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

[EOJ]

I've been pretty busy the past month, but I bought Dragon Quest I & II HD Remake on XSX around Christmas and played through Dragon Quest I. It took me about 15 hours to beat it, and it was quite good. I give it an 8.5/10. I quite like turn-based JRPGs in which you have to play solo the whole game. Not many of those out there, but ones that I've enjoyed include Toki to Towa (Time and Eternity) on PS3 and Toushin Toshi on 3DS; the latter is one of my favorite games on the 3DS, actually.

I hear DQ II in this remake package is even better, but it's also quite a bit longer (30+ hours), so I'm going to save that for some time later this year. I have Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined preordered for XSX, and that comes out early next month, so I'm going to wait until then to do any more Dragon-Questing.

[EOJ]

I finished Dragon Quest VII Reimagined (on XSX) today. It took me about 48 hours, but I was pretty thorough. I think you could beat it in around 30 hours if you skip the optional sub-stories (the grey tablet islands) and speed through most other parts. Overall it's a good game, but not great. I have several criticisms:

-First, the graphics are kind of soulless and generic. Although the battle graphics look really nice, everything else looks bland. There doesn't seem to be v-sync either, which is apparent in many cases.
-Your characters don't change their appearance when you change vocations.
-The music could have used more tracks and variety.
-The treasure chests should have been color-coded for different keys, like in previous DQ games. Here, they're all the same (red), which doesn't make much sense and is kind of annoying.
-You can no longer look for treasure in the sacks hanging on the walls inside homes, which is another silly and negative change.
-Quest markers cannot be turned off. Should have implemented a simple toggle in the options.
-Game balance is not very good. When playing on normal (medium) difficulty, there is not much challenge anywhere. Bumping it up to hard just makes the battles last longer, but still not much real challenge or strategy involved. DQVII 3DS was far superior in this regard.
-No more perma-death (requiring a priest to bring you back to life), now you just start with 1HP after the fight, which removes one of the critical design aspects of DQ games. There are also save points all over the place (including before every boss fight) that replenish your HP/MP and you can use them as much as you like. Once again, the absence of these was one of the things that gave DQ games some challenge and required some planning and strategy. There really should be an option to toggle these features off for purists.
-I think the item system is a big downgrade. The shared item pool with 99 of each item allowed is excessive, and removes any item strategization found in the previous games. In addition, with the frequent save points that replenish all your HP and MP, I almost never used a health or MP item in or out of battle in the entire game.
-The English localization is awful with many different faux "dialects" used, such as Italian, Russian, and French. These are all in English, but with random words tossed in from those languages and the spelling of English words altered to indicate a non-native speaker is talking. However, the end result is ridiculous stereotyping that is unpleasant to read. The original Japanese script has none of this. This is a long-standing problem in DQ games going back to DQVIII, and it's the main reason why I normally play them in Japanese.

On the plus side, the story is quite good, the pacing is good (IMO an improvement on previous versions of DQVII), and the vocations are fun to use. I also think the "moonlighting" system is a positive new feature.

Overall I give the game a 7.5/10 (8/10 if you play it with Japanese text). Pretty good, but could have been a lot better.

[EOJ]

I finished Astro Bot (PS5) today, which was quite a fun game. Took me about 8-10 hours. I give it a 9/10. I was really impressed by the creativity and innovation on display here. The level design is really superb, and the graphics and music are top-notch. I think the difficulty curve could have been tuned a bit better, and there are too many controller gimmicks in the game. I also dislike playing with so much controller rumble all the time (and you can't turn it off!). Playing this also gave me the impression that the game lacks a true identity of its own. Too much is explicitly taken from other Sony games, and then there is still the whole thing with the PS5 console itself being a big part of the game (it made sense with Astro's Playroom, but here it feels played out a bit). It's a better 3D platformer than Donkey Kong Bananza, but not quite to the level of Super Mario 3D World or Super Mario Odyssey.

[SuperPang]

I completely agree. Loved Astro Bot. It's as close as any developer has got to Mario's level in decades, even if it is a bit of a rip-off.

[EOJ]

This week I played through Under the Island, a new Zelda-like released on consoles on 16 February 2026. I played it on the XSX, and it took me about 10 hours, but I was quite thorough, aiming for 100%. Overall I loved the game. It has great pixel-art graphics, nice music, and really fun exploration and dungeons. It is also full of secret places, items, etc, which are fun to discover. On the downside, some of the puzzles are a bit too obscure, some of the boss fights are a bit janky, and the story could use more depth. I give it an 8.5/10.

After I beat the game, I tried to load my save to get the last two cassettes (for the boombox in your bedroom), which you can only get after you beat the game, but my save was gone! In its place was a save from several hours earlier, before I did the last dungeon. I have no idea how this could happen, it is completely bizarre. I've read there is a save bug in this game that will be patched out soon, so I guess that's the cause. If they don't patch it out, then my score for this game will go down a point. This is the only bug I encountered on my playthrough, but it is a major one. Apparently the Switch version has other bugs that need patching out.

[EOJ]

I played through a few more "indie" games over the past week.

First, The Legend of Tianding (XSX). A side-scrolling Metroidvania set in the early 20th century in Taiwan, under the Japanese occupation. Really interesting story, based on a historical Robin Hood-type Taiwanese figure. The voice acting is in Taiwanese Hokkien (not Mandarin), which is quite rare in video games. The game itself is pretty fun too, but nothing that special. Took me about 6 hours to clear it (I didn't go for 100%). One downside is the dungeons don't have maps, which becomes a bit frustrating if you are going for 100%. My score: 7/10.

Next, I played through Minishoot' Adventures (XSX), which released earlier this month. This is a Zelda (NES)-style game, mixed with a bullet-hell shooter. Really interesting concept. The game is quite fun, though the graphics aren't too hot, and there are performance issues that really shouldn't be there. Like a lack of v-sync causing frequent screen tearing, and slowdown in the main hub after you rescue several ships. The story is also pretty much non-existent, and what is there doesn't make much sense. This is another game where the caves/dungeons don't have maps, which is sort of annoying. Took me 7.5 hours to clear it, and another 2 hours to 100% the map and all achievements. My score: 8/10. Protip: For the final achievement ("Without Looking Back"), close the game immediately after it pops, otherwise it deletes your save file. This works on the Xbox version, at least (not sure about Steam or PS5).

Both games are worth a playthrough!

[EOJ]

I finished up Infinite Undiscovery (X360), played on my XSX. I had played about 10 hours early in the year, but got sidetracked by Dragon Quest games. Took me 21 hours in total to clear it. I really enjoyed this one. It is rough in many respects, but the story is pretty good, most of the characters are pretty interesting, the battle system is pretty fun, and I liked the overall vibe and flow of the game. The English VA is "so bad it's good" most of the time, and I found myself chuckling heartily many times throughout my playthrough. I think the game really would have benefited from some kind of fast travel system, even if only available later in the game. The incessant backtracking involved really killed my desire to do side quests about halfway through the game. The UI is clunky and some aspects aren't very intuitive or well explained, and the beginning of the game could have been structured better. Still, I'll give it an 8/10, as I had good fun with this game. Among the X360 exclusive JRPGs, I'll rank this fourth, behind Tengai Makyou Ziria, Lost Odyssey, and Blue Dragon. All four are great games worth a playthrough.

After this I played through Unicorn Overlord (XSX). The graphics in this game are gorgeous. The gameplay loop is pretty addictive at first, but after awhile it becomes rather repetitive. I stopped watching the battle animations after a few hours. After that the whole "team" aspect of the units became less focal, and it became instead a game of watching HP go down to zero with each enemy encounter. Almost felt like a mobile game at that point. There are a ton of characters and classes, arguably TOO many, but overall I didn't find any of their stories to be interesting, and the main story isn't very interesting either. This really brings the game down. The English translation is also not very faithful to the Japanese original (I played with Japanese VA), with many liberties taken for no real benefit, and as the game progressed I found myself skipping some of the bloviation, which is never a good sign. Took me about 38 hours to clear it, and I did nearly everything. I'll give this one a 7.5/10.