Topic: Now Playing on Xbox Series X|S

Just completed my first playthrough of Sonic Superstars. There's some post-credit story too so I'll be playing that next.

Just finished Forza Horizon 4

It's that time of the year again. I started up my yearly playthrough of Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

@Tasuki I keep hopping off of it. For some reason it hasn't grabbed me like the GBA metroidvania games. I'm also playing it again so I'll try to make some decent headway this time.

@NintendoByNature Hahaha I am the opposite. I can play SotN over and over but the GBA Castlevania's once was enough.

Just played the first episode of Frog Detective, it was interesting

Alan Wake 2

Hi there felow gamers.
As of now I´m currently playing Lies of P on PC, because I have no more space in my Series X.
I am a the King of Puppets Boss fight wich I first tryed it..... Not. Only the first pahase though.
His second reckt me 😜
Question for the comunity if I may: How are you all feeling about the new Forza Motorsport.
Do you like it more or less than the previous ones? And, more important, are you having fun with it?
I´ve only played 2 hours on launch day (also on PC)but I had to go out of town for a few weeks and theres Spiderman 2 and Alan Wake 2 so there is that.
Would apreciate any input that the comunity might have.
Cheers everyone and happy gaming

Playing Alan Wake 2 and Dead Space Remake (thank you GamePass) for spooky season.

Alan Wake 2 (about 7 hours in) is absolutley phenominal.

I’m currently playing Alan Wake 2 and I’m loving it so far but isn’t anyone getting this glittery/fizzy effect while playing the game? I’ll show through the link what I mean >> https://www.reddit.com/r/playstation/comments/17j6glw/graphic...

It doesn’t look like it’ll ever be patched going by the comments from the Reddit link.

@MaccaMUFC I think I've seen some stuff like that, but thought it was part of the games effect.

I have more of an issue with not knowing what shadows attack and which ones don't. Sometimes the flashlight isn't doing much to certain shadows.

Stared Jusant, been liking it alot so far and it's great, definitely recommend it

It has been finally time for Ryse: son of Rome as I am waiting for my copy of star ocean to arrive (probably tomorrow). It is a fun game with good visuals, strong VA (even if it has some cliché characters) and Arkham style combat. Things I like the least are lack of customisation options like to remove motion blur which I strongly hate and camera very close to the action. However overall I am enjoying it. Should finish it either today or tomorrow as I am only missing 2/8 chapters.

@Balta666 I didn't play the original SO2, only SO game i played was 6. From what I've played in the demo of 2 and the reviews I got very excited about the game and decided to pre order it. So when i get off work I'll start my adventure. Really looking forward to play it.

@Lavalera I never played a SO game before (although I now own physical copies of the entries on PS2 and Xbox 360) but allways heard good things from the 2nd one. I also played the demo and decided to pre order the switch physical. Unfortunately just received a notification that my copy is not going to be here on time and I will have to wait for next week...
Maybe I will play the demo a second time to see how many changes in the early game playing as the boy instead (I allways prefer healer on my main playthrough)

Playing like a dragon ishin,. Very fun game, lots of fun combat. I am lost in all the exploration and side quests though, and have barely gotten through the main story. Still a fun romp.

Ni No Kuni II (Series X). I loved the first one in spite of the messy combat. I've played the sequel for 14 hours now and I'm being put off. It has beautiful graphics. The music is a bit too epic and repetitive. Lots of interesting ideas from the genre are put together but the result feels half-baked and tedious. Everything is basically a tutorial or an errand. For instance and mandatory, find me a rose to access this book, find this girl to teach you a spell to find the rose, the girl asks you to defeat some monsters... The UI and map are worse than in the first game, too. The story of the first game gripped me quickly, but I don't care about this so far.

The idea of managing a kingdom is nice in theory, but it also feels tedious because you need to do that kind of side quests to get people and, basically, you upgrade the facilities to get armour, items, etc. I also see a little inspiration in the armies by Little King's Story (Wii), one of the best games I've ever played, but here it's just another superficial piece of this huge puzzle of ideas that are not working as smoothly as the developer thinks.

Opinions?

Started up Forza Motorsport. My first thought after playing it for a few hours is: we waited 5+ years for this? It's just more of the same, it doesn't feel anything special. Sure they've injected the series with more realism, but for me they've made it just more cumbersome.

For starters, I absolutely hate having to do a practice round before each race. Yes, I'm aware that's how it should be in racing sims and I'm fine with that. But the fact that you can't skip it without starting one up, then pausing the game, then skipping it is absolutely ridiculous. There's not even a setting for turning it off in the menus. I'm not going to spend twice the amount of time on this game just because the developers are lazy and didn't make a longer career mode. Instead, they encourage you to play the same race twice. Absolutely bonkers design choice.

Then we have the numerous screens you have to get by in order to get to the next race. Jesus Christ, what happened to picking a race and then you're racing? You have to get through practice, then upgrade your car, then pick a starting position, then look at the track, then look at the participants, then look at who won the race. For the love of god, I just want to race. Every race now takes minutes of dead time because of this.

The racing itself is fantastic and I love that you're leveling up your car while you're racing. But seriously, it shouldn't have taken 5+ years for this game to be made. I really hope Turn10 is already hard at work on a sequel that offers much more content with the same foundation, kinda like the jump from Forza Motorsport 5 to 6, and that it'll come out within the next two years.

I just cleared Deathsmiles 2 for the first time a couple of days ago. I doubt I'll be playing it again. It's a major step down from the original in terms of graphics, music, and gameplay. The original was challenging but fair, even when I died I could generally tell where I went wrong and what I could have done better. Deathsmiles 2 is just pure *****, half the time I legitimately have no idea how I'm supposed to be able to get through the onslaught of incoming bullets without taking a hit.

Not to mention the ending I witnessed with Casper was VERY inappropriate. For all the criticisms leveled at the first game of inappropriate content, I never once felt like it was attempting to portray the characters in a sexualized or otherwise inappropriate way. Deathsmiles 2? I can't believe someone at the ESRB saw that and said "This is fine. Rated T for teen!" There are certainly things I'm willing to overlook/excuse due to cultural differences and subjective opinion/interpretation. That ending is NOT one of them. I still feel like I need brain bleach.

Finished Jusant, it was an awesome platformer with gorgeous environment, now playing Thirsty Suitors it's an interesting Skateboarding rpg game