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A Plague Tale: Requiem (PS5)l
Ratquiem for a Dream
This sequel continues the saga of the de Runes, a family so unfortunate that Snicket's Baudelaires would think themselves blessed by not being them. Heroine Amicia must help her young brother Hugo bear his terrible power in a world full of adults who generally don't have the best of intentions. While the story is still bonkers and occasionally even compelling, the expanded scope leads to gameplay elements that fail to hold together very long and frequently drift into jank, frustration, glitches and general nonsense. This can be extremely funny, which is ironic considering a term like "grimdark" doesn't do this miserable horror parade justice. Bad game, 10/10, highly recommended.

A Plague Tale: Innocence (PS5)
Just like the Pied Piper led rats through the streets, we dance like marionettes, swaying to the symphony
I give this one the Deadly Premonition Award for Absurdity in Escalation. To say more would spoil it, but to briefly introduce the story, the daughter of a knight and her little brother flee the Inquisition amid the Plague. The Black Death? Yes, that too, but more importantly the plague of flesh-eating rat swarms! The gameplay has elements of stealth, puzzles, survival, action and good ol' cinematic storytelling. If you didn't get the idea, this is not for the faint of heart or stomach, with gore not the worst of it.

Metroid Dread (Switch)
Fantastic. It's almost baffling how Mercury Steam went from Mirror of Fate to the adequate Samus Returns to this, a game that seems to meld the strongest points of every 2D Metroid.

Tiny Rogues (PC)
I spied this being buzzed about in a Steam sale topic. It must be the easiest Roguelite because I kept clearing runs almost immediately after I started playing. It's fun, though, sending you through a series of reward choices in single screens of bullet-spewing creatures, like an ancient ancestor of Hades. Just be sure to turn down that CRT filter. Ouch.

AM2R (Switch)(Unofficial)
So this game has quite a strong reputation, and I think it's deserved. The experience was like nothing less than playing a proper 2D Metroid.

Evil West (PC)
So this is a Focus Entertainment game. A linear action brawler taking some inspiration from God of War '18, Evil West sees Weird West vampire hunter Jesse Rentier taking on, well, vampires with a arsenal of weapons and a colorful cast of allies. It's rough, janky, and not overly deep, but it's undeniably fun and enthusiastically silly.

Vampire Survivors: Legacy of the Moonspell (DLC) (PC)
Once again up to date on achievements. Sure, it didn't take me very long, but at such a low price how can I object?

Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5)
Super Mario 3D World: LBP edition. For a story themed on creativity it cribs a whole lot from other games, but it pulls it all off and showcases how gorgeous the LBP aesthetic can be when put into something other than the sample levels of a creation tool. No surprise that MediaMolecule can swing it, considering the excellent Tearaway.

Cadence of Hyrule: The Legend of Zelda Featuring Crypt of the NecroDancer (Switch)
What a title. As expected, I like NecroDancer a lot better when it isn't a Roguelite. More things should not be Roguelites.

I've got a couple big ones on my backlog
God of War: Ragnarok (PS5)
Does it live up to God of War 2018? More or less. It doesn't exactly surpass it, but it's a welcome sequel for fans of the previous one. The slight design flaws, for instance ever-pestering companions, aren't too bad an annoyance, and there is some extremely cool stuff in there to go with the rest of the narrative. And the combat is as glorious as ever, with some new tricks that make it even better.
Pokemon Violet (Switch)
What a disaster! Gamefreak deserves to be put through the wringer for releasing it in that state. On the other hand, it's a pretty solid, fun Pokemon game when you get past that, maybe even one of the best ones. So it should be pretty hard to complain about if it ever gets patched properly.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Wanderer of the Rift (PS5)
At first I had hope for this expansion. It looked like there was more to it than the Bahamut one, with the procedural generation, monster NPCs, Roguelite elements. It's even worse than the last. It's a convoluted mess where you often can't deal or survive any damage without researching OP builds, and if you fail the Roguelite part you lose all your monster NPCs and resources and start over with the monsters from the beginning. Then I went online in co-op and got hatemail for being too weak.

Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
So the multiverse premise has been run into the ground lately, right? Doesn't matter, because when Bayonetta is involved, it's a party.

Oh, I just assumed it was the final boss because it was Reindog for me.

I played arcade once on normal with Black Adam and I appreciate the final boss.

A little late
Baby Jesus Christ RPG (PC)
The prequel to the aforementioned J(esus)RPG, and the same gist and tone. Here we see the parallel narratives of Mary & Joseph and the Three Wise Men, which makes it feel a little like Dragon Quest IV. Mary summons the various named angels for buffs and healing, Joseph is melee with carpentry tools, and the eventual baby Jesus isn't capable of much yet but can use items to support the party at least. Meanwhile, the Three Kings are, well, magi, casting the magic of myths and legends from equipped weapons to battle the spirits of foes like Zoroaster and Nimrod. In the end, Herod himself stands in the way of your flight to Egypt, and he's actually pretty tough. It took reaching the level cap and devising a strategy to make it through. Next up, the final chapter: JCRPG: Rising.

Vampire Survivors (PC)
What GOG said.

Bowser's Fury (Switch)
Is that considered the full title of this game?
I had played Mario 3D World before and liked it well enough, but I just got the Switch version so I quickly started playing this. It's a fun experimental sort of mini-collectathon. Take the basic gameplay of 3DW and put it in an open map with the assistance of a high-speed amphibious vehicle (Plessie) and Bowser Junior. The latter hangs around and occasionally sucker punches a standard enemy for you. Then, when he's so inclined, a giant scary Bowser will try to kill you no matter where you are or what you're doing. Collecting a Shine will get him off your back instantly, and hitting quotas of them will let you fight kaiju with kaiju to progress the game. The objectives are a little blatantly repetitive even given the game's short length, but the level design keeps it interesting, along with the unusual central mechanic. I look forward to finishing 100%.
Also, everything is cats. There are even cat seagulls. Seacats.

Jesus Christ RPG (PC)
First of a trilogy which has been sitting in my Steam library for longer than I can remember. Ah, RPG Maker games. This one is a bit of a spoof, with rather goofy jokes as you might expect, but also mostly to the point and fitting the general idea of the plot arc it adapts. I went right through this in one sitting. Not overstaying its welcome helps a lot with a game like this.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)
What a title. Now, at the time this game released it seemed like it was downplayed pretty hard. It wasn't a full sequel, it reused much of the existing Spider-Man game, which had reused its own elements for a DLC expansion already, and it wasn't a particularly hype showing for the brand-new PS5, unable to reach that famous 4K/60FPS combination for one thing. And it's true, there's not as much here, in terms of campaign length or side activities, and plenty is reused from the original. But I don't think it got enough credit, because it's a great game, in many ways an improvement on the original. It's a huge spectacle, a dramatic superhero story, and an experience. Among the things reused are a truly excellent combat and traversal system, and most of Pete's abilities are unlocked up front. Meanwhile, Miles' personal abilities are inherently fun and satisfying in gameplay, and introduced in a way that enhances the story's presentation. One of my big complaints about the original was that Peter's gadgets were clunky and hard to access compared to the rest of the combat techniques, leading to them gathering dust unless I was desperate. Here they're refined down to four types, including the web shooter, and I mostly still don't use the others except remote mines. Picking up the slack is the Venom power, which feels right at home in character action and superheroing alike. The charming humor is still loud and clear. I don't care for Danika, though. I get that some people didn't enjoy being continuously slandered by JJJ between missions. I love being continuously slandered by JJJ, and the shorter plot here gives him a tad less to work with, but he still makes good stuff out of it.
I recommend this game heartily. It's a good time, and on PS++, so go for if if you've got it.

I kind of assumed that IJ2 would be the complete version, seeing as that's already a "greatest hits" game itself. The base game is fine, it's just, well, look at what it, the complete version, and the complete version bundled with MK11 complete cost right now on Steam respectively.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (PS5)
Even with long-running trends in indie games, I had certain expectations for a game where you play as a cartoon dog and color in a monochrome world with a magic paintbrush. It's going to be cute, have a light, self-referential sort of humor, and take you through a series of puzzles and sidequests as you gain abilities. There will be some sort of theme about the power of creativity to light up the world. And sure, it's got all that. However, things take a different turn when you meet Chicory, your predecessor and personal hero. Chicory is a story about the crushing weight of art, fame, power, duty and succession, and enduring it through mutual support and understanding. These simply-drawn animals are quite human indeed. What's more, while the game normally doesn't have combat, you'll periodically face boss fights that are visually dazzling and quite intense, even though you can't really fail them. It's a remarkable game that I recommend trying. Although I'm not sure I'm too into the idea of 100%ing it, myself.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I'm glad I didn't play that old ass version of the game for more than 5 minutes, lol. Procrastination prevails!

I tried. It was freaking rough after playing localized Steins;Gate. I can't speak to how good Chaos;Head is in the first place, though.

It's striking to see crossplay visualized in matchmaking between 4 people with the icons of each platform shown.

Bane_Of_Despair posted...

Shout out to one of the great tweets from them

https://twitter.com/GoogleStadia/status/1224739469133172738?t=FStRfIPvmBGhjJBsNzc4-w&s=19

Hehehe, they said "petal to the metal"

I think I like IJ2 a lot more than MK11 actually. The speed and dynamic of the combat are fun, the character designs and movesets are interesting and colorful, and the single-player mission mode is engaging for quite some time even if you have to manage too much damn Diablo loot. But I barely played multiplayer, so that's maybe not the best sign for a fighting game.

It's fine I guess. I had Injustice since back when it was still getting updates. I have Superhot on one of these random free game distributions, but lack the DLC, and never got to it. Probably won't play a game about Hot Wheels.

We're actually AI constructs endless mimicking the routines of the people you once knew. Sorry.

I don't think it is supposed to. I wasn't aware of it when I played as him.

Rick is cool. To be fair, you have to have a pretty high IQ to play as Rick or Morty, eh

So uh, does this update come out when the dailies reset?

They're still adding characters, though!

I'd be fine if it was just 14-15 but I've been playing everyone so I can't say I welcome slower perk unlocks. Can we riot?

Hey, it's the news I always wanted

I dunno. It's expunged. Happens once in a while for whatever reason. Usually not worth arguing over.

Ah, it was that one, and still available. We bought it from Steam for like $30.

I also started replaying this recently. It's still neat. And crushing starting from zero again.

You missed shmup. It's been a go-to for ages. Quiz show isn't as common but I like the idea.

It was good enough for people to hold out some hope for NASB on the strength of it being the same dev

I'm glad they at least got enough revenue from NASB to work on this more

I saw the title and it did nothing to remind me that Tails is a Vtuber now.

I'll take Smash Bros I think.

Don't tell TC to return the PS5

WazzupGenius00 posted...

There are 27 songs exclusive to the Digital Deluxe Edition which are not part of any of the season passes or DLC

Oh, good
This whole thing is gross. Fortunately nothing is actually going to be lost when it comes to 3DS games.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps5-with-detachable-hard-drive-coming-in-2023-report/1100-6507652/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f
Gamespot got confused writing this headline

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

One step closer to our digital only nightmare

Is it? With this the disc drive would be a peripheral you can add instead of requiring you to buy a specific PS5 model.

masterplum posted...

I thought it was a plant tbh. Cant pay for that kind of publicity. Its not like the footage looked bad

People seemed to be complaining that the character appearances weren't detailed. In a build from before the game has been officially announced. But I think any GTA6 info at this point would have created hype unless it looked actively horrible.

(Dead by Daylight)

It's DBDBD

I bought the Nobody Saves the World DLC. Not sure of anything else this month.

The series is all about interacting and fighting on the Internet and I still wouldn't have expected that.