BurntWitsWeekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?
Madzielle
agentshagsI’ve been hooked on Farm RPG for like 3 months
I tried Beyond Good & Evil, but ended up dropping it. Gameplay wasn’t strong enough to hold up the story in this day and age. It be minded me of better games like Jak 3 and Stranger’s Wrath.
But now I’m playing Crosscode and this game rocks! Lots of good customization, interesting combat, tonnes of secrets and platforming.
Also wanting to get back into Guilty Gear Strive ahead of the big update!
CoelacanthMine as well, although not super high up on it. I keep hearing good things though.
not super high up on it
I would love it if Steam allowed custom sort/ordering of my wishlist to put them in order of which ones I wanted to get first.
Yeah that would be fantastic.
Always like to see the Jak series mentioned…I’ve yet to find a game that has vibes like Jak 2 and 3
I have been hit by open world fatigue in my Rise of the Ronin playthrough and so I needed an intermission. INMOST is on 70% sale and has been on my radar for a bit after being recommended to play it some time ago, so I finally got around to it. It’s only a 5-6h game so it was perfect to sneak in, played through it in two sittings over two days.
I really loved this game. Puzzle platformers are not my genre of choice but this one felt perfectly fine for me. Not really any precision platforming to speak of and the puzzles were all intuitive enough that it never felt frustrating. Overall the gameplay felt smooth and tight and the generous save states on death further minimized frustration.
This game is not really about the gameplay though as much as it is a work of art. The pixel graphics are stunning, the art direction is perfect and the music is absolutely breathtaking. On top of that the writing is also quite good. The ending is a little on-the-nose for me for what is otherwise a nicely allegorical game, but even so it doesn’t bring my ratings down. There are even some quite funny moments here and there, despite the otherwise heavy themes.
Recommended for anyone that likes artsy indie games, especially if you enjoy darker themes and depressing vibes.
Wishlisted this when I saw the announcement trailer so I had to check out the demo when it dropped last week. It was… okay. It was much worse than it looked from the trailer and worse than I had hoped in general. It’s a shame because the concept is great and has tons of potential. Fishing and horror is a great combination that fits together perfectly. Unfortunately the fishing mechanics are too simple to be really engaging and the horror is pretty bland. It also goes too hard and fast into shock value and jump scares and whatnot instead of doing what a horror fishing game in an isolated setting should do: slowly build suspense and unsettling atmosphere and work with creepy environmental storytelling.
I’ll still keep it wishlist to keep track of it as I like fishing games but I am much less hopeful now than when I first saw the trailer.
Still looking for that perfect fishing game. My favourite so, far has been the fishing mini game in Okami.
Final Fantasy XV is the greatest fishing minigame for me personally. Haven’t played Okami though.
Essence_of_MehRace Driver: GRID
My racing career continues. I’m focusing on this rather than Stunt GP since I played that game quite a lot a year or two ago so there’s not much new to experience there. I’d rather go all in on the title I didn’t spend much time with for now. I finally decided against skipping 24 Hour Le Mans (took until I bought my own car until I had some fun with it) and played through two so far. Still not my favourite event but it’s not bad. What I did give me more enjoyment however were the open-wheel races - grip on those cars makes it super fun to just zip around the track. I might have to look into some F1 games in the future. One thing that stands out is something I already mentioned last week - limited content. I don’t need hundreds of tracks but when you start repeating them across regions within the first 18 races (each region consists of 3 tiers made of 6 events) then something is not right. I still like the game and have a great time but it won’t be replacing Colin McRae Rally 04 as my mainstay racing title.
Shadowrun: DragonfallI took a few month break after finishing this and Returns back to back and I’m starting to feel ready to go back in. I tried playing custom modules: Antumbra Saga and SNES Reboot.
The first one started pretty alright, a simple task to infiltrate an office and place a box in specific location. The same mission then turned into a dungeon crawl of a magical cave located under said office, in the middle of a city and fighting through rooms of ghouls and spirits. I was hoping for a slow start with more choices about your approach but it didn’t deliver. I’ll be skipping this one for now unfortunately.
SNES Reboot… I’d say it was a similar story, except it doesn’t even pretend to focus on non-combat gameplay. You’ll get “random” encounters on the very first map (technically second, since you start in a building) you travel through and based on the info text at the start of this campaign, fighting is pretty much the main thing in this game.
Not that I expected different considering this is just a remake of the ancient SNES title but I hoped for a little more diversity (dunno, perhaps there’s some later).
So yeah, my return to Dragonfall was a bust. I’ll probably move on to Hong-Kong next since it’s the only one I haven’t played yet. I just wish there was more to look forward to (especially in terms of custom modules). Oh well, not every game can be Skyrim.
dindonmaskerI just got VR sailing wich is really interesting to learn a bit about how to use the wind at what angle of the sail to always move forward as fast as possible and the races are pretty fun so far. I put the waves setting to the max and my boat jumps and almost flips a lot XD
I also purchased crossfire sierra squad and the couple missions i played so far where not that interesting since i’m still in the tutorial but it feels like a flatscreen game that got turned into a VR game so some things are a bit janky. I’ve spent most of my time playing in the shooting range testing all the weapons. That was fun. The clay dummies are really fun to explode in dust and chunks.
It blew my mind when I found out how real wind sails worked.
You don’t want the wind directly behind you. You’re limited by the speed of the wind that way.
You want to ride the wind diagonally. 5his way you can go faster than the wind.
QuazatronIn act2 of baldurs gate 3. Cleared out the starting area to the east and the main hub safe town and now going to the cursed town area.
Sekiro…I think I’m entering late game and I’m elated. It’s such an elegant game, from the aesthetics to the combat. What an experience it’s been.
I’ll share a lil meme I drew the other day. :P hope you guys enjoy
I forgot to ask the other day. What happened to your DS3 save?
Power went out while I was playing and the file got corrupted. No cloud saves. a bummer as I don’t feel the drive to be as thorough as on a first run and I’m pretty sure I was nearing the end game … Probably will speed run it but I don’t know when I’ll pick it back up. :/ It’s not the way I like to play.
Ah damn that sucks! :(
I’m sure there are save files to download at various points from the internet, but that’s not as fun either I suppose.
Could that be done for a console? It hadn’t even occured to me.
Oh… I didn’t realise you were on console. I highly doubt it :( I’m pretty sure save files are encrypted to prevent cheating, at least on PlayStation.
I’m exposed as a filthy console user XD yeah, I figured, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
I’m exposed as a filthy console user XD
*glass shattering noises*
Sekiro is an a timer. Enjoy learning and overcoming those final challenges.
It is, I’m relishing it.
MarshezezzArmored core vi
Not patient this week. Playing Crimson Desert.
I’m really liking it. It’s giving me the same kind of joy Skyrim did when it first came out.
I’m also liking it, it’s been the only game I’ve played for the whole week. The start was kind of rough and the controls still have some issues (it’s just weird. Sometimes they feel responsive, other times it feels like I’m having some kind of an input lag despite doing the same action), but overall I’m really enjoying the slow burn of the game. I’m about 40 hours in and I’m still in Hernand (which itself isn’t really that surprising considering how big Hernand is) which is the first area of the 5 big areas of the game. Much like Breath of the Wild I’m so enamored by the exploration I keep getting sidetracked and if the rest of the world keeps sidetracking me as much as Hernand does I don’t know when I’ll finish the main quest (which kind of like in BotW isn’t the main focus of the game).
The puzzles are also a breath of fresh air because they are actual puzzles. I’ve literally had to open a notepad to take notes so I could solve a puzzle. And then there are puzzles where you have a map and you need to find the locations in the world that are on the map but you first have to figure out what location on the world the map is referencing because it’s not entirely 1 to 1 so sometimes I have the puzzle map open on my second screen in case I run into some area that looks like the map.
The combat is my god. I might just thrown my sword down and go full WWE because that shit is funny as fuck. I’m not joking. You can grab enemies and throw them at other enemies. You can clothesline, lariat, suplex, belly flop I don’t even know what else. You can literally fight like a wrestler and it’s just as flashy as you imagine it. The only problem with the combat IMO are the bosses. The bosses are bad. I’ve had I think 4 boss fights and 3 of them were literally just me tanking the hits because for the love of god I couldn’t figure what I was supposed to do. Soulsborne games are close to my heart, I’m not swayed by getting my ass beat as long as I can figure out what I’m supposed to do to not get beat. But when I try literally everything that comes to my mind and nothing works I’m just going to evade what I can and tank the rest and beat through attrition. And that’s not fun. The evasions on boss attacks are also kinda weird. I don’t think I have that poor pacing but sometimes I press dodge at the same time I would always press it and sometimes I don’t get hit, other times I get hit. Hopefully combat gets an extra pass by the developers because they’ve been pretty open to feedback and some obvious grievances have already been fixed.
Overall I’m so ready to play it for the rest of the year, which is probably how long it will take me to be done with the game.
These are basically my feelings as well :)
Definitely going to be playing it got a while!
I saw the trailer. I’m down for some sword fighting, horse riding, dragon riding. What throws me off is the train. Why is there a train there?
The game has no identity, it’s literally just stuff the team saw in other popular games thrown in haphazardly. It’s a soup. RDR2 had trains? Chuck it in there boys. Same with the random Zelda sky islands. There is some fun to be had in it I think and it seems to appeal to a certain type of gamer, but I wouldn’t expect the game to make any sense.
Rolled up an Occultist in Grim Dawn a few nights ago. Good times, me and my partner finished the game during covid but haven’t played it since then.
Same! Just been tinkering around with commando builds lately. It’s a really solid game
bootleg
ThalesSlay the Spire
I noticed where 2.0 was just released, so I finally went to play the first one, and holy shit is it fun!
Milksteaks [he/him]After it gets stale after a couple hundred hours try the workshop mods. You can play as a boss and work backwards to slay the hero its soo good
You can also try Chrono Ark if it gets stale, which I feel compelled to proselytize for every time roguelike deckbuilders come up now. Incredible game and super underrated somehow.
Herbal GamerJust finished the second session of Raft with my friend and started playing AC shadows again.
Snatched Flight Simulator 2020 in sale. Last time I played FS it was 2000. Back then, I always hopped into a big Airliner, cranked up realism, flicked random switches and could not get the plane to even move. If I started airborne, I just horribly crashed immediately.
So I thought: let’s do this shit again. Cranked up realism to max, but hopped into a Cessna instead. Turns out: it is not that hard in a small plane 😅 (or maybe I’m just not a stupid kid anymore). Granted, I’ve only been flying in good weather and low wind (and with a little bit of sidewind landing starts to get tricky immediately), but I’m satisfied. Only caveat: if you’re flying seriously, you’re looking so much for the instruments all the time, that there’s no time to enjoy the scenery.
After two days I looked how much a pilot’s license costs. Turns out: way to expensive 😅. It’s funny how a license for a boat is like 500€, but flying is 15k ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Owl
AceFuzzLordI’ve had a lot of fun destressing on the way home from finals by playing Rhythm Heaven Megamix on my softmodded 3DS. So much easier than RH Fever. Been very slowly chipping away at that.
Also had fun with Sonic Lost World on 3DS until I got stuck on the green zeti snowman boss. I tried looking up what to do, but I have not even once been able to replicate it. Hate that boss so much more than any other boss in any other game I have played.
Hopefully gonna finish my first playthrough of Mother 3 soon. Just got to the final chapter.
I’ve been in a bit of a gaming limbo since I beat my first playthrough of Bloodborne earlier this year. I’ve been trying out and revisiting a bunch of games and nothing seems to stick.
I’ve been returning to genres that I’ve really enjoyed in the past, like survival-horror and detective games, only for them to fall flat. But that’s cool, those genres were kind of the soundtrack to specific moments in my life and right now seems to be the souls-era. While there are a ton souls games out there, my plan has been to just focus on the FromSoftware titles first before I check out the rest. The ones I still have to play are Dark Souls 2, Sekiro, and Armored Core 6, which I guess isn’t really a souls game, but I can’t say no to a FromSoft entry at this point. Technically I still have things to do in Dark Souls 1 (put it down after Ornstein and Smough) and Dark Souls 3 (didn’t complete the dlc, but have since lost my save), but I think I’ll wait a while before I revisit those games.
I also picked up the Devil May Cry games while on sale. I love the og Resident Evil 4 so it should be fun to see how an early iteration of that game evolved into its own thing and spawned a whole series.
I was also impatient and bought some new releases that, while they seem up my alley, aren’t meshing with my current mood. Oh well, live and learn.
I absolutely adore Sekiro but going to it after a different souls game is gonna be tough. It plays very differently from every other souls game, to the point that a lot of folks would consider it to not be a souls game. The combat is just so unique and if you try to play it like a souls game you’re gonna have a bad time. With that being said, it also has my favourite combat system I’ve ever played and once you learn it, it’s so satisfying to play. I would still highly recommend it, but don’t go into it thinking it’ll play like Bloodborne or Elden Ring or something.
I’ve actually played a bit of Sekiro before, I only got to Lady Butterfly, but I wasn’t meshing too well with the combat and put the game down. I’ve picked it up and set it back down a few times since, always starting from the beginning, but maybe this go around will be the one where I can see it through to completion. Fingers crossed!
The entirety of Hirata Estate is technically optional, so you could always skip it or save it for later if you find Lady Butterfly for example to be too difficult. Outside of there, how far did you get in the main part of the game?
Ah interesting, I didn’t realize that. And I’m not quite sure how far I got, but the one thing I remember was there were bird guys on the roofs giving me a heck of a time, it was my first time running into them.