What are you playing this weekend/these days?

[MTPDA]

I'm playing the Spyro Reignited Trilogy now because proton now has a working Windows Media Foundation implementation so the cutscenes work now out of the box (I refused to use that other method of getting Media Foundation to work because it didn't seem legal).

*Edit* Apparently only select cutscenes work, ah, well, it's progress!

 

[kuru]

Just finished Jazzpunk. Absolutely charming.

 

[matzesu]

Allthough im not even finished Super Mario Land 2 (DX), but im on the last Boss Level, i put the Super Mario Bros Deluxe Cardridge in my GBA SP (Picachu IPS Edition from Retrosix), and played a lot yesterday,
in fact im now on the 8th World near the last fight against bowser to rescue princess peach ^^
The Worlds from 1 - 7 where quite easy, i dont know why allthough i used a lot continues but World 8 seems to be a bit harder..
Never came that far bevore, seems like i get experience over time..
After Super Mario Bros Deluxe, i think i will continue whit Super Mario Bros 3 on GBA, as Super Mario Bros 2 is not really a Mario Game, as its just Doki Doki Panic whit Mario Sprites..
So : Super Mario Land 1 and 2 DX via EverDrive GB, Super Mario Bros Deluxe as Original GBC Cardridge, Super Mario Bros 3, Mario World, Yoshis Island on GBA, and then New Yoshis Island on New 2DS XL

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Started to play an FF title for the first time ever. FFX. Though I don't like this kind of taking-turns-fighting, a long time into the game it didn't bother me. But the random fights, by now, annoy me a lot. The fights are just always a same sequence per enemy group composition. And I don't want to waste turns stealing materials from enemies, cause due to the random fight frequency I don't know, if my healers mana runs out before the next safe point. Even between fights you have to actively heal your group and though mana potions are a thing, shops don't cary them. Those random fights also discourage exploration.
The movie part is nice though.

 

[netcat]

Allthough im not even finished Super Mario Land 2 (DX), but im on the last Boss Level, i put the Super Mario Bros Deluxe Cardridge in my GBA SP (Picachu IPS Edition from Retrosix), and played a lot yesterday,
in fact im now on the 8th World near the last fight against bowser to rescue princess peach ^^
The Worlds from 1 - 7 where quite easy, i dont know why allthough i used a lot continues but World 8 seems to be a bit harder..
Never came that far bevore, seems like i get experience over time..
After Super Mario Bros Deluxe, i think i will continue whit Super Mario Bros 3 on GBA, as Super Mario Bros 2 is not really a Mario Game, as its just Doki Doki Panic whit Mario Sprites..
So : Super Mario Land 1 and 2 DX via EverDrive GB, Super Mario Bros Deluxe as Original GBC Cardridge, Super Mario Bros 3, Mario World, Yoshis Island on GBA, and then New Yoshis Island on New 2DS XL

Super Mario Bros Deluxe - never heard of that - I'll check it out!

And why don't you play the orignal versions of Mario World and Yoshi's Island on the Pyra, with the full controls?

Started to play an FF title for the first time ever. FFX. Though I don't like this kind of taking-turns-fighting, a long time into the game it didn't bother me. But the random fights, by now, annoy me a lot. The fights are just always a same sequence per enemy group composition. And I don't want to waste turns stealing materials from enemies, cause due to the random fight frequency I don't know, if my healers mana runs out before the next safe point. Even between fights you have to actively heal your group and though mana potions are a thing, shops don't cary them. Those random fights also discourage exploration.
The movie part is nice though.

I love 16 bit Final Fantasy's so much. Just so relaxing and pleasant to play. Love the music. Love the graphics. I'm completely smitten.

I'm kinda interested in Powder now..

 

[matzesu]

Because there is no optimated SNES Emulator on the Pyra yet, also i have the GBA Versions on Original Module and an IPS GBA SP, so its makes some sense..

Super Mario Bros Deluxe is the Port for the Gameboy Collor whit some extras

 

[netcat]

Ah... just tried out SMBD. Pretty sweet. Except going backwards is INSANE.

 

[PowerGod]

Started to play an FF title for the first time ever. FFX. Though I don't like this kind of taking-turns-fighting, a long time into the game it didn't bother me. But the random fights, by now, annoy me a lot. The fights are just always a same sequence per enemy group composition. And I don't want to waste turns stealing materials from enemies, cause due to the random fight frequency I don't know, if my healers mana runs out before the next safe point. Even between fights you have to actively heal your group and though mana potions are a thing, shops don't cary them. Those random fights also discourage exploration.
The movie part is nice though.

First of all, I played all the FF till the VII (the original one), so I don't know exactly how X works, but in almost all of them there are objects or potions to prevent or remove random encounters.
Also most of the time you can escape from them if you don't want to fight.

Also I could recommend to do this:
1) Use a SNES emulator with Fast Forward and Auto-Fire to deal with random encounters, so you'll just level up in a super fast way and you are free to continue your game. (This is not cheating, because you are actually playing the game... but super fast !!)
2) Start FF6 (aka FF3 outside japan), that's the best FF ever made (at least from the I to the VII)
3) Enjoy

 

[ElPoco]

I finished Zelda II on my Pandora, with a romhack meant to make the game less frustrating. It was definitely not too bad, even though I probably wouldn't have really cared if it wasn't a Zelda game. I used guides to get the location of some secrets (because walking the whole map to find the right spots or having to find out by yourself that you suddenly need to press "A" on the map to reveal a location isn't my idea of fun) and also to stop wandering endlessly in the final dungeon. I also used save states to avoid having to redo the same scenes over and over again. With all this it was an ok, if forgettable, experience. I had more fun with the first game (and the next ones).

I've now moved on to the Megaman series. The first game was a bit rough at the beginning but I'm starting to enjoy it.

 

[netcat]

2) Start FF6 (aka FF3 outside japan), that's the best FF ever made (at least from the I to the VII)

Did you ever play FFV? Originally Japan-only. It was really cool how you build up your character traits. And tough. Auto-fire trick won't work, it needs a brain.

I finished Zelda II on my Pandora

I never played it myself, although it was THE game at the time. All the cool kids from America had it. I tried it out on retropi but... same impression as you. It's quite primitive. Mad props for getting through it though.

I've now moved on to the Megaman series. The first game was a bit rough at the beginning but I'm starting to enjoy it.

MM2 is my absolute favorite due to the (modest) difficulty curve and the game where the series really hit it's stride. Love this game.

 

[PowerGod]

Did you ever play FFV? Originally Japan-only. It was really cool how you build up your character traits. And tough. Auto-fire trick won't work, it needs a brain.

Yes, I played the hacked version with English translation, but still I preferred the 6 because of the characters that were both involved well in the story, and with very different from each others kind of combat system.

The auto-fire trick works after some battles, the meaning is not to evade every battle, but only the repetitive ones... after you are able to beat some monsters by using just your main attack, then that's it, when it happens, just FastForward+Auto-Fire, and as a plus, you can also go around in FastForward to beat more monsters to get coins and levels.

 

[netcat]

FF6 is absolutely epic.

Actually I am currently playing Chrono Trigger. By that I mean I still haven't beaten it (this time round). It's kinda an FF spin-off.

 

[ElPoco]

I've finished both Megaman and Megaman 2.

The first one is not too bad, but it has a few very hard screens. I was glad I had state saves to avoid having to replay whole levels just to die repeatedly on the same screen and then start over. That yellow boss was quite difficult, but it felt good once I was finally able to beat it.

The second game looks and plays very similar but it's improved a lot. It has less frustrating bits than the first one, though it still has a few screens where you've got to die first to learn how it works.

I had a lot of fun with both games, and have now moved on to the third one.

 

[PowerGod]

I got Mother Russia Bleeds because I saw a LOT of reviews telling how good was this and how it was similar to Streets Of Rage...

turned out that the only similarity with SOR is that you punch people...
It has too many buttons (kick, punch, grab, jump, sprint, and three more to get and use drugs !!), even more than The TakeOver that was already giving me troubles !!
This makes the game unnecessarily complicated... both jump+punch and jump+kick have the same exact result, a flying kick... when you use punch and someone is on the ground near you, automatically your character will be locked to punch his face on the ground and you will be unable to avoid people charging you...
The enemies seems flat, you must be in front of them precisely to be able to hit them... the only moves that have no troubles are the ones that automatically will lock to the nearest enemy, like the grab...
There is an impressive amount of enemies in the screen, and I mean IMPRESSIVE at a point that you are not able to see WHAT enemies are there in the crowd, and also you can't even see your character in there !!
Happened so many times that I was at the right of the screen blindly punching and kicking, and at some point I lost my character and wasn't anymore able to understand "where I was" !!
With AI companions this becomes even worse, because you see people punched and think "oh here I am... no wait this is another character !!"
This is totally the opposite of what a SOR game is, where you must "strategically" deal with every single enemy, instead in MRB it's all about crowd control, you don't mind what "moves" has an enemy, you just throw someone to him, or just do a drug fatality !!

Also the gameplay feels old, but in a bad way, because in the "old" times there were technical limitations for that, so my impression is that not so much love was put on the gameplay.

And as a final note, the game is full of bugs, with the worst of all the controller configuration... for this last thing I could speak badly for a day, but I'll just list here a FEW issues:
- the first (or even second) player is reserved to keyboard (in a modern beat'em up ?! Really ?!), but if you use a gamepad you can't even see what character you are selecting (really, there is no third player shown, but you can hear selection sounds and start the game blindly !!), unless you had previously randomly played a bit with the configuration... yes, randomly... because I have no Idea what exactly I did to "solve" the issue, but took me a while to make visible even the forth player.
- i wasn't able to remap the gamepad buttons, because in the configuration of the third player I see only the keyboard buttons mapped for the first player...
- some keys are hardcoded BUT you can still "change" them, so they will perform both the original and the "new" function at the same time, creating a black hole in the space-time continuum !!
- the menu keys and the player keys are shared, so if you change player keys, you must use those new ones even for the menu... so better you map them well or you will be unable to do that again !!

 

[ElPoco]

Finished Megaman 3 (with a romhack to get rid of slowdowns and fix a few problems)
It's good. It's quite similar to Megaman 2 except that you can slide and have a dog. It's also the first megaman game where I could beat a boss without having the right weapon, which was nice. There aren't so many places where you have to die multiple time to learn how it works.

 

[kuru]

Just finished momodora: Reverie under the Moonlight. Very enjoyable 'vania title, gorgeous pixel art. Just the right amount of challenge and it did not overstay its welcome.

 

[matzesu]

Played a lot Skyward Sword (Switch) in the past few days, and im now in the 3th map, (ranelle), but not that far, just on the beginning of the desert where you have to look on your map to see which ground is slipsand..

I also fired up some SNES, NES, GBA, GBC GB Megadrive, and Atari Games on the Pyra using the Emu EX Alpha + Emulators from @ptitSeb to see how good they running.., and they run better then myself ^^

 

[ElPoco]

Finished Megaman 4
I don't know if it's because it's the fourth game, because it's the first I play without a fix/improvements romhack or if there's a real drop in quality but I didn't enjoy it as much as 2 and 3. It has many screens where you have to die a few times to understand how it works, some levels feel uninspired and the castle levels eventually feel more like padding than anything else.
It's not a bad game, but it's not as good as I expected after the last two. The addition of the charging mechanism is welcome since it let me beat some bosses without having the "right" weapon and it also give you a fighting chance when you're out of energy for the best weapon to use against a boss in the castles.

 

[Null]

Spot & Stroll by Wouter van Vugt

Go to a virtual park, spot some animals and do park stuff!

woutervanvugt.itch.io

 

[MTPDA]

I'm playing Duskers

Spoiler

it's a neat game where you control your salvage/exploration drones mostly through the command line. You can grab direct control of an individual drone to drive it, but all other functions (scan, collect resources, start generator, open doors, ect) are all command line. You're trying to find out why every ship you encounter is adrift (not a spoiler, that's the game's objective right on the store page).

RIP all the drones who have died from misstyped commands (Funniest was when I opened airlock 1 instead of 2 where I had redocked and sucked my generator bot out into space.)