What are you all playing?

Sonic Robo Blast 2, one of my favorite fangames of all time, just got a big update a few months ago.
I just started playing it again today and while I haven't gotten to take advantage of some of the new features (since no maps use them), I've gotten to play some new maps the community made since the last time I played.

After completing every achievement in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (seriously awesome game), I started a bunch of games at the same time:

Aquaria (PC)

This one was sitting on my list for years. My wife, who likes metroidvanias, bought it and loved the game, getting every achievement and telling me to play it all the time; I do regret not having played it before. This is seriously one of the best indie games ever made and I still can't believe it was made by 2 guys (one of them is Derek Yu, who later went on to make Spelunky). Just imagine a metroidvania Ecco the Dolphin (without the limited time underwater and the obtuse puzzles from Ecco), and you pretty much have it. Every thing in the game is hand-painted and looks gorgeous; even though the game is from 2007, is looks better than any current 2d game I can think of. And the game is huge: I have already finished it, but it took me around 16 hours of gameplay and it was never repetitive: besides having a lot of different scenarios, unique enemies and bosses, the game is always deepening its own mechanics - that is, giving you new ways to use your powers. I can't overstate how many different things there are to do in the game, and how much impressive looking stuff is there. As words do it no justice, I'll leave a trailer here:



I can only think of one criticism that can be made to it: some of the bosses are puzzle-based (that is, you can't just hit them: you have to solve some small puzzle to reveal their weak-point), Zelda-style. I personally find that annoying and hate when it appears in any game, so I disliked some of these boss-fights. Nothing too aggravating, and that was the only thing I didn't love about the whole game.

Golden Axe: Beast Warrior (360)
There are certainly better modern beat'em ups out there, especially if you put Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden in this category. But, while GA:BR is not a very impressive game, it can be fun if you're in the right mood and know what to expect of it. It's a beat'em up, plain and simple: you walk through a strictly linear path, beat the guys, go to the next level. It has no puzzle solving, platforming or exploration going on, just a series of fights against very few different enemies. I don't know how I feel about its parrying/dodging mechanics: sometimes it's not very responsive and its impossible to properly use them when you're surrounded by many enemies (what should you do when there's an attack you need to dodge and another you need to parry at the same time?), but when you're against a few enemies and you get it right, dodging and parrying every attack thrown at you, it does feel satisfying. Also, the beasts are great and change the gameplay just enough to keep it fun. In general, I do like the game and have already played a few hours of it; as its short, I'll probably finish it very soon.

Hyrule Warriors Legends (New 3DS)
My first Musou game! Yay! Every good and bad thing about the genre is immediately obvious just by playing this one: it's a repetitive button-masher with brain-dead enemies (I'm playing on hard mode, but even then most enemies just sit there waiting to die), but, at the same time, it keeps throwing things at you (timed side-missions and things to unlock) that keep my attention and just make me want to play it more and more. I'm unlocking new things all the time - new characters, new weapons, new fairies, new clothes etc. It's all mostly cosmetical, of course, but, for any fan of the Zelda series, it's fun to see all the references. The different characters, until now, play differently enough to make me want to replay the levels trying different tactics. Also, the Adventure mode gives you another set of missions and objectives, so it opens way to more variety. This is the most ambiguous thing about the game: it's both very repetitive and very varied at the same time. I don't see myself getting really invested in the genre, but I'll certainly buy future Musou games that use franchises I like, now that I know what to expect from them. By the way, I'm playing it on a New 3DS XL, and it plays great with the 3D turned off (turned on, it halves the framerate, which is bad in a fast game like this). I've heard the regular 3DS doesn't play it very well and shows less enemies on screen, so be warned. By the way, Mark has, coincidentally, just made a review of it:

I haven't played much this month, so I still haven't finished neither Hyrule Warriors nor Ninja Gaiden 2. But even then, I decided to start playing yet another game:

Thief Gold (PC)
Not the reboot, but the original. The game is both better AND worse than I expected. For one, the stealth gameplay is really solid, considering when it was released. It takes into account not just noise and the enemies' field of view, but also lights/shadows. Because of this, the game gets really creative on what you can do: you can use water arrows to put out torches, or moss arrows that allow you to walk on some floors without making a noise, or noise arrows / throw objects to attract guards somewhere else. The various types of arrows make the bow a very handy weapon that can get plenty of creative uses: there are rope arrows to climb places, fire arrows and arrows with holy water to deal with the undead. Also, Garret is very agile and very controllable; the controls are pretty much what you would expect from a 90s PC fps, no problems in that area.

The missions have various objectives, and more objectives are included when you play on harder dificulties: you may have to steal assorted items, rescue some prisoners or even leave a coin somewhere because Garret is supersticious! It gets very creative in that area, and that's why I recommend that you all play the game on expert dificulty to experience every objective in each mission.

Now, for the problems: first of all, they included plenty of non-human enemies that are both shitty and out of place. The game is nice while you're hiding from guards, not when you're fighting giant spiders and dinossaurs or when there are a lot of undead and monsters going around. If the game had a good combat, that could be forgivable, but the combat is just a disaster (imagine the most terrible 1st-person sword fight in a 90s 3d game). On top of that, the AI and animations are really bad, so every enemy looks slightly glitchy in the way they move and react.

The best and worst thing about the game are the levels themselves. They are huge and very, very open; you usually have various ways of getting to your destiny, especially if you get creative with your equipment. But then, the level design takes the worst tendencies of those famous labyrinthine levels from 90s pc games: you have to backtrack a lot, which is already aggravating in a stealth game and even more so when you get lost, which is pretty common in Thief. Every level here is designed to take more than a hour to complete, and a good part of that is trying to understand the levels themselves, as the architecture is clearly made to confuse the player. Unlike the Metal Gear games (in which I always felt I was invading an enemy base), in Thief I can never shake the feeling that I'm "invading a video game level": everything is too clearly a labyrinth, even the streets of the city. That could be remedied if the game gave you maps; well, it gives you, but it looks like they were drawn by a 5-year-old kid. Also, it doesn't mark where you are in the map, so you just have absolutely no idea most of the time, at least I don't.

I heard the sequel fixes every single problem I listed, so I do expect to have an even better time with it. But even with its problems, considering the time when the game was released, Thief looks very ambitious and well realized. I still prefer Metal Gear Solid by a long margin, but I can definitely see why Thief is also among the most important stealth games out there. I'm around the level 6 or 7, so while I already lost my patience with the confusing level layouts, I'm still impressed with the scope of the game.

Now I'm playing through Okamiden! I haven't played Okami, so I didn't know what to expect; the only thing I knew was that Okami was heavily inspired by Zelda. I don't see that in Okamiden at all - it's a 3d action-platformer with exploration, but there are a ton of games like that and I haven't seen anything that is particularly Zelda-ish about it. Which is a good thing, as I already have a ton of Zelda games to play on the DS/3DS.

I have only played around one hour and a half, so I can't say much. I feel the graphics are very pleasing and surprisingly good for a full 3d game on the DS; also, both the cell-shading and the chibi style are fitting because they both demand less detailed models and emphasize the expressions of the characters, which would be lost on the small screen. The control scheme is pretty good, also. I thought the lack of a direct camera control would be bad (you can kinda move it with the stylus, but it's both unpractical and only works in some areas), but the camera usually positions itself in a good angle so I didn't have any problems with it. As I have only completed one dungeon, I don't know how well the puzzles and the brush mechanics will fare, but I can say they were both very fun until now.

The only annoying thing is the sound made by the characters when they are talking, but that's just me being picky. I'm liking the game a lot.

Does that include clean up time? 

Final Fantasy VIII on biweekly basis.