Your friend has good tastes. 😄
Finished Hatsumira: From the Future Undying!
A solid, well-produced and fun VN.
The highlight is definitely the side cast - there's a lot of fun characters, including a few I would argue are more interesting and/or better developed than some of the main heroines. The lead character is great too, he adds a lot of personality to the game.
But there's two big problems with the game: First is the localization, which goes way too far trying to make the dialogue more "colorful", adding so many accents that even reading the dialogue gets difficult sometimes. The second one is extreme imbalance in screentime between the heroines - if you're playing this game because you got interested in one of the late-joining heroines like Meltyna or Rhea you're going to be seriously disappointed.
Playing Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit (part of Ace Attorney Investigations Collection)!
Finished the third case and it's easy to see why this game is so well-regarded - the quality of the cases so far has been excellent. Turnabout Legacy (Case 3) felt as gripping as some final cases in other games due to its connections with Edgeworth's father and Von Karma.
The one thing I really dislike so far are the main "antagonists" - Judge Gavelle and her "helper" Eustace Winner. I'm guessing this will be explained in one of the latter cases, but it bothers me how the game keeps portraying Gavelle as an intelligent and capable person, yet has her supporting Eustace's stupidity and constantly antagonizing Edgeworth even when he's right.
The only question I have is what’s gonna happen as game discs are just becoming an access token to download the game and its updates.
That's a big concern. There's communities trying to document which games are complete on the media and can be played from start to end without updates (so no major game-breaking bugs or huge performance issues) like this one:
I'm also part of a FB group that collects cartridge information for Switch games, to document if there's revisions with all updates included.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CEABCBrPv1tWf89hSZqUunK0JW-sQo8XpxuvZhdtHQs/edit#gid=0
A LOT of positive reviews for this one, including a 10/10 for Destructoid. https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-animal-well/
Definitely interested in it, just not sure if I should pick the Limited Run Physical version.
There's also the problem that they're clearly rushing this without much thought, they don't even have an answer to the obvious question of "what happens to people in regions not supported by PSN".
The developer is involved. Though it's pretty obvious that the push for this is from Sony, they are the publisher for the game.
So if it were clearly written on the Steam page, I don’t really get the complains.
It was optional for several months and the info on the PSN page contradicted that, so there was a lot of room for confusion.
Not surprisingly that PSN page was edited earlier today, but there's a million screenshots floating around already, plus you can check the previous version in the Wayback Machine.
And even if it was clearly written on all places, it's still a "too bad you didn't read the fine print, now you're past the limit time for a refund, so either let Sony track you or lose access to the game" situation which is very shitty. There's also the fact that they sold the game to people in countries where is PSN is not available, which should not have happened if that requirement was going to be enforced in the future.
Not hard to see why people would get pissed and lose trust in the developer. I also think that players have been annoyed for a while with this type of requirement (not specifically in this game), and they are now getting a good outlet with a lot of publicity around to vent about it.
The review chart is hilarious.
Doubt Sony or the developer expected this would happen.
Edit [May/04, 14h UTC]: Updated chart. More than 70k negative reviews already.
Getting "Untitled Goose Game" vibes from this one, and if that comparison is correct this is 100% a day 1 purchase for me.
Looks like the original source is this: https://www.gov.br/mme/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/alexandre-silveira-celebra-recorde-de-carga-das-fontes-renovaveis-no-sistema-interligado-nacional
O Sistema Interligado Nacional registrou consumo recorde de energia nesta quinta-feira (7/2). Às 14h15, a carga total foi de 101.860 megawatt (MW), com 92,4% de fornecimento por fontes renováveis, especialmente usinas hidrelétricas, usinas eólicas, usinas solares e micro e minigeração distribuÃda, segundo dados do Operador Nacional do Sistema Elétrico (ONS).
Rough translation:
The Sistema Interligado Nacional ("Interconnected National System") registered record energy consumption this wednesday (7/2). At 14h15, the total load was of 101.860 megawatt (MW), with 92,4% provided by renewable sources, in particular hydroeletric plants, wind plants, solar plants plus micro and mini distributed generation, according to data from the Operator Nacional do Sistema Elétrico ("National Electric System Operator") (ONS).
So if I'm understanding correcty this was peak generation.
Probably Metroid Prime. Both the Title Theme and the Menu Theme are fantastic.
Xenoblade games also have brilliant title themes. Here's the one for the first game.
Now, for some spice, let's branch into a type of game I think most people here won't have played - Visual Novels often have great title themes.
- Muv-Luv Alternative's "Crash" is pure hype
- Both Steins;Gate's "Gate of Steiner" and Steins;Gate 0's "Messenger" are great themes too.
- I also love VA-11 HALL-A's "Hopes and Dreams".
Finished Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit (part of Ace Attorney Investigations Collection)!
This game deserves all the praise it gets. Every single case is great, there's some fantastic connecting and foreshadowing between them, plenty of fun callbacks and references to older games, and excellent character development for the cast members - I still can't believe they got me to like Eustace and Gavelle by the end.
Not much more to add here - this is a must-play for everyone who enjoys this series.
Finished Cat Quest III!
The developers clearly tried to go with the "quality over quantity" direction in this one - the world is smaller, there's far less quests and dungeons to explore, but on the other hand they're far more diverse and interesting than the ones in the previous games.
The game is also very open - after you pick up the boat (~5min into the game) can travel anywhere in the map. Which is both good and bad, the exploration is more fun than ever but it's also easy to get lost or end up in areas where you're too weak to explore, and I definitely miss some of the QOL features from the previous games like recommended levels for dungeons and quests.
In the end, I think it is the best game in the trilogy, but it's also the hardest one to get into - I'd definitely recommend Cat Quest 2 over this one for more casual gamers.
Playing Ginka!
A new VN I picked up recently. It's a mix of slice-of-slice and supernatural mystery, and has you try to figure out the disappearance of the MC's childhood friend Ginka, who vanished 5 years prior to the game but suddenly reappears without memories and looking exactly the same she did all that time ago.
I'm really liking the pacing on this one, and Ginka is adorable. Reached a major twist, and I'm very curious where the story will go from here.
Spoilers
To be more accurate, BOTH Ginkas are adorable.
Playing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom!
Wasn't expecting to get my physical copy on launch day in South America, so when it arrived I could not resist booting this one up and playing for a couple hours. 😆 Ended up finishing the first "dungeon" and so far I'm loving it.
But since I think I'm close to the end on Ginka I'll try to finish that one first so I can focus properly on Zelda.