the frog changing).

Just started up on Dredge and having some fun with it so far.

So I ended up reading up on the original comics because I knew they were a bit darker than the cartoons. It seems shredder is only in volume 1 of 4. In it he’s basically a New York Yakuza boss that kills splinters master. So splinter trains the turtles to kill shredder. After that he does get resurrected once, but after that he stays dead.

Volume 2 cover a full on battle with DARPA (for experimenting on aliens and turtles), Volume 3 has a possible daughter of shredder trying to get revenge, but volume 4 retcons volume 3 and focuses on a future where aliens come to earth and the turtles can roam the streets as “aliens” (which isn’t that weird for the series as aliens first appear in volume 1).

So, yeah, it gets kinda weird.

The wording is a little weird, but it’s about Capcom finances. They make more selling games on steam than selling on the Playstation. So steam/pc is a bigger market than Playstation consoles for Capcom.

You’d probably be better served by a retro handheld. A lot of them run android so you can play android games, but the built in controllers make emulating actually enjoyable.

Major issue is that the ones cheaper than a switch struggle with 3D games.

If you have the money, steamdeck is definitely one of the best bang for buck, but it’ll probably be more expensive than a switch (unless you can find a deal on a used/refurbished one).

There is also dead cells, slay the spire, monster train, disable immortal, etc.

However, those are also all playable on switch too. Technically you can emulate the switch on android, but I think this brings up the biggest flaw in gaming on android; you’re either emulating or streaming for most good games.

I mean, there is literally only Mario Kart World right now. Donkey Kong is coming soon, and then Metroid Prime 4. But that’s not a lot to be missing out on for the time being.

Yeah, I’ve primarily gotten graphic novels/manga/ebook bundles as of late from them. Most game bundles have maybe one interesting game and just isn’t worth all the extra cruft.

It makes me wonder if this will bring more people back to consoles. The library may be more limiting, but when a console costs less than just a gpu, itll be more tempting.

I didn’t know this one wasn’t well received until just now. To me it’s one of the few good 3D sonics. The plot, stage design, intersecting stories with varied play styles. All of that made it feel like playing in a full world.

That being said, I’m hit or miss on sonic in general, so maybe I like it for not being a traditional sonic game.

Personally the movement mechanics and the tropical overworld were amazing in this game.

While the water jetpack may seem like a gimmick, I thought it really changed the platforming in a good way.

Additionally, I’m a sucker for a good overworld and the amount of things you can unlock or discover in delphino plaza turns it into its own sort of level.

There is definitely some jank and padding (blue coins) in the game, but it holds up better than Mario 64 in my opinion (just due to the camera issues IN Mario 64).

Lil Gator is also a great game!!

Edit: There is a “sequel” dlc being released soonish - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3205060/Lil_Gator_Game_In_the_Dark/

Yeah, combat is it’s weakest point. I’m sorry that held the game back from you, because the overall “puzzle” of the world/game is very rewarding.