Currently Playing

[Animalmother]

Stalker (Xbox version, also available on PS5)
This got announced and released on the same day, genuinely love when they do that. It's a no frills console version of the PC game, warts and all. I put a few hours into it yesterday and it's basically a repeat of my experience trying it in the PC years ago. The shooting is woefully bad, weapon damage is very inconsistent and constantly respawning bandits make getting from point A to B a chore. But I'm still enjoying it for all it's faults. The bundle came with the original game plus Clear Skies and Call of Pripyat, all for 40 quid. Apparently mod support will become available at some point this year which is great as Stalker has some fantastic mods.

[eny]

Radiophobia 3 transforms the original, 64bit engine and now includes some stonking weapons. Totally different experience... a longish learning curve entry to get up to gaming speed though, which puts many off.

[Mantis]

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

I've dumped enough hours into this now to summarise my thoughts on it. So far I've just passed the 20 hour mark and I'm about to enter Junon, so it's been quite a lengthy play through scouting every single corner of the map and fully completing both open world areas I've had access to so far.

I've heard that the alternate timeline rubbish they pulled with the first remake goes off the deep end at the end of this one, which I hate but am able to look past. The areas where Rebirth sticks closely to the original plot are excellent and up until this point it hasn't deviated a great deal at all. The world map has been realised beautifully, there are a fair few generic open world designs in place to potter between but they haven't been too off-putting as the maps are just so nicely put together and the combat is so good that I'm happily exploring everything.

The combat is absolutely perfect, an excellent blend of modern action with the classic style. You have to pay attention to enemy weaknesses and what pressures them in order to trigger a stagger effect where you do more damage and you have to make tactical use of your ATB resources to manage that. The sheer amount of button prompts can be clunky at first but when it clicks you can flow from character to character issuing orders or taking direct control and the whole thing just feels amazing.

The music is another standout. Much the same as Remake with the new renditions of the classic soundtrack.

It's far from perfect. The open world stuff will put a lot off and the 'puzzles' I've encountered so far all amounted to moving a heavy thing very slowly to a very obvious place. Almost all of the new characters they've added are terrible too, some of which you are subjected to a lot. The open world side quests haven't been as bad as they were in 16 though.

I'm sure I'll end up hating it by the end when all the story changes start cropping up or when the open world bloat gets too repetitive. But at the minute I'm loving it. It is really nailing so much of the feel of the original, including all the goofy humour which was sorely lacking in 16.

[DjchunKfunK]

Backpack Battles

A really fun inventory management autobattler. I played a fair bit of the demo last year and was looking forward to seeing what they added for the Early Access release and it was a fair amount. There are two extra classes and a ton of new items. I do love a good autobattler, I put many tens of hours into Hearthstone Battlegrounds, and this is a good one.

[Sly Boots]

Agreed, been slightly addicted to this over the weekend! The addition of the pet sub-classes is nice as well, although torn as to whether I like my wolf pups or my dragon bois more

[Wrathbone]

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

I've dumped enough hours into this now to summarise my thoughts on it. So far I've just passed the 20 hour mark and I'm about to enter Junon, so it's been quite a lengthy play through scouting every single corner of the map and fully completing both open world areas I've had access to so far.

I caved and I bought it. I'm now at the same point and agree with your summary of it so far. It's an absolute blast to play, exploring some of the richest world scenery I've ever seen in a game, listening to the excellent modern interpretations of the soundtrack, battling enemies with a combat system that initially looks like pure chaos but is remarkably intuitive and tactically involved. What has impressed me most is the art style and how they've taken a 27 year old game and reimagined it in such a faithful way. The game feels like FF7 through and through.

The only thing I've not enjoyed (aside from Chadley. Goddamn Chadley.) is the Fort Condor side quest. I hated that minigame in the original (to the point where the one time you're forced to play it, I just let the enemy reach the top so I could easily win in actual combat) and I hate it in the new game. I guess it's optional, but it seems like it's part of a much bigger thing so is it really optional? It wouldn't be so bad if there was an easy option to waltz through it, but stages 3 and 4 are absolute nails. Eventually succeeded, but good grief were they ever annoying.

[Mantis]

I haven't had much chance to play this week so I'm only in the Junon city at the moment, but from what I've gathered the protorelics are entirely optional. I believe the side story revolves around fighting an optional endgame boss for extra loot and that's all.

I quite liked the Fort Condor game. I've beaten them all on hard mode which unlocks after you do the first four run throughs and I didn't think it was too bad. The fourth stage of the normal mode version gave me the most trouble.

I'm actually quite enjoying all of the mini games so far. It's like the developers played a ton of Yakuza and tried to match them with how many crazy ones they could stick in. We'll see how I feel about them by the time I reach the Gold Saucer and you get absolutely swamped with them.

And screw Chadley. Hate that guy so much.

Little tip, when you reach Under Junon and you get given a side quest involving a dog, do it.

[Drarok]

I've been playing the fuck out of Sixty Four this weekend, it's seriously addictive. The visual design is great, the sounds amazing…

Seems like either you'll immediately "get it" and want it, or not see the point, based on polling everyone I've shown this to so far. I love this.

A tale in two pictures (and the context that I shared these on the 17th)…

[Rusty]

Oh my god. I just spent the past 10 minutes looking to see where I can buy this new FF7 rebirth. It's only on PS5 at the mo
So sad

[Wrathbone]

Oh my god. I just spent the past 10 minutes looking to see where I can buy this new FF7 rebirth. It's only on PS5 at the mo
So sad

I held off initially thinking they might announce the PC version soon after the exclusivity embargo ends in May, but realistically I reckon it’ll be a year or more away.

[Wrathbone]

Little tip, when you reach Under Junon and you get given a side quest involving a dog, do it.

Oh god, the music.

[Mantis]

First time I think I've ever done an escort mission side quest and genuinely enjoyed it. The battle variant of the theme is really good too. When he leads you to the next area which was previously blocked off it also unlocks the piano mini game, which has been my favourite one so far.

I'm sweeping up the side content in the Corel region now having just done Costa Del Sol and I am still absolutely loving this game. All of the Junon parade section is brilliant. There are quite a few genuine laugh out loud moments in this game and I'm so glad they hammed it all up from the original so it's all extra goofy and camp at times.

[Wrathbone]

I really liked the first game, but Rebirth is leaps and bounds better in every way. There's such a great variety of things to do and it's (mostly) all fun. I'm disastrously bad at the piano minigame, but it's one where I can see possible improvement. Even playing badly is actually quite funny, especially when Aerith is low-key dancing in the background no matter how awful I am. The Queen's Blood card game is decent too, if not quite as addictive as Gwent - simple in concept, lots of potential strategies.

I agree on the comedy too - I've properly belly laughed a few times. Even in the first few minutes of the game:

Spoiler

Rifling through Tifa's drawers (¬_¬) in the flashback, prompting the "Cloud, you asshole!" response. I love that they didn't skim over such a bizarre and iconic moment from the original.

[Mantis]

So I finally got to the Gold Saucer.

It is absolutely brilliant. So many little things to make you smile, I especially love the robot Tonberry room servant.

[Wrathbone]

I've just got to Cosmo Canyon, which I've not explored at all yet but looks phenomonal. Costa Del Sol, the Gold Saucer and Corel are all fantastic. Gongaga isn't bad but I have thoughts, which I'll hold off on for now, except to say I think it's the closest the game has come to a stumble so far.