'What're you Playing?' Thread July 2020

[Kaycee ★Admin]

Hey everybody, I thought we could use a general thread to create some order in this here chaos of a gaming subforum! So, tell me a few games you've played recently, and if you'd recommend them!

I'll go ahead and start!!

I recently finished the Pokemon SwSh Expansion: Isle of Armor! I am of course a huge fan of Pokemon, and this expansion really delivered. New features like following Pokemon and a second "Wild Area" style environment to wander around in made for a fun new experience! Completing the new Pokedex also brought me back to old features like raids, breeding, and cooking that give the game so much charm. I even ran into a few shiny raid Pokemon! It was so exciting

Now, I'm playing through THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU, also on Switch! I played this game as a kid and it was hugely influential on me. Going back and seeing the themes of unity and overcoming fear of connection, I can really see how these themes became important to me and continued into my current works! Also, playing a game with touch controls/a stylus is a really nice change in format from other recent games I've played.

If you've tried either of these games, let me know what you thought! And if you've got any thoughts on games yourself, reply here! Tell me what you've been playing!

[MaiaOnline]

Got Streets of Rage 4 yesterday, gonna fight some cops!

[Kyle20]

Whenever I hear about people having a fun time with Isle of Armor it makes me wanna get back into Sw/Sh! I kind of petered out towards the end [literally like before the last gym or something] just from my attention span, and I feel like I've maybe been waiting for like Discourse around the game to fizzle out of memory so I can go back in peace. I don't wanna impulse-buy the DLC but it's also super tempting to...the things I've heard about them sound really cool. Can you play the DLC without getting all the badges first?

I'm going through one of my phases where I'm feverishly trying out games to find a fun one and then refunding half of my Steam purchases when it turns out they're not for me But here's two that I always go back to...!

I've been playing Hades, a top-down action RPG game from Supergiant Games. They're the creators of Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre. Hades is now my favorite of the four, it's a fast-paced, run-based roguelite action game inspired by Greek mythology. I love the combat, with fast dashing around sort of getting your jabs in at the enemies. It has a really cool narrative too, and I love the main character Zagreus. But my favorite part is how all the abilities work: You pick a weapon at the start of the run and then the rest of the run is basically picking Greek God Boons that give you splash damage, poison effects, speed-ups, chain lightning, etc. etc. and all the effects kind of stack and combine with each other. Also, every single character is super hot???

I've also been playing Monster Train, a really fun roguelite deckbuilder game. It's sort of like Slay the Spire, if you've played that. You pick 2 factions at the start of the run [which determines what cards mix into your deck] and then you summon monsters to protect a crystal on your train against enemies that spawn in. It's turn-based, and everything is determined by having enough mana to play cards and enough room in your train cars to fit your fighters. I kind of have a thing for roguelites and deckbuilders o_o''

[Sponsored content]