The "what NON-Cave game(s) are you playing right now?" thread

[zak]

This is on my backlog. It was a present from my wife. I loved it on SNES and haven't played it in over 20 years!

I finished Super Mario RPG (Switch) recently. It only took me 10 hours, but it was fun. Currently working through Soul Hackers 2 (PS5), which should take me a week or two to finish.

[EOJ]

It runs a little choppy on the Switch, so if you're not in a hurry I'd wait to play it on the Switch 2 next year, which should smooth it out to a consistent 60fps.

[EOJ]

I finished Fire Emblem Engage yesterday. Took me about 31 hours. Really great SRPG, I liked it a lot more than Three Houses due to the great battle system and less focus on the pointless "social" aspects.

[EOJ]

I finished Stellar Blade today. Took me 40 hours because I did 100% of most of it (found all outfits & cans, skills maxed, HP maxed, Beta gauge maxed, etc.). Very fun game, reminded me of a mix between Mario Odyssey and Tears of the Kingdom, but with a Dead or Alive girl as the main character. I played most of the game in the black Kunoichi outfit because it looked really cool and made it look like more of a ninja action game, plus I didn't like most of the other outfits. Also, I played through the Japanese version because I preferred the Japanese voices to the English and Korean and unfortunately you can only get those with the Japanese version.

I will probably do a NG+ run in a year or so to get the last 34 outfits and see one of the other endings. But for now I'm going to move on to other games.

[EOJ]

I finished up Star Ocean Second Story R (PS5). Pretty fun game, took me about 25 hours. I played the Rena route. I think the systems are too complex for their own good (so many things to "level up" and customize), but it's cool that you can play through it multiple times and recruit different party members each time. I don't think I'm going to play it again though. 

I was hyped about the upcoming Visions of Mana but then I played the PS5 demo the other day and now I'm not very hyped anymore. Not a fan of the battle system, characters, voice acting, and other aspects. Bummer.

[EOJ]

I played through Cosmic Star Heroine (Switch) last week. Took me about 7 hours. Nice, fun, short RPG. I bought this like 5 years ago but for some reason never played it until now.

In the mood for more of the same and wanting to keep clearing out my backlog, I started Chained Echoes (Switch). About 5 hours in and I'm really enjoying it. It's pretty impressive the game was made by one person!

[EOJ]

Okay, I finished Chained Echoes and it took me 25 hours. Really enjoyed this one. Felt like an epic SNES/Sega CD JRPG!

Continuing on through my backlog, I'll probably pick up Triangle Strategy (Switch) again and try and complete it. I played about 7 hours of it and dropped about a year ago.

After that, Emio: The Smiling Man (Famicom Detective Club) (Switch) is released next week. I loved the first two games and I played a bit of the demo and it's awesome. Really looking forward to it.

[EOJ]

I finished Triangle Strategy. Took me about 23 hours. I liked the different paths you can take in the story. It's a pretty good SRPG overall, but not among the greats.

I got my copy of Emio: The Smiling Man in the mail today, so I'll start on that tonight! I'll play this one in Japanese, since I played the first two games that way.

[EOJ]

I was quickly sidetracked by the Castlevania Dominus Collection that released the same day as Emio. Picked it up on the Switch. I just finished up Order of Ecclesia, which took me about 7 hours. I really liked the exploration, graphics, music, and overall gameplay, but the glyph system felt bloated (I never used a lot of them) and the boss fights were balanced terribly. Just ridiculous damage sponges that took like 5 minutes to beat by repeating the same patterns over and over (and over). Much more annoying than fun/challenging, IMO. I also wish they had life bars like in the old Vanias. Anyway, I had never played any of these DS Vanias so it was cool to finally play through one. I do wish M2 included some filter/scanline options on these games, it's quite odd that they didn't. The Haunted Castle Revisited game included in this package does have that, though.

EDIT: Just finished Portrait of Ruin in the Dominus Collection, which was pretty fun and took me about 7 hours. Boss fights are better balanced here, and the two-character switching system was cool, but I enjoyed the exploration more in Ecclesia.

[EOJ]

I've been playing a lot of Dracula X on the SNES (PS4/Switch port by M2) this month, trying to 1CC it. So far I can get to Stage 6 on one credit. I love the challenge and length of this game, feels like a proper arcade game as you can beat it in about 35min. The different routes are fun too, and the graphics and music are wonderful. I really like the challenging Dracula fight as well. I know I'm in the minority on this, but this is my favorite Castlevania game ever. (Super Castlevania IV is in second place for me). SOTN is really good too, but, like the DS games, that's a "one and done" game for me, whereas I get a lot of replay value out of the shorter, traditional 'vanias. I do have Rondo of Blood as well and have played that a bit, but I honestly really prefer Dracula X on the SNES.

In other news, I got Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on the Switch and have been playing that over the weekend. Wasn't sure I would like it, and it was iffy at first, but once you get the hang of the echo system it's really quite an enjoyable puzzle/adventure game. I've beaten the first four dungeons so I guess I'm nearing the halfway point? Framerate is unlocked and choppy, like the Link's Awakening remake. Doesn't bother me that much, but if you're after a smooth 60fps experience you might want to wait to play it on the Switch 2.