“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – #014
9 min read
A weekly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
Trailers, gameplay demos, and release dates for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, and Sonic Origins dropped this week! It sure looks like summer’s gonna be a stacked one for gaming, and I’m all for it! As the weather warms up, our writers are getting fired up themselves with the games they’ve been playing this week! Check it out!
I’m definitely in a slump, though I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve been wanting to play things, but am just struggling with choice paralysis. I did get a little done, though. I beat Samorost 3, the third in a series of short, surreal little point-and-click games about a tiny gnome on a tiny planet exploring the space around him. There’s no dialogue and you’re mostly left to your own devices to figure out what to do next. Mostly it’s about interacting with the world and seeing what happens. I have attempted several more Ocarina of Time Randomizer runs and I’ve gotten better, but not quite got it yet. There’s still a lot I’m learning about the game and tricks I didn’t know (did you know you can stop Deku Scrubs with your own Deku nut if you don’t have a shield to reflect their shots? I didn’t.)
Lately, I’ve had the chance to check out the latest port of NIS classic strategy-RPG Makai Kingdom. This is, in my opinion, the best game these guys have ever put out, with Disgaea 5 coming in at a close second. It’s absolutely jam-packed with content and humor. You can spend hours and hours grinding up your syringe-toting killer nurses and pie-flinging chefs so that they’re able to take on gods. To be clear, I fully intend to do so. It’s a great fit for the Switch, too, since you can hop on, grab a few levels and feel like you’ve made some progress.
Along with this, I have a habit of picking a handheld game to play most nights before bed. Lately, it’s been Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, one of the more unusual entries in the long-running series in that it was mostly designed for local multiplayer. This has its ups and downs – while it’s great to be able to create your entire party a la Dragon Quest III, the game is definitely hurting for the kind of characterization we see in entries like VII, VIII and XI. Still, it’s been a great time, and as is usually the case with Dragon Quest it’s an RPG with plenty of content that’s great for an hour or two at a time.
Having wrapped up Tunic over the weekend, I took the opportunity afforded by a long weekend to dive back into more adventures with Yagami-san in Lost Judgment. As someone who never really took to the ‘Yakuza’ series in the PS2 and PS3 era, I’m really pleased to say that the original Judgment on PS4 was a brilliant entry-point for me. The detective angle really appealed, the characters were engaging and likeable, and the plot was one of the best I’ve played through in recent years. My interest in the series has only increased since, with Yakuza: Like a Dragon being my favourite turn-based RPG in over a generation, and now Lost Judgment being exactly the kind of sequel I had hoped for. Admittedly I had to step away from this game a couple of times when big releases happened over the past few months, but the fact that I kept returning to it says a heck of a lot in its favour. I may just have to start diving into the series’ backlog once I’ve beaten the new Kaito Files DLC.
Additionally, with all the current hype surrounding the new upcoming ‘Monkey Island’ game, I’ve finally made a start on Thimbleweed Park. I’m still only on the third chapter but… why on earth did nobody tell me that this is (…probably…) set in the same universe as Maniac Mansion?! I would’ve played it a long time before now if I’d known it contains hundreds of little references!
Game playing has been at a standstill for the last week due to how busy I was during Holy Week leading up to Easter and an upcoming Steampunk Festival. As a pastor, my congregation comes way before gaming. As an artist, my art is also placed before virtual entertainment. but I was able to vicariously enjoy a game through my son, who has been playing Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag on the Nintendo Switch. He is 14 years old, and really enjoys history, so the Assassin’s Creed games have really captured his imagination. I sit on the couch and work on some of my felting art while he slowly makes his way through the story of that game. And what a story it is! Playing as a pirate named Edward Kenway, a man who stole the Assassin moniker, you plunder and pillage your way through the West Indies in the early 18th century. This game acts as the direct prequel to Assassin’s Creed III, so we are not technically going out of order here. All of the stealth action you know and love is back, along with thrilling ship on ship combat and a seamless open world. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy the series.
In the words of Mark Williams, “this week I ‘aaave mostly been playing” Cyberpunk 2077 again, because I am madly in love with that glitchy, troubled monster of a game! Currently running around doing gigs to get exp and money, cos it’s a great old time when I can stomp the main story missions later! I will save Takamura this time, poor guy!
I’m also still playing Final Fantasy VIII, man it’s got a beautiful soundtrack, and them visuals were stunning back in the late ’90s (also the remaster is pretty too!)
This week’s been an interesting one thanks to COVID. Our family doesn’t have it, thankfully, but my in-laws do, which means Kid Espresso’s home with us. That forces me to focus more on my work than on gaming, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t play anything this week!
Sunday, I returned to Phantasy Star IV. Looking at my levels, my gear and the challenges ahead, I need to do a bit of grinding. I haven’t been able to do that off-stream as I planned, but I’m going to try and get some done before the next stream.
I was able to get a bit of dungeon work done in Oracle of Ages on Tuesday. The Seed Shooter in Dungeon 3 is such a neat item – it allows Link to launch seeds which then ricochet off walls! It makes for interesting puzzle solving. I also chose Dimitri the Dodongo as my animal companion – I always found it neat that you could befriend a Dodongo! I would have been tackling Symmetry City next, however, due to the aforementioned situation above, I had to postpone. I hope to get back to schedule next week!
Away from streaming, I’ve kept Kid Espresso busy this week with all the mini-systems I own: The NES Classic and the Sega Genesis Mini in particular. We’ve been cycling through a bunch of games for him to play – including Sonic the Hedgehog, naturally. It’s been tough though since the little guy’s still trying to find his foothold within the retro gaming scene, but I applaud his efforts nonetheless.
I’ve also been playing more CrossCode at nights when I’m not totally burned out. I picked up the last remaining elements – Shock and Wave – and am now tackling the big, main dungeon. This dungeon challenges players to use both new elements in tandem to solve some interesting puzzles. I’ve also undertaken some sidequests, but jeez, these ones are pretty tough! I’ll have to upgrade my gear to clear these ones and that requires some grinding for materials…
Whether it’s gaming or real life, the grind does continue!
Well, I finished Kirby and The Forgotten Land. Actually, I 100%’d it. It was a lot of fun, and I would highly recommend it. Even though it was only my fourth Kirby game, I am confident it is one of the best of the entire franchise. The multitude of additional, optional missions and challenges really make the game so much more full than the others I’ve played. Do yourself a favor and at least check out the demo if you aren’t already sold on it.
As I do from time to time, I turned to a Twitter poll to decide which game I would play next. It ended in a tie. So, I put up a second poll that included the two tied games and two new games. It also ended in a tie, but a different tie. However, one game was involved in each of the two ties. So, the other day, I started playing Donkey Kong Country 3. I’ve never played it before, and so far, I’m not too impressed. I’m only a couple of worlds in, but it seems like a big step down from DKC2. It has been much too easy, at least up to the point where I am, and the level design is kind of bland. And what is the point in Kiddy Kong? We already have a large, powerful, bulky Kong, and his name is in the title of the game. Why haven’t we played as DK since the first game?
Dragon Quest Builders 2, do NOT absorb all my game time, please! These are the kinds of games I get addicted to easily. I decided to check it out after receiving many recommendations for it. Thankfully, a free trial on Switch came along, saving me some moolah.
Oh, I beat two games this past week!
One of them was Elden Ring and what an experience it was. I got stuck on the final confrontation for quite a while until I got lucky and stun locked those mo foes with some Comet Azure spam. I was around level 150 and dropped around 130 hours into the game, I think. This was my first modern “Soulslike” FromSoft experience and it was favorable enough for me to compare it to classic The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link. All the jab about no icons to follow, no handholding, emphasis on exploration, secrets galore, that all screams retro Zelda to me. Looking forward to starting up another Soulslike soon. I forgot I have Dark Souls Remastered so maybe I’ll go back to that.
The other game was Radical Dreamers. I finally put this one away, the fan translation I’ve hung onto for years. Still waiting for my physical copy of the remaster to come in. I walked away thinking it has MUCH more relevance to the Chrono series, particularly setting up the premise of Cross, than the literature online would have us believe. It’s absolutely worth playing through if you like Trigger and Cross. Just use a guide. It can be demoralizing reading through all of that text just to die by piranha. Look out for the MAGE CAST episode on Radical Dreamers coming soon!
~Red
So, what have you been playing this week?
Ryan Cheddi – our friendly, neighbourhood caffeine addict – is a man of many talents: an engineer, a gaming historian, a fiction writer and a streamer. He is also a self-avowed Sonic the Hedgehog fan. You can check out his cool beans at his site – Games with Coffee – or find him on Twitter as @GameswCoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
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