What are you playing right now?

[Kong Wen]

I finished Bloodborne on the weekend, and my copy of Dragon Quest XI finally came in yesterday, so I booted that up. It's lovely so far!

[The Shoemaker]

Been playing a lot of Hollow Knight over the past week, completely hooked on it. Whenever you think the map is coming to an end you're just on the cusp of finding a whole new area or two. The game manages to be a great meld between a metroidvania and a Souls-like.

[Jordan]

Lost Dimension (PC)--This is one of the weirdest games I've played. The game plays a bit like Sakura Wars or Valkyria Chronicles, but with its own twists to the system. It's a SRPG where you control characters manually on a 3D map. Each character has a skill tree similar to the ones in Etrian Odyssey (the developer having previously worked on Etrian Odyssey). IN between gameplay elements, there's a few VN elements and a system in which you choose somebody to sacrifice from your party every round. The sacrificed character passes on their abilities to somebody else. If you decide to follow what the game wants you to do, you're supposed to suss out a traitor in your party every round to sacrifice, but you can just as easily ignore that traitor and kill somebody off that you don't like.

The game is actually extremely fun. The story is retarded, which is partly a factor of the traitors being randomized, but there is a hidden gem of a game here. I bought it for <$13.00 on Steam.

[The Shoemaker]

Finished Hollow Knight, fantastic game. Ended up with 83% completion or so, happy with that.

Minit - Fun little game, took a couple hours to beat. The 60 second nature of the game made for a lot of simple, instant gratification puzzles.

Okami - With a few other games out of the way I continued with my playthrough of Okami, I think I'm about half way through now. Not quite as great as when I played it roughly 10 years ago but still a good game. The combat is much, much easier than I remember surprisingly.

Been messing around with Super Mario Party a bit as well. Haven't had the chance to play too much, or get more than a 2 person game going, but it's certainly fun so far. I miss some of the options from previous games, and I can see the low board count limiting the game a bit. Still, this will likely be a good party game for a long while.

[Jordan]

I went back to Thea, maybe partly in anticipation of the upcoming Thea 2 release. I don't usually play games in early access, but I love Thea so much that I think I might pick up Thea 2 next month.

Thea is essentially a 4x strategy rpg based on Slavic mythology. You could compare it to Civilization or other 4x strategy games, but it's a bit different admittedly. There's not as big a focus on research trees or factions or anything like that. It's more like a single player rpg focused on survival. The goal is to gradually build up a settlement, explore a map and finish certain quests. The path to victory usually comes from expanding your population, upgrading their capabilities and avoiding casualties. It becomes quite challenging on the hardest difficulty setting.

[Sharecrow]

I’m playing three games right now....no, four. In order of urgency:

1. Outlast 2 - this one is creepier than the first one, harder, and longer. I haven’t yet decided if I want to go for platinum or not. It’s got a really tough trophy on that path. I do like the game though so we shall see.

2. Shining Force - replaying for the umpteenth time for no particular reason other than I wanted to.

3. Shadow of the Colossus - grinding for platinum

4 Dragon Quest XI - chipping away at this enormous yet beautiful game

[SkyPikachu]

God of War 2018: got back into this again and its still such an amazing experience still not a huge fan of the gameplay though.

Overlord: Backloggery Fortune Cookie. Fun game so far I really like gen 7 artstyle for some strange reason.

Shadowverse: Fun card game I've been streaming.

Overwatch: Very close to dropping this again after a 40 minute game where my team threw on defence and went hardcore on attack went about 16 rounds and ended up on a draw. Every 2nd game seems to have a thrower or smurf and it just ruins the experience.

[Jordan]

I've replayed Tales of Xillia-2 before several times but never Tales of Xillia 1. Today I decided to replay Tales of Xillia 1. I have some good reasons for doing so. I feel like I understood the battle system of the game better now. Additionally, I only played through it once with Milla, probably also not on the hardest difficulty, and I never even beat it. This time I'm having a go at it with Jude on Hard, though if it gets too tough I may switch to moderate.

I really find this game, and Xillia 2, to be an absolute blast. I don't know why, but it feels so much more fluid than all the other Tales games I've played. Some of the other Tales games have aspects that I like, such as Graces, but they all feel stiffer. Additionally, I feel like the gameplay of each character in the Xillias is unique enough to differentiate them all. I also like the customizability of the skill tree (I like the first game's skill tree a bit better than the second game's skill tree though).

[The Shoemaker]

Made it through games recently, notably Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie, really enjoyed revisiting these games, Kazooie more than Tooie.

Played through Kingdom Hearts 3 in about 30 hours, great game! Dialogue continues to be extra cringe, but I enjoyed how the story came together.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - I like this game, but I'm ready for it to end. Not sure if I'm just done with the game or too eager to start other games. I'm 20 hours in, i think there's at least 10 hours to go. I think I'll finish it eventually.

Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion - Started this up just for fun as a game through Game Pass. Realized this was my first open world game back in the day, I remember how amazed I was that you could go anywhere and, essentially, do anything.

[Sharecrow]

I’ve been playing Tales of Zestiria on PS3. It’s pretty good so far. I don’t have much in the way of consoles set up or connectivity so my other games I’ve been playing are on hold until I get more settled in the new home.