FF3 Remake: Turns out that, in the Cave of Shadows, it may be better to have your Dark Knights (I like to have 2 for this dungeon) use Souleater from the back row rather than go to the front and use normal attacks. While Souleater damages the user, it's more predictable than the extra damage enemies do to front line characters.

This doesn't help with back attacks, however.

(At least it's not the original, where daring to run away will get characters killed, as your defense drops to the point where normally weak enemies become deadly.)

Still ain't playing nothing, but I'm watching videos of Valheim, Genshin Impact and Crowfall.

The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition on normal difficulty, anything less would be a shame. I have to say I like the mod so far, from what I've seen and played. For the most part is what I've envisioned the game to be, especially when it comes to alchemy and combat. Can't wait to see what it holds further down the line and how Geralt will progress. Not for everyone, that's for sure.

I've started to play Druidstone - Shadow of the Menhir Forest. Pretty nice indie turnbased puzzle RPG. Started it directly on Hard Difficulty, so I am curious how far I can get, before picking all of my hairs one by one :D But so far the first mission was nice to play and visually pleasing :) Despite me needing to restart it in both missions once :P

Really enjoying Tower of Time so far 3.5 levels in. Enjoying Call of Juarez Bound in Blood a little less so.

Mostly just been playing Streets of Rogue these last few weeks. The excitement seems to have largely worn off, now that I've unlocked almost everything that can be unlocked through gameplay, and purchased all the meta-unlocks. Great game, but I do get sick of how long each run can take, especially for those, like me, who feel compelled to play optimally most of the time -- optimal play in this case often being tedious and time-consuming. Different characters/classes often promote very different play styles, though, which helps somewhat. If I'm sick of stealthy play or lots of NPC interaction, I can just do a run with a shooty or punchy character.

Don't even know what I'll try (or go back to) next. Nothing in my backlog really appeals to me.

The Legacy: Realm of Terror

ESO - Elder Scrolls Online

Just started this after getting the Blackwood pre order that comes with the other expansions and I'm enjoying the game but it's also tough to get into with lots of items and messages thrown at you from the beginning. There is not much hand holding in ESO which I guess is good but it also means I have to google a lot of info.

All in all I really enjoy my visit to Skyrim again and the game runs great and looks pretty good.

Been watching plenty of Fallout and Skyrim gameplay lately, so I decided to play just for fun and testing purposes two S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods, namely Lost Alpha and Anomaly. While I was familiar with Lost Alpha's mechanics from previous versions, I'm having a first go at Anomaly and it reminds me a lot of Call of Chernobyl in several aspects. Yet, Anomaly is more brutal I'd say, especially if you set the difficulty at hard and survivalist mode on. On another note, it runs better than anything I've played in X-Ray engine, looks good as well. AI seems to be more aggressive, or maybe I'm imagining things now. Got jumped by plenty of monsters and humans alike, almost in every area I visited. Controllers, pseudogiants and snorks are vicious with their attacks, even a lowly fracture can inflict serious damage if not taken seriously. And with humans it's usually a one-shot type of thing. A well placed shot can down even the most powerful enemy. So attention to your surroundings becomes paramount, you have to be on the lookout for foes or neutrals and anomalies at all times.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly, same as Call of Chernobyl, has the Azazel mode incorporated, in which upon death you get to take control of another random stalker from the Zone. After several failed attempts, haha, I ended up as a merc and started in Dead City. Somehow I managed to traverse five areas, only to get trapped into an anomaly while roaming around without paying attention. The Zone is harsh at times, but also highly entertaining.
I recommend both Lost Alpha and Anomaly, but let's not forget about Call of Chernobyl (my favourite S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mod so far). Good times.

Some Ecologist in Jupiter is telling people to watch the sunset because it's beautiful. It's actually raining and I'm surrounded by zombified stalkers and anomalies. Luckily I stopped the bleeding, but I've just a few pistol rounds since I unloaded a full rifle clip into a beast, whatever that was, running full speed towards me. Night time now, I'm curious to see what will happen in darkness.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly can be pure horror at times, you feel the fear setting in, your surroundings ever so menacing. The music does a tremendous job to help with this feeling. This ruined world, full of danger and surprises is all around you. I'm not one easily impressed by games and the worlds they try to bring to life, let alone by mods, but Anomaly is on another level, I'm amazed. Highly recommended.

Edit: yep, walked straight into an anomaly since I could barely see in the dark, flashlight did not help.
Darkness makes you think twice before adventuring out there. Couple that with outstanding ambiental sounds and decent AI and you have a very good game.

Stranglehold. This is John Woo movies in video game form. If you're a fan of John Woo or stylish action movies, this is a must. And yes, it has slow mo pigeons.

I can't stop playing Gate of Doom. It was no masterwork but it's a memory. And it belonged to a pretty innovative kind of games in the arcade. Of course, I remembered it as much better. And as a blend of arcade action and RPG elements I preferred Cadash in the same year at the same arcade. But I could never remember the name(s) of this game so I hadn't played it since then. The things I like less is that you are not allowed to use magic against some bosses and the faulty sprites collision as you are hit by things that are in front and above you. Being able to turn yourself in a giant rat or other things (included a pig) are still fun to do and are what I remember the most of this game, even though I recognized it at first from the knight fighting against the splitting jumping blobs.
I think it could be seen as an arcade Diablo forerunner. The magic system with cycling spells remains interesting today. You need to wait for the spell you wish or just try what's available to be cast at the moment.
I would have preferred a Date East arcade compilation. As single games with all that arcade like wrapper they become too space consuming. I liked the presence of the CRT screen filter. It's bad that you can't save at all. No on-line co-op. Pausing is too complicated - why two buttons? I like the initiative from Ziggurat but it would be nice to see more effort.
I made a wishlist entry for its sequel.
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/wizard_fire_aka_dark_seal_2

Like in Terranigma?

(Some misconceptions about that game's system cleared up: Some boss fights, including one particularly infamous one, *do* allow the use or magic, and casting a spell will give you the gems used to purchase it back, so there's no non-renewable consumable resource you need for magic.)

Then again, this reminds me of how some Ys games don't allow you to access the menu during battle, which really does feel arbitrary (though at least it's all bosses there rather than just some, so at least that's consistent).

I did look into that game some time ago, and even watched some speedruns, and it does look interesting and atypcial of an arcade game.

By the way, did you get the item that lets you breathe underwater, or did you prefer to skip it?

the siren's scale? I don't think it can be skipped at all as far as I remember. If you'd like to play it co-op pm me! :)

I don't know terranigma. In Gate of Doom you have a meter that fills up killing enemies to launch a spell that is active at a given time - they cycle. Including a mystery random spell. When you face most bosses the spell meter and book just disappear. In the sequel you are allowed to cast spells at bosses but as your magic meter doesn't refill hiitting bosses it's not so useful. You can only cast one if you saved it for the boss. When you start a new life your magic meter is empty.
Also, the magic meter goes down for the time you are actually using the spell. If you die before it's effect is over, you keep the remaining in your next life unless it's from a new coin.

You can skip the scale, provided you have some way of surviving the damage you take. You might then need to farm XP in the following area to get strong enough to finish the game in a timely manner, however.

Look up Cadash speedruns on YouTube; they tend to skip the scale.

Terranigma is a Super NES game, in the same series as SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia, that for whatever reason was released in Japan and Europe but not the US; I've only played it because of emulation, and I didn't get that far in the game. A couple issues I had were the lengthy cutscenes and the precense of permanent missables (like some of the gems used to purchase spells). Also, while I didn't get that far, it looks like your stats shoot up so much at high levels that you can outlevel the game's hardest challenges and make the final boss a joke. (SoulBlazer has much lower stat growth, and Illusion of Gaia doesn't have level ups at all.)

I think ActRaiser is my favorite game made by that company, as I seem to prefer sidescrollers over Zelda-likes (note that Zelda 2 is not a Zelda-like for this purpose), and the simulation sequences make the game unique (and were sadly omitted in the sequl.)


Very unlike Zelda 2, where your magic meter is full with each new life, making intentional deaths sometimes necessary. (There's one part, where if this didn't happen, you could get softlocked and have to game over, no matter how many lives you have left. Then again, in the same dungeon there's actually a true softlock.)