What I'm Playing Vol. 12

Woah, haven't done one of these since 2021! Whoops. Anyways here's some thoughts on what I've been playing.

Resident Evil 4: Remake

I knew I was going to get this game at some point, but I wasn't expecting it to be so soon. The reason I did grab it now is because of the rave reviews. They're correct, by the way. The RE4 Remake has, against all odds, justified itself as a fantastic update on what I would already consider a perfect game. I'm probably halfway done and I've enjoyed every single minute, even if I'm quite the scaredy cat when it comes to horror games (as opposed to horror movies, which I never flinch at).

The game feels great after some practice adjusting to Leon's momentum, and all of the changes are more than welcome, especially crafting and not needing to waste herbs to heal Ashley. Speaking of Ashley, she's awesome in the remake too, but I do feel really bad whenever I take a lot of damage - her scream sounds so genuine that I feel very bad for getting hurt in front of her. Also the game's gorgeous. I want to break into Capcom for two reasons: the first is to demand that Power Stone sequel, but the second is to just take a peek at the RE Engine codebase. That thing is magic.

I'll probably be streaming this on the harder difficulty once Ramadan is over, so look forward to that! :D

Octopath Traveler 2

Poking away at this now and again. I'll be taking my time with it over the year, much like Harvestella. It's better than the original in every way, which is the most I can ask for in a sequel. It's great on my Steam Deck, and the new mechanics are neat. I also like most of the characters and am interested in completing their stories.

That said...I actually kinda wish they took a page from the Octopath mobile game. Namely, having the full party of 8 available in combat, swapping them out back and forth. I'm not a game dev so I'm sure that'd be a balancing nightmare, but it would be neat. At the very least, they definitely should have added the ability to change party members at save points or something. But yeah, a good time overall!

Judgement + Lost Judgement

I replayed the former and finally finished the latter. Incredible games. Lost Judgement might be in my top-3 RGG games. They're a refreshing pace from the usual Yakuza fare while still being very much "Yakuza." Yagami is an awesome protagonist, and Lost Judgement has the best beat-em-up combat in the entire series, no question. If you like Yakuza even a little bit, don't skip these games!

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

I'm playing it again but taking a lot more time to smell the flowers, as opposed to my original playthrough, where I mainlined the plot like a deranged person across a weekend. It still, unsurprisingly, holds up, and I'm really liking it on my PC with an unlocked frame-rate and blazing-fast loadtimes. Finally going to 100% that Dragon Kart mini-game.

Dungeons of Aether

I streamed this game. It's a neat, cute little dungeon-crawler where you draft dice to use abilities and beat enemies, all packaged in the Rivals of Aether universe. I'm taking my time with this one too, especially because the devs have been patching it to make improvements since launch. But I've already really enjoyed the time I've spent with it. It's a fantastic podcast game and, again, perfect for something like the Steam Deck. Give it a look!

Watcha been playin? Lemme know on Cohost or in the comments. :D And Ramadan Kareem! I'm hungry.