I’ll throw in my one suggestion for Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (https://store.steampowered.com/app/428550/Momodora_Reverie_Under_The_Moonlight/)

Honestly just a really high quality experience that can be finished in around six or so hours. One of my favorite games of all time by many accounts: aesthetic, gameplay, atmosphere, and storytelling.

I tried a couple of demos from Steam Next fest. Without writing up an essay:

• Aden: Quirky game with reasonably difficult combat (when played in hard), cool music, and a story I ended up being surprisingly interested in. I was in it for the unique aesthetics and vibes and ended up being invested in whatever was happening.
• Until Then: Lovely little visual novel set in the Phillipines (which I love, as most games centered around Asian culture tend to be Japanese or Chinese focused). The dialogue is fun, the pixel art presentation is incredibly good and even has some beautiful animated scenes, and there’s enough intrigue and curiosity that really piques my interest in terms of the setting. It’s modern day, set about a decade ago, but with a twist of paranormal worldwide happenings in an otherwise normal world.

Actually drinking a Soylent Mint Chocolate right now. One of the better flavors!

Mostly Against the Storm and Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising! I’m actually really enjoying GBVSR and as someone that has struggled getting into fighting games in the past despite really enjoying them and wanting to get better at them, this one has got me hooked so far.

As for anticipated games, the latest Momodora game comes out very soon. There’s also Granblue Fantasy: Relink which looks interesting, and the latest FFXIV expansion, Dawntrail, this summer!

I agree, though what I would have liked them to touch on more is how they absolutely played with the expectation that the villains might have been redeemable. I was completely expecting them to be and felt like I was just as tricked as the characters in the story when in turned out they really were just irredeemable monsters.

The writing took the expectation of “These characters look like humans and therefore must have human like reasoning and understanding” that’s been built up in previous, more contemporary fantasy works and then just played it completely straight in the classic fantasy style of “They’re literally just evil”.

I loved the trailer opening with the Red Wings theme, one of my favorite songs in the franchise.

This is neat and really enjoying it! Though admittedly stuck at level 14 and not sure if I am missing a fundamental mechanic to solve this one or if I’m just really dumb.

[Edit] I figured it out and it was because I was fundamentally misunderstanding some throwing physics.

Also still playing Armored Core 6. I am really enjoying the game, and even spent a couple hours last night trying 3v3 PvP and had a lot of fun with that. Part of me wishes they did a proper support for PvP with queueing and some sort of map rotation, or that someone basically makes Armored Core 6 PvP as a separate game but functionally the same, because it honestly is a lot of fun.

I had the same issue with Dragon Maid where the main couple - Tohru and Kobayashi - are actually a fun, cute, well handled queer couple, but every other character after that (besides Fafnir and Kobayashi’s male coworker, Makoto) just really made me feel iffy and suspicious.

Overall I think this was a pretty good video discussing the topic and I think the author handled it pretty reasonably.

Actually super excited for this! I just recently finished the last game I was playing (Ys IX), which is perfectly timed for this release

You do also kind of put all your eggs in one basket so to speak though. I don’t have anything against Proton and the pricing makes sense if you value all their services and pay for Ultimate (though by my estimate, less sense if you are only looking for a smaller handful of services). However, if you go fully into Proton for everything, you’re placing your trust into an entire stack of services and it can end up a single point of failure.

I finished Omori a few months ago and it was a standout experience, really enjoyed every moment and could sing a lot of praise on its sound design and usage of gameplay mechanics to tell a story!

I agree. A lot of it for me is the quality of the time spent. I’d rather pay $10 for high quality six hours of gameplay, then play $40 for 60 hours of gameplay but like 30 of those hours are very low quality.

Honestly, this is a cute idea and a great little morning exercise and stretch to do regularly!

Actually very interested in this one! It seems to have similar energy to a couple of my all time favorite series, Kino’s Journey and Girls’ Last Tour.

RATA RATA RATA TAN
TAN TAN RATA TAN

Active raider, still trying for the elusive week 1 clear maybe sometime in 7.X, though I may take a break from hardcore raiding in 7.0! Managed to get to Natural Alignment 2 week 1 for Abyssos, and got to Pangenesis in week 1 for Anabaseios, but no week 1 clear just yet.

Other than that though, I’m an MSQ enjoyer and just generally appreciate different aspects of the game, from story, to music, to boss and encounter designs. Seat of Sacrifice Extreme is the best fight in the game.

In terms of top tier fights relative to floor, I think P3S, P5S, and P10S take the cake here. I think P12S P1 is one of the more fun phase 1 execution-heavy two part fights, whereas I think P4S phase 2 is actually the best second phase. But second phase, I’m probably a little biased because Curtain Call is just significantly better than Dominion and Gaiochos 2 as far as soft-enrage damage mechanics go.

Anabaseios probably had the most even spread of enjoyable fights, with P9S being a slightly worse P5S (which is fine, because P5S is great), and P10S being just the best second floor fight this whole tier. P11S is worse than P3S by a longshot, but it’s not a bad fight - it’s just an overly safe, comfy design. P12S is fun even if I think phase 2 is largely just a remix of P8S phase 2.

I’m of the opposite opinion when it comes to P3S. I think P3S is the best designed fight of the whole tier, and actually probably still a top tier fight across the whole expansion.

I think oppo is safer because JP really needs the 6 marker to be on top of the ball (or do non-standard positioning, which is actually what I would recommend).