What game are you currently playing?

Stalker 2 is my current main. It's been a bit of a magical mystery tour because I haven't played any of the previous games in the series.

I only recently realised that I could place artefacts in slots to benefit from certain passive boosts, but I've only found a couple of similar ones so far anyway.

Some of the early encounters I really struggled with (by the skin of my teeth at times), especially when attacked by those disappearing mutants. And some of the gunfights have been super intense. I've found that camping in a well protected spot and letting as many enemies come to me as possible has been a solid tactic so far.

The map seems vast. I've only explored the Lesser Zone and the Garbage Zone so far and there has been plenty to explore. On revisiting the first settlement I walked into a massive gunfight during a thunderstorm, which was pretty cool. I'm just about to head off towards a third zone as I follow the main mission.

I'm still a little puzzled by a few things. There's a massive bubble anomaly early on, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. Throwing bolts at it doesn't seem to have the same effect as the small ones, so I'm stumped.

I got stuck on an area where these orbs would appear and explode within a second, but I eventually sussed it out. There seem to be a lot of areas that are puzzles to figure out, which I think is pretty unique for this kind of game.

It's still early doors, but I'm really enjoying it.
 
Just finished Assassin's Creed. Xbox 360 version played on Series X.

I hated almost everything about this game. I have no idea how it ever turned into a franchise.

2/10

I had the displeasure of playing this AC a few months ago. Maybe back when it launched it could've been considered an okay game, but nowadays it's nothing more than pretty mediocre. It's extremely repetitive and the gameplay is awful.
 
I had the displeasure of playing this AC a few months ago. Maybe back when it launched it could've been considered an okay game, but nowadays it's nothing more than pretty mediocre. It's extremely repetitive and the gameplay is awful.
It was absolutely revolutionary at the time, mechanically speaking, and the Animus vs. Real World plot was really innovative.
But yeah its pretty clunky and outdated nowadays. As much as I'm a fan of the Ezio Trilogy that came right after, I never recommend people to play the first game at all, since everything important that happens can be summarized in 10 minutes.
 
Gimmick by Sunsoft.
Game is as hard as shit.
The physics based platforming is hard enough, but other mechanics are designed to (seemingly) make you want to bite your controller in half.
Your attack is a star based projectile that takes roughly four hundred years to charge, before you can hurl it at an enemy and watch in dismay as it simply bounces over it. The trajectory of the star makes it pretty tricky to aim it at enemies.
Anyone ancient enough to remember "Rolo to the Rescue" on the Megadrive, may remember how he controlled like he was skating on ice, with blocks of butter under each foot.
Your character in Gimmick handles in a similar way. When jumping to a small platform, I find myself over compensating for his momentum when he lands by frantically pressing the d-pad in the opposite direction, sending him(?) falling off to his demise.
It's a really interesting game.
Retrogamer magazine brought it to my attention with it's fascinating story of how it came to be.
Just not suitable for someone with a lack of patience.
Like me obviously.
 
Stalker 2 is my current main. It's been a bit of a magical mystery tour because I haven't played any of the previous games in the series.

I only recently realised that I could place artefacts in slots to benefit from certain passive boosts, but I've only found a couple of similar ones so far anyway.

Some of the early encounters I really struggled with (by the skin of my teeth at times), especially when attacked by those disappearing mutants. And some of the gunfights have been super intense. I've found that camping in a well protected spot and letting as many enemies come to me as possible has been a solid tactic so far.

The map seems vast. I've only explored the Lesser Zone and the Garbage Zone so far and there has been plenty to explore. On revisiting the first settlement I walked into a massive gunfight during a thunderstorm, which was pretty cool. I'm just about to head off towards a third zone as I follow the main mission.

I'm still a little puzzled by a few things. There's a massive bubble anomaly early on, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. Throwing bolts at it doesn't seem to have the same effect as the small ones, so I'm stumped.

I got stuck on an area where these orbs would appear and explode within a second, but I eventually sussed it out. There seem to be a lot of areas that are puzzles to figure out, which I think is pretty unique for this kind of game.

It's still early doors, but I'm really enjoying it.
You've pretty much mirrored my experience with the game so far.
It begs resourcefulness of the player, which is something I rather enjoy.
It's almost Monastic.
Great game.
Atmosphere is incredible.
 
I did the Kalamet tailcut twice, both times solo and both times it was a pain. Nice side effect was that i could kill kalameet with my eyes closed.
As much as it was pain to cut his tail it was fun. I kinda want tail cut mechanic comeback in future FROM game.

It makes you think not just about killing the boss but also how can cut tail in order get the weapon.
 
Just started Little Nightmares 3. Tried jumping into other games (Borderlands 4 and Outer Worlds 2) after Ghost of Yotei but couldn't get into them. Enjoying it so far, only conplaint is I wish I could swap characters on the fly.
 
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As much as it was pain to cut his tail it was fun. I kinda want tail cut mechanic comeback in future FROM game.

It makes you think not just about killing the boss but also how can cut tail in order get the weapon.
Yeah what a shame that dark souls is the only game that has this unique mechanic.

Also bc dark souls 2 didnt have this they changed the lore to dragons having Souls...such bullshit.
 
Finished Crow Country last night. Really enjoyed the retro aesthetic but the 3D camera controls put a cool twist on the fixed cameras style game. The aiming can be a bit annoying when trying to activate traps, and they really throw a lot of enemies at you to run away from but otherwise great. Finished on A ranking, not sure if there's enough for me to replay to get S but would recommend everyone to play.

Luigi's Mansion: So fun to finally play the first one in the series, and it holds up really well. So much charm, doesn't overstay its welcome and still looks really great. Don't know what it is but the aiming has been really off to me in all of the games, and changing the invert on controls doesn't really make a difference.

Currently making my way through ChibiRobo. Absolutely loving it. Again this game just oozes charm.

Mariokart World: First Mariokart game I have really put time into and really loved my time with it. What I do find weird about it is that based on the marketing I was expecting the open world aspect to be the main selling point but feels like an afterthought. I played the grand prix races and endurance races, and got 3 stars on all of them, before even going into the open-world mode. Open world is cool although bit confused about what I'm supposed to do in it.
 
Played through the demo of Final Fantasy 16. I liked it a lot. Very grim and dark for a Final Fantasy. Lots of R-rated killings. Slit throats. Mutilated bodies. They even killed a chocobo which I thought was rather unnecessary and cruel. They didn't have to show that. I guess SE is aiming for a very adult and mature experience with this one. I liked the setup of the story, it left me wanting more. My only criticism was the long cut scenes and limited gameplay, which often was scripted with cinematic inputs that felt kinda boring. Sometimes I wonder if SE wants to make a movie or a game. Graphically very impressive but I wouldn't expect anything else from them.
 
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So as planned, I finished up space marine 1 last night. It was early enough that I could start the second one.

So I was looking forward to seeing a sequel to this game back-to-back because space marine was a really honest, simple video game. So it was going to be cool to see how they handled a direct sequel after so much time.

It sucked me in for 4 hours and then it really was too late lol. This is the perfect picture of a sequel done right. Everything is vastly bigger and badder. Shout to the graphics, first off. The game looks awesome.

One of my main takeaways from the first one was that it was so incredibly simple. It's practically like smash tv or something. This manages to add a few mechanics that add much needed complexity. I can't say much abuot depth because I haven't played much, but complexity alone is enough to improve the game. So I don't know how good or balanced the new moves are, but they are fun to do and some brain cells bump together just remembering that you can do them.

And the mechanics don't feel lazily lifted from other games. They have a parry on L1 - sounds like a generic addition at first. If they lifted the parry straight from dark souls, that would cheapen the game. It works great here because they make the followups different. Parrying a small enemy splatters it instantly. That is amazing. It makes so much sense and you get a lot of chances to use it. When parrying a larger enemy, you get a discreet pushback to neutral, and not a big dramatic counterattack opportunity. The sm2 parry's affect on the flow of fighting is way, way different than a straight dark souls parry would have been.

The tyranid swarms are sweet. The 40k tourism is peak. Seems to run great. Can't wait to see more.
 
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Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Remastered
Started this earlier tonight after buying it a while ago. I had this game on PS1, but I don't think I played much beyond an hour or two. Can't really remember much about it either. Atmosphere and level design are amazing. I also love the music and voice acting; Tony Jay is fantastic! As is Simon Templemen. Impaling enemies is so much fun.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
Just had my first encounter with those annoying naked zombie looking vampire...things. Hate 'em. Too fast for my old man reflexes.
 
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Was caught up in trying to grind out builds in Nioh 2 and finally broke free. Instead I went back to speed run the last few missions on Dream of the Demon to get the last few trophies. Was quite a joyous victory lap, powering through with way too strong gear and revisiting the DLC bosses and levels.

I can totally see how some people have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours perfecting their builds and mastering the weapons, but damn, I want to get to other games this lifetime as well.

I'll definitely jump on Nioh 3 at release, Team Ninja are doing amazing work with this series.

For now though I'm strongly considering replaying Bloodborne, got inspired listening to the music again after seeing the 10th anniversary vinyl. Lawd, I need that...

Bonus pics from the amazing photo mode
2xO8reLDtzMaVq0l.jpg

hm9DCshFdk0bCgex.jpg
 
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Playing through ToTK for a second time, now 60fps on Switch 2.

It's not as great a game as BoTW, but it has greater moments. The problem it has is that it feels like disparate gameplay elements, as opposed to a cohesive game. But it's still wonderful.
 
Playing through ToTK for a second time, now 60fps on Switch 2.

It's not as great a game as BoTW, but it has greater moments. The problem it has is that it feels like disparate gameplay elements, as opposed to a cohesive game. But it's still wonderful.
TOTK is great, but I much prefer BOTW. I find that some of the areas in TOTK are not so fun to play through tbh, particularly the laborious lead up to some of the main dungeons.
 
Was caught up in trying to grind out builds in Nioh 2 and finally broke free. Instead I went back to speed run the last few missions on Dream of the Demon to get the last few trophies. Was quite a joyous victory lap, powering through with way too strong gear and revisiting the DLC bosses and levels.

I can totally see how some people have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours perfecting their builds and mastering the weapons, but damn, I want to get to other games this lifetime as well.

I'll definitely jump on Nioh 3 at release, Team Ninja are doing amazing work with this series.

For now though I'm strongly considering replaying Bloodborne, got inspired listening to the music again after seeing the 10th anniversary vinyl. Lawd, I need that...

Bonus pics from the amazing photo mode
2xO8reLDtzMaVq0l.jpg

hm9DCshFdk0bCgex.jpg
Play Wuchang if you haven't. It's great.
 
I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 + DLC right now. I tried it a bit on release but never got far, shouldn't have rented it. Now I've bought it digitally, so no more excuses.

But I binned Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. The honeymoon phase has worn off, and I'm pretty much done with the menus and the terrible quests. The combat is fantastic, but not enough to pull me through and finish it right now. Maybe I'll get around to finishing it eventually.

The production quality between the two games is insane, by the way. The cutscenes and graphics of 3 completely obliterate Xenoblade X. Obviously I'm considering there are almost a decade between the two, but the improvement is massive
 
The production quality between the two games is insane, by the way. The cutscenes and graphics of 3 completely obliterate Xenoblade X. Obviously I'm considering there are almost a decade between the two, but the improvement is massive
Obviously! XCX came out after original Xenoblade and unlike numbered series it not very story heavy compare to them.

Xenoblade 3 was massive jump in production value even compare to Xenoblade 2….especially the animation and character models.
 
Obviously! XCX came out after original Xenoblade and unlike numbered series it not very story heavy compare to them.

Xenoblade 3 was massive jump in production value even compare to Xenoblade 2….especially the animation and character models.
It's not a criticism on my part, if anything, it actually makes me excited for the new entries, if they ever come

I actually bought X more or less blind because I saw you raving about it a couple of times.

X isn't a bad game or anything (are there bad Xenoblade games?), but I'm just not vibing with it right now. Still managed to clock 60+ hours in it anyway.
 
The Invincible

Just working my way through towards the platinum. Estimate I've got 30-40 minutes left to do. After this, I plan to play Withering Rooms.
 
It's not a criticism on my part, if anything, it actually makes me excited for the new entries, if they ever come

I actually bought X more or less blind because I saw you raving about it a couple of times.

X isn't a bad game or anything (are there bad Xenoblade games?), but I'm just not vibing with it right now. Still managed to clock 60+ hours in it anyway.
That's very understandable, Xenoblade X just very different game compare to numbered series and the game came out after original Xenoblade so clunky menus from original Xenoblade it present in X.
 
250px-Kena_Bridge_of_Spirits_key_art.jpg



I bought this for my daugther on the PSN sale for £9.

Never heard of it before, but after a couple of hours we're hooked, it's got some stunning environments and really whimsical / kid friendly to play. Loving it honestly.
It's nice to just buy a random game on a whim without knowing a thing about it only to find out it's great.
 
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Obviously! XCX came out after original Xenoblade and unlike numbered series it not very story heavy compare to them.

Xenoblade 3 was massive jump in production value even compare to Xenoblade 2….especially the animation and character models.

Playing Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition as my first Xenoblade game and then Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was also an interesting experience of cognitive dissonance. The modernisations made for the XC: DE became really noticeable when playing XC2 (which makes a lot of sense given they're 3 years apart), but my brain still kept trying to internalise XC2 as the latest game. It made some aspects of the menus/UI feel like a step back, while the gameplay itself had a lot of steps forward. Gaming is so weird in that way, I love it.

Also super keen on trying XCX at some point. I love the XC series for the narrative elements especially, so it is interesting that its not the focus of XCX.
 
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Playing Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition as my first Xenoblade game and then Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was also an interesting experience of cognitive dissonance. The modernisations made for the XC:DE became really noticeable when playing XC2 (which makes a lot of sense given they're 3 years apart), but my brain still kept trying to internalise XC2 as the latest game. It made some aspects of the menus/UI feel like a step back, while the gameplay itself had a lot of steps forward. Gaming is so weird in that way, I love it.

Also super keen on trying XCX at some point. I love the XC series for the narrative elements especially, so it is interesting that it's not the focus of XCX.
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition had massive improvement to its UI compare to the original Wii release.

As much as I LOVE Xenoblade 2, it's UI one of the big criticism against the game.
 
Been on a bit of a run lately.

Alien Isolation - great game but FUCK this game...genuinely stressful and anxiety inducing.
Really good but some shit missions in the middle ruin the pacing before it picked back up again for the end.

Condemned - this was cool but very clunky. I got fed up of the combat by the end and the final level I had to drop it to easy to get through.

Assetto Corsa Rally - really good and works well on pad too. The atmosphere is what has impressed me a lot with it - it really captures the feeling of being outside in the woods in the rain, nighttime or whatever which surprised me.

Immortals of Aveum - about 3/4 through this now. It looks good (with FSR4 modded in as a must) and has run decently enough for me but the writing is cringe and marvel style, and it gets so hectic sometimes I have no idea who's shooting me. Plus some bullet sponge enemies are annoying.
Otherwise it's an ok game to play and the shooting is good. Got it for 89p so can't complain!

Robocop is next to finish on my list.
 
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Synapse
Did not really finish it before it left Plus.
Raw Data on VR1 had some issues but was more fun imho. Those telekinesis power did not do it for me. Same as with Raw Data which tried shooting and swords for all levels, here I rather have shooting only or telekinesis only segments or something. Trying to do two things at once is doing both rather meh. Something did not feel right with the aiming, rather inaccurate. Pistol Whip had insane autoaim as default, but I think Raw Data, the VR Worlds games or Farpoint were without and those felt accurate, when the tracking did not act up stupidly. The general roguelike nature is also rarely my thing. Did not even play long, but was already bored off the same environment. It looks decent, tries a unique style, but not really mind blowing. On Unreal Engine. Something felt wrong with the framerate. According to google it was running at or targets 60 fps, and reprojection to 120. I guess other games might have opted to be at 90, but native. Free movement is usually more troubling, but it wasn't really that it made me woozy, like some VR1 games did, just something noticable on some rather minor level.
 
I've played a lot more space marine 2 now. Beat it, and started over for a couple hours.

It's definitely better than the first. It looks better, plays better, balanced better, story's better, and you can wear your helmet.

There might be two smaller things that are a step down from the first: 1.Legibility is a little shit sometimes with the darkness and particles. 2. There's a lot of downtime for an action game. The cutscnese can be skipped, but there are stand-in-place dialogs that cannot. Running back and forth across the homebase, the sometimes lengthy walking sections and general distance between fights - these things might not sit well with the impatient.

It plays well enough that I was wondering what it would be like on hard. Well, looks like there is veteran, then hard after normal. And veteran is described as the way the game was meant to be played. O, great. Anyway I tried that the see if the game was more or less fun with more difficulty. That's the test of gameplay. And it passes, it's more fun with more pressure.

I'll tell you what, though. I'm usually not impatient but I just wanted to see how the game played on hard and getting through the downtime parts I described really is annoying and hurts it's potential as a real action game. That, and the lack of any score or grading.

Maybe that's what the ops mode is for, though? I'll try that out. I don't want to do the whole campaign again. It went by fast, too. If anyone is looking to get more time out of this campaign, I recommend trying the veteran mode to start. Normal mode was cozy and kept me on my toes but I mostly walked through the game. Veteran will kill you more but really feels more immersive when you have to use skill along with your inherent power.
 
I've played a lot more space marine 2 now. Beat it, and started over for a couple hours.

It's definitely better than the first. It looks better, plays better, balanced better, story's better, and you can wear your helmet.

There might be two smaller things that are a step down from the first: 1.Legibility is a little shit sometimes with the darkness and particles. 2. There's a lot of downtime for an action game. The cutscnese can be skipped, but there are stand-in-place dialogs that cannot. Running back and forth across the homebase, the sometimes lengthy walking sections and general distance between fights - these things might not sit well with the impatient.

It plays well enough that I was wondering what it would be like on hard. Well, looks like there is veteran, then hard after normal. And veteran is described as the way the game was meant to be played. O, great. Anyway I tried that the see if the game was more or less fun with more difficulty. That's the test of gameplay. And it passes, it's more fun with more pressure.

I'll tell you what, though. I'm usually not impatient but I just wanted to see how the game played on hard and getting through the downtime parts I described really is annoying and hurts it's potential as a real action game. That, and the lack of any score or grading.

Maybe that's what the ops mode is for, though? I'll try that out. I don't want to do the whole campaign again. It went by fast, too. If anyone is looking to get more time out of this campaign, I recommend trying the veteran mode to start. Normal mode was cozy and kept me on my toes but I mostly walked through the game. Veteran will kill you more but really feels more immersive when you have to use skill along with your inherent power.
I think the parry system and the health regeneration of this game is very well thought out, resulting in a fun combat system. The game is actually good at the higher difficulty levels.

The pvp mode is also enjoyable if you like games like Halo.
 
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Finished VtM Bloodlines 2 after about 30 hours. I'll give it a 7/10, it's not a bad game if you limit your (enormous) expectations of what a sequel to Bloodlines was supposed to be.

I really enjoyed the main story - most of the characters were okay (and the game allowed to kill off a few of the annoying ones), the main plot was enjoyable to follow (from 2 different perspectives) and I liked the big twists near the end. Playing as an elder with more advanced vampiric powers also ended up being a cool idea, I loved speedrunning, gliding and brainwashing enemies to cause stuff like mass suicides or them attacking each other. The snowy Seattle setiing is also a big win, however I will admit that the map feels a bit empty and it could've been bigger. You will recognize every street corner after spending 20-30 hours there.

The performance of the game is horrible unfortunately (on PS5). It's all over the place when free roaming the city and I even had one crash before the finale, because the situation became more 'intense' on the main map and the game was really struggling. Most of the side quests were also very forgetabble. There's one quest giver in the game that gives you literally fetch quests. I was also somewhat disappointed with the soundtrack given how GREAT was the music in Bloodlines 1. Not to mention that a lot of the time you're free roaming even without some ambient music playing in the background, it's just quiet.

Overall it was a positive surprise knowing that the game shouldn't be called a sequel. I'm definitely planning to come back and play a different clan (although there are only a few major choices in the game and you can unlock powers related to other clans) and the DLC content when it's released.
 
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Not really a what i'm playing post but a general PSA.

If you guys have an active facebook account for whatever god forsaken reason (family, in my case), check out the Marketplace section every now and then. Lots of moms/dads and/or gilted exes put up their kids/SO's games for ridiculously low prices just to get rid of them. You'll often find some really good deals.
 
I finished Cronos The New Dawn earlier this week. I really enjoyed the game and found the complaints about difficulty overblown. Smart enough planning and you can avoid basically every death in the game. I wish the game had expanded more on some of the underlying lore such as
The Collective and what actually caused the Change although I know it's kind of implied that Weronika causes it in the ending
.

It isn't a game I'm dying to replay but I'd like to see a sequel at some point.

Now I'm going back to my NG+ run of Clair Obscur to wrap up the platinum and starting Somerville as well.
 
And done. 54 hours. Cleared all D missions, most C missions, and a few B missions. Maxed my main roles, pushed my core weapons to tier 2 max and upgraded some accessories. Lightning - Hope - Fang carried the game from Chapter 10 all the way to the end.

This is actually the first time I've finished it. I played it at launch and came back years later and still dropped it at the same spot which is chapter 11. Glad I finally pushed through this time.
 
Bunch of stuff on my plate right now:
and this pink bastard has a death grip on me every night from midnight to around 1:30 am.
That Solo Leveling game seems like such a great guilty pleasure...

I sold my copy of Air Riders after giving it a shot during the weekend, just can't see myself playing this for the singleplayer. Back to Nightreign and I'm ready to dive into Dispatch. I also bought 1000xResist and No I'm Not Human.

Edit: Nightreign has to be my GOTY, I just keep coming back to it.
 
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I was dragging my heels in the Indiana Jones section I was most dreading, i.e. the battle leading up to facing the titan boa like snake, literally throughout that fight, my pulse was racing, or occasionally I was falling into the water if my attacks missed it in some way so as to avoid any of its potential lunges...glad it is behind me, it was never this bad in the Fate of Atlantis! Even in any of the Uncharted games.. definitely not a title for me for a 2nd playthrough, I mean it is surprising with a snake that big it could have easily taken down me and the NPC with me, much earlier, while she's relaxing in the boat, and Indy barely got anything to go up against such a titan...
 
Monochrome Mobius.

It's excellent, exactly as they said it would be.

Edit: I wanted to add that this game—and maybe it's just me—has a Grandia 1 style of genuine adventure about it. Give it a look if you've never heard of it and like turn-based JRPGs.
 
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Tale of Graces f (Switch OLED)

I'm around 15 hours into the game. I've been loving the gameplay and think it's the best gameplay that a Tales game had. I love maxing out each title and I'm happy I can unlock costumes by maxing out certain titles. I prefer to earn my costumes instead of just buying DLC. I'm playing on normal difficulty and the game can get tough at times. Even when I grind. I'm at Level 36

The voice actor for Pascal is the best out of the cast, the rest of them aren't terrible but do come off as monotone at times

Graphically, the 3D backgrounds look beautiful and the character model look great. The animation isn't up there but I understand that Tales isn't huge but it's not a knock against it. There's a certain charm to the graphics I really like

When it comes to exploration, I really like how you can discover things and the game gives you a item reward and also a skit unlocks everytime

The cast isn't anything special. The standout is Pascal but that's due to her voice actor. The story is fine but has been getting interesting due to the villain

I found the childhood prolouge to be kind of pointless, I can see why they didn't do that for future Tales games

Thankfully there's no censorship of the game. I used Grok to confirm it before I bought the game. I'm skippin the Berseria and Xilla Remasters. I heard they censored those games and I have already played them
 
Steel Assault.

It's a short arcade action platformer, the pixel art is great and it has a banger soundtrack. It's one or two hours long on a first playthrough, you are going to die a LOT, the game is tough.
 
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