• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

“I Just Think They're Neat.” Like What You are Playing

jpfriction

(He, Him)
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a GOAT. Every second is a complete joy. Fun and novelty oozing out of every pore, and every frame of animation is fun and gorgeous. Not to mention the nostalgia hit of the music and that coin drop sound effect. I'll be sad when it's over.
You and me against the world, Jbear. I was really surprised at the internet’s collective shrug at this game. Loved it.
 

madhair60

Video games
I wish I liked it. I can see the sheer effort that's gone into every screen, but I like my games a little breezier and it just felt like a slog. Everything was just... I don't even know how to describe it. Everything was just a challenge, as in even the simplest stuff had me thinking "why is this so demanding". idk. It's not even really a difficulty thing, it's just that it felt so busy.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
I love how consistently this game rewards me for pushing at the seams. It feels like the person who designed the secrets in this one and I are on the same wavelength. I routinely feel like a super brain genius. I'm nearing the endgame and looking forward to combing back over the world for a final pass. And whatever few items I'm still missing at that point (and given how well-hidden some of these are, I'm sure there'll be a few), I know I'll finally be able to use its clever in-game implementation for finding "that one last [X]". (I have like 20-30 rainbow drops saved up.)

Oh, and I also love how like 20 hours in the game snuck in a couple of schmup segments and they're both really good.
 

Ixo

"This is not my beautiful forum!" - David Byrne
(Hi Guy)
Things I have done in Miitopia recently:

- Drank fancy elven potions given to me by Gordon Ramsey while he was hanging out in a forest.
- Fought a giant Mona Lisa painting.
- Watched the Sanderson Sisters do a choreographed magical dance.
- Participated in several quiz shows run by Danny DeVito.
- Equipped the party Thief with a giant fish.
- Set an entire village’s NPCs to different versions of Elvis Presley.
- Retrieved many many faces.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
It's such a good game! I just can't justify buying/playing it again, and would rather go back to that 3DS file with all my Miis than make new ones.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I’ve barely started it, and I can already tell that Monster Hunter Stories 2 is one shucks of a good Pokémon-em-up
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
Ys 8 is the island exploration-survival simulator I never knew I needed
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
You and a bunch of castaways are marooned on an island that you slowly explore as you build up your camp and slowly explore the island (gated by a few things, including tools and recruiting certain survivors). It is primarily an action RPG than something along the lines of say, Subnautica, but there's all kinds of nooks and crannies you can find that aren't required that will give you resources/gear/cool landmarks.

It's debatably the best game in the series, with the other candidate being Oaths in Felghana which is as pure an action RPG as you'll ever find.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
Emily Is Away <3 is just as good as the other two so far (and they were pretty good). It's amazing how much mileage Kyle Seeley can get from the same basic idea he keeps riffing on - it starts really similar to Emily Is Away 2 but it branches off pretty quickly. As a matter of fact, it's been so angst free that I'm waiting for a shoe to drop with nuclear force.

One thing, tho - it really highlights how exhausting the Facebook interface is for social interaction. Man, so many tiny windows.
 
I’ve barely started it, and I can already tell that Monster Hunter Stories 2 is one shucks of a good Pokémon-em-up
Hot take incoming: It's a better Pokemon game than Pokemon

You and a bunch of castaways are marooned on an island that you slowly explore as you build up your camp and slowly explore the island (gated by a few things, including tools and recruiting certain survivors). It is primarily an action RPG than something along the lines of say, Subnautica, but there's all kinds of nooks and crannies you can find that aren't required that will give you resources/gear/cool landmarks.

It's debatably the best game in the series, with the other candidate being Oaths in Felghana which is as pure an action RPG as you'll ever find.
I haven't engaged with the Ys franchise in over a decade. I'm very used to them having combat that's 2jank4me, and also being so light on story that there isn't a lot to keep me engaged with. But this sounds exactly like my cup of tea and now I'm curious.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
There’s absolutely a lot more hollowing out monsters to turn into hats in this.

Dont see that in Pokémon!
 

Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
Coming over the mountain in Ys 8 was a stunning moment. What a fantastic game!
 

Mightyblue

aggro table, shmaggro table
(He/Him/His)
Yeah, VIII really nails that sense of exploration and discovery in the sense of an "adventure" that the rest of the series and few other same-genre games rarely match.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
If you were to pick just one sandbox game to proclaim “The Most Octo Video Fame I’ve Ever Seen”… it’d probably be Saints Row 4.

And you’d be right to think that.

However, Sunset Overdrive made its intent to come at the king abundantly clear.
 
I've been playing Wildermyth with some friends online. It's essentially just a tabletop rpg simulator, being a main campaign with procedurally generated events that help shape and contort your party (or just entirely procedural campaign if you don't wanna do the handful of overarching stories therein). It's really great co-op just in terms of role-playing and goofing off, but even solo it's great seeing what nonsense can happen (there are a large amount of transformations that can happen, such as becoming a wolfman). Feels like it's wildly open to frequent content additions, so hopefully it keeps growing.
 
I think I love Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the same reason I love Super Mario Galaxy 2. There's just something new and interesting around every corner but none of it ever feels out of place. Just such a great game.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Sonic Mania is mainly fun, feels very 90s Sonic and has some fun bosses. Really feels, like I'm playing a forgotten game from the 90s. But I seem to be really bad at finding giant rings. I'm at world...no idea, 8, I guess(?), and haven't found a single one. Even in the first level, when looking around a bit with Tails, no luck. And there don't seem to be giant maps of every level online, so I can't really look the locations up either. Only with videos, which seems way less than ideal.

Oh, well, still a very fun game.

Also rewatched this, still hilarious:

Do you (or does anyone else) know if this Box Fox thing really works like that as a kind of prank on the player, or is it being misrepresented? I saw this clip and thought it was hilarious, if anything it made me more interested in the game.

 

Yimothy

Red Plane
(he/him)
Back on TT2 Lokii and JBear recommended Shephy on Switch. I picked it up a little while ago and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a digital implementation of a physical card game (or maybe the physical version came after, I dunno) where you have three rounds to convert a single sheep to a thousand sheep. You get a mix of good and bad cards to do it - a good card might duplicate one of your sheep cards, combine several small cards into a bigger card, or upgrade existing cards. Bad cards generally force you to lose or downgrade some of your cards, though there’s also one that’s just an instant loss. You have to play every card in the deck each round, though you have a couple of cards which allow you get rid of ones you don’t want.

There’s definitely a strong element of luck - if you got a starting hand of Plague, Falling Rock, Sephion, Meteor, and Storm, for example, you’d have no option but to lose, but my win ratio went up pretty quickly once I got a sense of what the cards were and how to use them. The real appeal of the game for me now though is the story mode, called “Post Loves”. It’s illustrated in the same scrawly style as the cards themselves and pretty bananas. The plot is that the sheep are being wiped out, so they flee through an interdimensional portal to various other universes. The actual gameplay in this mode varies from stage to stage, and it’s one of the better integrations of story and gameplay that I can think of. In one universe, the sheep become gods, and you get to choose which cards are in the deck. In another it’s winter, and there’s only enough food for one sheep, so you start with a 1000 sheep card and have to get down to a single sheep instead of going the other way. Then in the next level you have to keep that particular 1 sheep card in play the whole time while you bring the population back up.

3B4FE682A43BF1982D9732D0CC290E876CAA2B9F


1048878FAC58B2AEA62B9FDB6C0C82E0DFE87D44


(Images stolen from JBear’s post about it on the old forum)
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I'm playing Persona 5 Strikers and while the first dungeon took a bit too long retreading old ground (which is fair for new players) it's now opened up and is delightful. Two main reasons:

- This game is a food tour of Japan. You go everywhere and everyone talks about the regional delicacy, and I had a sidequest to figure out how to order a dessert made from a special strain of edamame and it's great.

- While at the restaurant in Sendai a woman in a lab coat overhears you and comes over to talk. Her portrait looked pretty similar to me and then she geeks out talking about properties of collagen and why the food tastes so good and I immediately called my spouse over to say how much she was like me.

latest


Then later on she returns and helps you by analyzing any materials you might find. I squealed in delight because this is exactly what my spouse came up with when he commissioned an artist to make a P5-style confidant portrait and wallpaper for me for my birthday years ago.

She's an adult in a Persona game so it's likely she'll turn to be a jerk or have a terrible fate, but for now I'm very pleased by this!
 

Mr. Sensible

Pitch and Putt Duffer
Scored a free copy of Pokémon Pinball last weekend (I was willing to pay for it, but the guy at the used game store said he just wanted to get rid of his surplus of copies). It's a HAL-developed portable pinball title, preceded by their other efforts such as Revenge of the 'Gator and Kirby's Pinball Land, and they did an excellent job leveraging the popularity of the Pocket Monsters by incorporating their imagery pretty much everywhere. The built-in rumble feature is a fun gimmick, although it does require its own single AAA battery to function and necessitates an awkwardly large cartridge design to house the vibe component.

Pikachu also figures heavily into gameplay, serving primarily as the kickback mechanism for both tables' outlanes. When Pikachu is activated, you get a scratchy "Piiii-KAAA!" and the rumble goes nuts for a couple seconds before it tosses the ball back onto the main table, which is really cute. I also love how they managed to squeeze all 151 original monsters into the game, complete with Pokédex entries. This definitely feels like a game made at the height of late-nineties Poké-mania.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I decided to turn on my classic Xbox after months of neglect. One of the games I played on it was Taito's Dungeon Magic, the company's isometric view take on fantasy beat 'em ups like Capcom's two Dungeons and Dragons titles. On the down side, it's very repetitive, as these games tend to be. On the plus side, you won't care, because the game compels you to keep playing to reach that next experience point level, to track down that next boss, and to solve that next puzzle that will open an alternate path through each level. Also, the music from Zuntata is sublime; a perfect fit for the game's medieval theme.

Perhaps the best part is that the warrior Gren is a brawler who specializes in throws and suplexes, which essentially means the designers put Mike Hagger from Final Fight in a fantasy action RPG. Not only is he the strongest of the four heroes, it just never gets old performing backbreakers on skeletons and lizard men.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Scored a free copy of Pokémon Pinball last weekend (I was willing to pay for it, but the guy at the used game store said he just wanted to get rid of his surplus of copies). It's a HAL-developed portable pinball title, preceded by their other efforts such as Revenge of the 'Gator and Kirby's Pinball Land, and they did an excellent job leveraging the popularity of the Pocket Monsters by incorporating their imagery pretty much everywhere. The built-in rumble feature is a fun gimmick, although it does require its own single AAA battery to function and necessitates an awkwardly large cartridge design to house the vibe component.

Pikachu also figures heavily into gameplay, serving primarily as the kickback mechanism for both tables' outlanes. When Pikachu is activated, you get a scratchy "Piiii-KAAA!" and the rumble goes nuts for a couple seconds before it tosses the ball back onto the main table, which is really cute. I also love how they managed to squeeze all 151 original monsters into the game, complete with Pokédex entries. This definitely feels like a game made at the height of late-nineties Poké-mania.

Oh hey, I had that! It was the first and only Pokemon game I played for a very long time. I really liked that game even though I didn't know a dang thing about Pokemon.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
I had that and the sequel Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire. The latter only covers the initial Hoenn Pokédex and you had to use the Game Boy Player for rumble support, but it was a solid pinball game and it was really neat to see Pokémon with GBA quality visuals and audio.

Also Scrolling Board > Screen Swapping Board. I like to keep a sharp eye on the ball and that's easier when the game doesn't transition to a different screen.
 

Mr. Sensible

Pitch and Putt Duffer
Oh hey, I had that! It was the first and only Pokemon game I played for a very long time. I really liked that game even though I didn't know a dang thing about Pokemon.
Nice! I suspect that Pokémon Pinball was the entrée into this franchise for many other kids as well, especially those who were either too young for the RPGs or just weren't interested in that genre.
I had that and the sequel Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire. The latter only covers the initial Hoenn Pokédex and you had to use the Game Boy Player for rumble support, but it was a solid pinball game and it was really neat to see Pokémon with GBA quality visuals and audio.
I didn't know that PP:R&S supported rumble via the Game Boy Player! It's cool that they managed to sneak in that feature, even if it is hidden behind the barrier of owning additional console hardware and accessories...
 
Last edited:

Becksworth

Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I’m not sure I’d recommend Neo: The World Ends With You over the DS original, but I would definitely recommend it over any of the attempts to remake the original on newer platforms.
 
Im playing South Park: Fractured But Whole for a second time. I'm not even really a fan of the show at all- it's just a really fun, well-designed game
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I'm replaying Kirby Super Star, the SNES version. Just played through Spring Breeze, the short, first game. It's so colorful, pretty and cute, and the little shorts before each level are beyond adorable. But damn, the bosses are easy. Cracko died to my sword hits so fast, he could barely act, and Dedede (who is the cutest, oh my god) didn't fare much better. Completely forgot, how easy this game is. Maybe I remember the Cracko from the gameboy game, where you have no abilities?

Also, in the credits of Spring Breeze, you see Kirby giving back all the food, and he lands in front of a crowd of other Kirbys? I thought he was the only one. It this actually a group of insanely dangerous creatures, who just decided, for the luck of the rest of the world, that they prefer to sleep and eat all day?
 

Beta Metroid

At peace
(he/him)
The series is always very vague about Kirby's species. The original Dream Land manual talks about a bunch of Dream Landers, and Kirby is identified as a "little boy," which indicates to me that he's a member of the same species as the others. There may be others, but he may be the only one that incredibly powerful. We don't really know.

Also, Spring Breeze is basically the tutorial for Kirby Super Star. If I remember correctly, the bosses even have lower HP than when they show up in other game modes. Not that it gets outright difficult very often, but bosses will have more bite eventually.
 
Top