Latest Gaming Purchase

[Moonface]

@Maniakkid25: Is the extra story stuff in the Persona games added into/onto the existing story? Maybe since SMT V's new story is its own separate thing that's why they made it optional unlike in other Atlus games?

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (PS5)
Bought this when I got home from work and started it maybe a little under an hour ago? I haven't done much yet but I have died a few times to this one guy who was wielding a new weapon that's super fast so it was deleting my health bar in seconds if I ate a combo from it.

[Maniakkid25]

Oh, both of them add in the new content to the original story, it's just the Persona games don't (I assume) make major changes to the trajectory of that story, aside from Persona 4 Golden, which literally added a new ending because they added the main villain as a Social Link. Literally, the Canon of Vengeance only diverges when a new scene happens that intros a new boss and the new character into the story. Unless the story changes significantly later on (and I assume it will, based on the foreshadowing the game has in the choice of content cutscene), it plays more like a fanfic writer added their OC (don't steal) to the proceedings.

Besides that, they did the usual updated re-release thing, and added new demons, new items, new sidequests and new features not in the original game. In general, the new features are quality of life improvements. Things like "saves can be done anywhere, not just at specific places" (though I honestly don't see why this was necessary), "Now you get a reminder of your main quest goal on loading your save", "now you can remake the base version of demons as well as the version of demons you saved using the compendium", or "You can now do standard fusions using the compendium" (this feature makes sense in context, but it's hard to explain that context from scratch). All sorts of nice stuff, I will admit, but not really so much to address the punishing difficulty the game had to begin with. Which, granted, that difficulty is part of the SMT brand, but still!

[ShiraNoMai]

KallaX (Steam)
Chaotic 4-player co-op where you... make IKEA furniture! Not literally, cuz there's no official IKEA tie-in for legal reasons (although even the name is of an actual IKEA product, probably hence the differentiating spelling with the capital "X")

[Dragon Lord]

Tales of Arise
Scarlet Nexus (PS4)
Gale of Windoria (PS5)
Gale of Windoria (PS4)
Overrogue (PS5)

Saw PS4 copies of Tales of Arise and Scarlet Nexus on sale for $30 combined, so decided to pick them up for double platinum purposes down the road (still need to finish ToA on PS5 and start Scarlet Nexus at all).

Gale of Windoria is one of the Kemco releases through Limited Run Games that I had forgotten to pre-order, and I have been hawking it on eBay for a while now. I couldn't find any that were for sale for under $100, but last night was lucky enough to finally have my patience pay off. Found a PS5 copy up for $55 and a PS4 copy for $65. Little more than I wanted to pay for a PS4 copy, however considering it was the first and only PS4 copy I saw for sale in all of these months, I decided there wasn't time to be picky about it. Just had to pick it up so I could finally catch my Kemco collection back up.

Overrogue is the same case, another Kemco game I had forgotten to order from LRG, and also one that wasn't listed for less than $120. Someone had it listed for $45 -- only $15 more than LRG's original $30 price tag -- and you bet I snatched that up in a hurry. Sadly no sign of PS4 copies for sale any where. Hopefully some day I'll get lucky and one will pop up for a fair price.

Nice to get three of the four missed ones in the bag though.

[Kyng]

The Talos Principle 2, which I bought in the Steam Summer Sale, after @Moonface reminded me of its existence!

[Moonface]

Monument Valley: Panoramic Collection (PC)
Was going to just buy MV1, but saw there's a bundle with both the first and second game that gives an extra discount on top of the existing one, so decided to just get this and hope I like the first game to not regret blindly buying the sequel alongside it.

[ShiraNoMai]

I've heard nothing but praise for MV so I hope you enjoy!

Nabbed a few things from the Steam Sale:
Celeste (Double Dip, have it on Switch)
Jurassic World Evolution 2
Garlic
PowerWash Simulator
Cassette Beasts
A Little to the Left