What games are you playing atm? V2

The devil is in the details

The first roguelike in which you play as the devil, which means you can change some of the game's rules to your advantage! Run after run, manage your team of famous evil geniuses as they encounter unforeseen events and turn-based combat. Unlock new skills, create powerful synergies and use your powers to turn the situation in your favour at critical moments. Only by collecting ancient artefacts can you finally take your revenge on the Demon Hunters.

After disappoint by recent action roguelike that i always struggled, i go check my humble library and found this game. Seeing the score, I kinda expected a subpar experience despite i have cleared many bad roguelike before.

Start with nitty and gritty details, the game have alot of concept that kinda unique. You are kinda like overseer your party where you can use your health to modify health bar, swap status between characters, teleport on map, or make RNG to your favour during event. Your party always start fight will full health, so you only pretty much need to manage your devil essence.Unlike other deckbuilder, the game is pretty much rpg with shared resource and you need to recharge to keep using the same skill.

The game is pretty difficult at start because how hard to grasp all new concepts the game introduced, but it become pretty much breeze once you know when to cheat to snowball faster than your enemy. However the problem with the game is that the system is not balanced for late game, making certain characters super weak unless you get specific artifact that buffed their mechanic. Game become too tedious once it reached book 6, that i have to lower the difficulty so I can have more enjoyment from it.

It was fun to figure several unique team combinations just like many other roguelike i played before, too bad the game is kinda abandoned by developer because I assume they didnt make much money. Too many bugs i encounter while playing, although not all are game breaking (had to restart 1 of the run because stuck on map). I would say it had promising start, engaging middle game and annoying late game.

tl;dr I think i will put this as yes, you can just play apprentice difficulty from start to finish and game is fairly challenging to learn

Im a space problem solver!

As you explore a space colony, the character you decide to become will determine how this player-driven story unfolds. In the colony's corporate equation, you are the unplanned variable.

This game i have been installed for a while and I never got in the mood to play it. Despite I know the game is short (20 hours for single player campaign), i just worry it become skipping dialogue simulator for me.

Turned out that this game is pretty good for RPG. Pretty you are given many options for dialogue choices and you can roleplaying by maxing up certain skills so you can get some benefit with social check. Apparently the game is also robust enough if you kill all NPC, making it quite fun if you planned to do genocide run. I however I still with "good guy trying to be friend" with everyone. Too bad I couldnt go pure pacifist since there are many missions related to kill marauders and animals on various planets.

Compared to many other RPG, this game is kinda small. Very small. Despite you hoping from one planet to another planet, pretty you can just explore each area within just 1 hour. For first planet, there are multiple landing spots that you kinda land you to multiple region from same planets. Since I just to finish the story quickly, I played on normal difficulty which kinda made the gameplay abit 1 dimensional. Inventory management is kinda annoying, especially the game throw with hundreds of gears & consumeable that you have to manage or you get encumbered.

Pretty nice short bite sized RPG for me. I like doing quests since many of them have funny outcome, especially related to your companions. I think the cream on the top is definitely the ending outro, where it show the aftermath for every actions i did in every quest chain.

tl;dr Definitive recommended, especially with its robust RPG choice. Despite it is pretty much simple "down with corporation" storyline.

Bored. Been griding POE 2 a lot.
CoD (hate that game actually lul)
Wish theres something better than CoD. only 1 game i'm interested as battle royale ><

Gothic weird cone head, round 2

Awakened in a strange new land, and displaced from his final resting place, The Penitent One is thrust back into the endless cycle of life, death, and resurrection, with no other option than to explore this perilous new world and uncover its long-forgotten secrets.

Hordes of grotesque enemies stand in your way, awaiting final judgement by the brutal hand of the Penitent One, with titanic twisted bosses also lurking in the darkness, waiting for their chance to return you to the grave from whence you came.

If you know me, if im struggled to continue playing a game, it is either im burnt out or the game is just doesnt my mood. I played of game atm, but this was suggested on discord, as I was searching 2D platforming / metroidvania as my genre to play. Luckily this was part of recent humble monthly.

Actually, I already forgot how the first game was aside it was brutal with punishing platforming game. So this time around, the developer try to make the game more accessible with less deadly spike and easier platforming section. The game continue to weird me out with its weird bizarre world with its horrendous designed creature and NPC that speak in cryptic. The game from the go allow you to choose 1 out of 3 weapon, which have its own path since each of only interact with certain mechanic.

While the game not bad per say, purist said that the game lacked of atmosphere and dread from first game. The checkpoint is quite generous you can pretty much dodge all enemy to move toward to next area. Although as metroidvania, the game doesnt offer much option since you are given alot of indicator of which area you need to explore next, while some area blocked by mobility / weapon required. I think boss is the weakest this part, since I have to brute with game basic mobility (although double jump make some content trivial).

If you havent play the first game, i think this is good entry since it is kinda like from blank slate. The game are more accessible, less punishing and gameplay is pretty straight forward. It just some optional alternate area have awful precise platforming. Somehow I cant stop playing and finishing this game in just 2 days (which is rare for me nowadays).

tl;dr Yes, definitely yes. Although I still recommend to play 1st game afterward to see what purist think about the game.

Right now, I’m mainly playing The Witcher 3 again, just enjoying the story and getting lost in the world. I’ve also been spending some time on Cities: Skylines when I want to switch things up—building up a city is surprisingly addictive. Both games are perfect for a long session, and they’re a good balance between chill and engaging. What about you, anything you're into lately?

man. GGG needs to get their shit together about the state of PoE1 league schedules right now.

After several of frustration i have while gaming session, i decided to just uninstall everything in my mind
and probably only find game that I truly wanted to play, instead of these "completionist mindset"
In meantime, have fun reading my inner thoughts:

1. Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmark
Definitely the downfall of modern AAA. Everything need framegen and upscaling just to get performace from the get go. No optimization done properly and the visual arent considered high fidelity either. I was hyped about this game so much, but now i will just wait until a modder come out with optimization patch or something. I dont mind playing on minimum settings, since i have 8 years old GPU but the stuff shown in benchmark is just lackluster. Dragon's Dogma 2 which already released for 1 year, still have performance issue with its engine unable to handle open world game.

2. Xcom 2 War of the Chosen expansion + Long War mod (LWOTC)
One of best recent game experience where it is kinda turned super soldier xcom team, to big guerilla warfare tactics vs alien. Instead of going in / out of 1 mission per game, you now can send multiples squad to multiples missions where you need to balance between going stealthily (max infiltration) or bang out of the door (sometimes like 5x more enemies). It was super tricky at start since I also learning the expansion DLC mechanic like the faction you help doing covert operations and fight a specialized alien warrios similar to a miniboss. Each of them are pretty tricky fights, despite i was playing on easiest difficulty with tons of QoL mods. As usual, the game get easier and it just time i get bored in late game since once your tech catch up with enemy, the game become too easy.

3. Civilization 5 + Vox Populi mods
After disappointing runs with several 4X games i played couple of weeks ago like Humanity, Old World, Civilization 6 and Endless Legend, I finally decided to reinstall Civ5 with the most popular mods and tons other content mods that will make game felt new. Long story short, I liked the learning phase at beginning where everyting is new and then I learnt that huge emphasized on having big army for survival / war deterrent against AI civilization. But my breaking point was my last game, where I played a civilization that focused on allied city states (neutral city) and focusing on building up like world wonder, science & culture. In one time, i decided to attack one of the settler of my friend because they was planning to settle to closely to my city. I ended become world most hated civilization for some reasons and I spent like last 100 turns (66% of my 150 turns games) just managing about 30 army to defense my borders. Turned out this is a problem with its AI diplomacy logic that not everyone liked, and i just felt tedious because it is not fun to play war 1 vs 5 for whole game that made me uninstall all games i have on my pc atm (except genshin & Pokemon pocket TCG emulator)

4. Sifu
The game that is you need to gitgud to enjoy. After first death at 2nd stage, i just dediced Im not in mood even to practicing this tricky game until i win the game. I was told that difficulty doesnt matter much, where easier difficulty only made AI less aggressive and you get less penalty for dying too much. Good skill based games, but not something I needed atm (frustration building up)

5. Guardian of the galaxy
Good narrative game that was boring because enemy are too bullet spongy, and gameplay is snoozefest spamming shoot and companions skill. People online recommended to switch to easiest difficulty and make gameplay faster, but then i realized even the story is dragging way too long for my taste. Lets just it become arena - cutscene - arena - cutscene formula that I dread so much.

Several honorable mentions :
Against the storm - I thought i would like for roguelike + old school RTS, but i barely clear the tutorial and never in mood to play again
Moonstone Island - Snoozefest that combined stardew valley + pokemon + card battler. Starting up is so slow that i just felt boring
Citizen Sleeper - Too many reading, passssss. I thought it will be game like Tharsis (decent survival diceboard-gamelike)
[Redacted] - Good hades clone that decent, but awful in many QoL aspect. Like why you need to lift your finger from trigger to continue firing weapon after dodging? Oh, there is no rebindable controller in FREAKING 2025
No Straight Roads - Good game made by my local people. Not perfect definitely, but i compared it like watching movie. Short & stylized.
The Last Campfire - Short game by company which made No Man's Sky. Just ok, i used speed hack and ended it quickly
Thief Simulator - I will avoid simulator type game in the future
Touhou Makuka Sai - Something about its graphic is too blurry, supposed to less graphic intensive than 2nd game, but still painful to my eyes

Uninstalled everything and I just meditating on what I wanted to do next
I might get back to watching anime if this persist, at least that will be enjoyable

After 1 month since my last post, i was searching for any game that fill in my free time.
Somehow i decided to install this games, yet not in mood to complete any of them

1. Life is strange 2 + Adventure of Captain Spirit
I thought I wanted something story heavy too immersive myself. Turned out my mind just get bored too easily and i get distracted with everything else. Only managed to complete prologue and havent touch since
2. Jussant
From same developer as above games, but this one is just snooze climbing simulator. Lore are told by reading notes. Game so boring that i couldnt even finish this 4 hours game
3. Persona 5 Strikers
Again, I thought i wanted more casual game. Turned out this game is more VN + musou, not exactly arcade-y gameplay that I wanted atm. Still havent touch after first mission, for 1 month
4. Griftlands
Roguelike Deckbuilder + Narrative with dialogue choice. Gameplay too tedious and too basic, not many RNG for me to enjoy it. Worse part is that 1 succesful run took like 2 hours & half (while most other roguelike deckbuilder can be speedrun around 40 minute usually)
5. Monster Train 2 Demo
Definitely Im hyped about this game. Even a simple demo managed to hook for solid 20 hours, trying to use multiple different strategies, despite the content are kinda limited. Probably my day 1 purchase when it is released
6. My Little Universe
Kinda like middle ground between incremental game (like those cookie clicker) and crafting survival where you focused on gathering resources and exploring new planet. Too bad is too casual and easy, I got super bored since the gameplay depth just too simplistic
7. Monster Hunter World
I promised my coop buddy to teach him to play MH World while watching people enjoying MH Wilds. He lied and now I stuck solo while helping newbie in iceborne. Definitely still a chill game, I do a hunt once a while at least.
8. Soulstice
Budget DMC / Soulslike that doesnt have good first impression. Not even finished 1st level / boss, immediately I quit and havent touched the game after I cleared couple of rooms, maybe I simply dont like game that give you rank after each of the fight room (instead at end of level)
9. Path of Exile Phrecia Event
I didnt have much goals aside from reaching level 80. As usually, I casually played SSF-ish with buy/selling crafting material via currency exchange. After getting stuck not having good progress in like 2 weeks, I just decided to just buy stuff from trade with currency i had. This event somehow have cracked ascendancy and idols system, made me managed to reach level 100 easily for first time in my PoE career.