Last Game You Played

[queenzelda]

Pokemon Shield [Switch]: Went in for the gmx raids of Gengar & Machoke. I caught both.

[Dragon Lord]

Azur Lane Crosswave (PS4)

I've finished the main story and I've just been working on grinding out the platinum. While the game isn't all that long, the platinum grind does take a while. You need to oath all 54 girls in the game, and due to how raising affection works in the game, you are forced to do, at minimum, 10 battles with each girl (10 with them in your battle party + 10 with them set as your secretary -- these can be done at the same time). So the platinum requires, at the bare minimum, 540 battles to complete. So I've just been grinding away at that on an easy battle that I can finish in like 5 seconds. Still have a ways to go, but shouldn't take more more than another 5-ish hours (hopefully).

Azur Lane (Android)

Been busy farming an event, once again. Normally we get some down time between events but the last few weeks they've kept us busy with back-to-back events, so it's been a lot of farming. Thankfully this current event has had the normal stages that give x3 points once per day, so farming up points for the shop hasn't been as slow as the last event that didn't have them. Still didn't do nearly enough to clear out the shop though, which kind of sucks. That's two event shops in a row that I failed to clear out due to just not having the time to do the grind. As friendly as Azur Lane is in terms of being a gacha game, I do wish they'd increase the amount of points you get from event stages, because it's pretty tough clearing out the shop when you need tens of thousands of points, but the most you can get on a stage is about 150. But I guess when that's really the only legit complaint you can come up with about a gacha game, you don't really have room to whine about it.

Arknights (Android)

I've finally finished getting my main team all to Elite 2 this morning. I've cleared the entire story as well (waiting on Chapter 6 now), so I've had a lot of time to just farm up the materials/money/exp tickets to really get going on promoting my team up. I can't wait for the next event to drop just so I can see how great this team does sweeping it up. Right now we have all of the supply missions opened every day for a week, so I've been busy farming a lot of those since I don't have to pick and choose based on the day. Great time to farm up some resources so I can eventually start working on upgrading some of the lower rarity operators that are still useful. Also would like to begin working on some of my 5* ones, since I've mainly focused on my 6*s.

[Mr EliteL]

Code Vein

Got the heirs ending, now well on the way to the two best endings. Just have last area and final boss(es) left to do. Already have the true end on my second file, need it on my first for trophy plus unlocking the last blood code for another trophy.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Squad Strike mostly against Lv.9 CPU, plus a bit of Spirit Board. Been doing random for Squad Strike and my first game today got Ike, my best character, who also started first (pressed x for random order and was looking away) and I wiped the other team out with him. Was chuffed at that.

[Moonface]

The Last of Us Remastered (PS4)
Been working on the platinum trophy since I didn't have many trophies left to get. I have one left which is to upgrade every weapon fully, but it looks like I'll have to do a full campaign playthrough again to achieve that which is a little annoying. >.<

[queenzelda]

Super Mario Maker 2 [Switch]: Playing some random auto-mario lvls cause their fun to watch.

[Moonface]

Ori and the Blind Forest (NS)
Always been curious of this game and learned it was a Metroidvania like Hollow Knight so that made me have to check it out. Only in the introduction so far but I think I'm really going to love this title.

[queenzelda]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DX [Switch]: Streamed getting through some dungeons.

Super Mario Maker 2 [Switch]: Played more auto lvls for fun. :p

[Kyng]

Crypt of the NecroDancer

Wasn't a particularly exciting game, TBH. I just gave up in the fourth zone, because it was turning out to be a low-scoring game.

[Mr EliteL]

Tekken 7

Played online and learning the new character Fahkumram in Practice. In Ranked I got my Lee to Vindicator and Lili to Vanguard. So annoyed with my Lili games, I could've easily had her up to Lee's rank by now. 

Code Vein

Finished my grind of getting 400 Medal of Honors thus acheiving the Platinum for the game. Playe through the new DLC depth, but unable to fight the boss as one of the mini bosses isn't dropping the item to unlock the door to the boss. Seen it's a bug for other people, so waiting on a patch to fix it.

Grand Kingdom

Started the game for the first time. Enjoying it so far. The friendly fire is so easy to occur if you're not careful. Yeesh.

[queenzelda]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons [Switch]: I played for the day, paying off my next bridge & got Keaton (a bird folk) into my town.

Pokemon Sword [Switch]: Caught some gmax pokemon.

[Dragon Lord]

Grand Kingdom

Started the game for the first time. Enjoying it so far. The friendly fire is so easy to occur if you're not careful. Yeesh.

I really need to get back to this game. I started it when it first released, like what, three years ago now? But I stopped playing it and never went back. Every time I think about going back I remember how horrible the platinum is and it completely stops me from wanting to go back.

Nioh (PS4)

I decided I hadn't been brutally punished in any games lately, so I figured why not start this? Actually the real reason I finally got around to starting this is because Nioh 2 released and it looks freaking awesome but I want to beat this before playing it. Smooth sailing through the game for the most part. Aside from a couple of types of Yokai that are completely annoying and cheap as hell (though I've discovered using the slow down spell on them renders them pretty defenseless, which is nice) and one of the bosses who is a cheap motherf'er, I haven't had too many problems with the game. There's a couple of bosses that took me two tries to beat solely because they one-shot me from full HP, which is always lovely, but I went back and whooped them on the second attempt. 

So far I really enjoy the game. It might help that I went into this knowing not to play it like a Souls game. You have to be much more defensive in this game, take your time and really pick your windows to attack. Even the basic mook enemies in this game are extremely lethal if you're not careful, unlike Dark Souls were you can just stunlock a lot of the basic enemies to death. You also want to pay attention to your surroundings extremely well in this game, because pulling two enemies at the same time usually results in death because it's very hard to find windows of opportunity when you have two enemies that can knock off 80% of your health in one hit attacking at separate times. In a way I've really enjoyed having to slow down my gameplay (I'm usually hyper aggressive in Souls games) and take a whole new approach to this game. I really like the different combat stances, and the different skills you can use in each one. Also each weapon having its own skill tree, making each one fun to use aside from Axe because Axes always suck in every game they've ever been in aside from old turn-based games (though most of the time they suck in those too because of low accuracy). 

I -think- I'm nearing the end of the game, which I can then start a play through in the next difficulty. There's five difficulties in total (which if you've ever played Nioh and thought it was too hard, that's just normal mode), and the last one is the one that drops all the juicy end-game gear, so I'm pretty excited to work my way towards that. I've seen a really OP build that I want to make because it looks hilariously fun, so making that will be my goal once I get there, but I still have a bit of a ways to go for that. 

Langrisser I & II Remaster (PS4)

I beat and got all trophies for the first game before starting Nioh (one trophy list for both games so no platinum yet, rip), and it was... alright. A lot of people said Langrisser was like old-school Fire Emblem, and while there are some similarities between them, Langrisser definitely does not reach the height of quality older Fire Emblem games did. The gameplay gets pretty dull and the story was definitely nothing to write home about (though to be fair it's originally a 1991 Sega Genesis game), and getting all of the different story paths was pretty boring since every pair of endings (A+B, C+D, etc.) were basically the same with minimal differences in them. Overall the game was okay and ended up being worth the time spent on it (helps that it was only around 50 hours). I started up Langrisser II, but didn't get far before deciding I needed a break from these games since they play exactly the same.

Bravely Default II [Demo] (NS)

As I stated in the General Game Chat thread, I've been having a bit of fun with this one. The battle system is what you'd expect from a Bravely Default game, but the game is still great fun. I don't want to talk about it too much in case others want to try the demo out and see what it offers for themselves, but what I can say is that it's very fun. I recommend anyone with a Switch to download it and give it a try.

Azur Lane [Android]

New event started and I... have been super slacking on farming it. I've been so occupied with Nioh, and it's extremely difficult to play a game like Nioh and poke at my phone at the same time, since Nioh requires so much attention and concentration. I still have this week in quarantine though, so I still have plenty of time to spend a day just hitting the grind hard and getting dem points. I got all of the new girls for the event except for one, but she's available via the event shop so I don't have to worry about pulling for them any more, which is nice. Funny enough, I got both of the other SRs in the pool pretty quickly and it was the single Elite that took me a good four or five 10-pulls to finally nab. Guess that's my luck though. Get the lower % girls first and then have to spend half of my resources on the one who is supposed to have a much higher pull chance. 

Arknights [Android]

A new event started up here as well, though it ended up being a quick one and I've finished it already. Back to just slowly working on some of my characters again in anticipation of the next chapter or event that comes.

War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius [Android]

Yep, a third mobile game. This released just about a week ago now. The only reason I decided to try it is because the visuals are really beautiful and this is probably the closest we'll ever get to seeing another Tactics game in the FF series again (though with this hitting 1 million downloads pretty fast, maybe Square Enix will see that there's still a lot of interest in the Tactics games). The gameplay is fun, plays just like a Tactics game does and a lot of elements from the original FF Tactics are present in this game which is really nice. I'm not really a fan of how hard SE went with the "if you don't spend, we don't want you playing" element in this one though. They separate your paid and free Visiore (the currently to do gacha pulls), and have banners that you can only pull on with Paid Visiore which have bonuses like a guaranteed UR (highest rarity), compared to the banners you can pull on with free Visiore that guarantee a MR (can be a UR, but much lower chance). Pretty much writes in pretty clearly that if you don't whale in this game, you'll have a hell of a time getting any where. For example, they have a FFXIV event going on for launch, but to clear all the levels of it, you need a powerful team of level 50+ (missions recommend 60+) characters. I've been playing every day and doing missions and getting exp cubes to level up my characters since launch day, and I can't even get a character to level 30 yet. 

I've seen games that pushed players very hard towards p2w, but SE is really turning it up a notch in this one and it's kind of sad because I've been enjoying the story and it sucks knowing that I'll eventually get to a point where the game just walls me because I'm not spending money.

[Moonface]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS)
Gathered all the eggs I could from my trees, rocks and ground spots for the Bunny Day event, then spent time plucking all the weeds on my island while popping balloons and catching fish/eggs. I'm probably going to be able to pay off my 3rd loan tomorrow once the Town Hall gets built, since it's closed today to be built.

[Mr EliteL]

I really need to get back to this game. I started it when it first released, like what, three years ago now? But I stopped playing it and never went back. Every time I think about going back I remember how horrible the platinum is and it completely stops me from wanting to go back.

Unfortunately the server for the online portion of the game was turned off in October. Was bummed when I realised, had the game sitting in a box for two or three years and missed out. Haven't checked the full trophy list to see if there is anything that requires online gameplay yet, but know some are actually RNG based at least, as I randomly got a Gold Baku Statue without realising. I saw that trophy has a too low achievement percentage to be a specific treasure find.

Grand Kingdom

Doing quests, campaign and travelling. Trying to find a good second Valkyrie and Medic in Hire to make up my last Troop team, but keep getting poor units. Then I'll get all units at a similar level to finalise who I want in each team.

[Dragon Lord]

I really need to get back to this game. I started it when it first released, like what, three years ago now? But I stopped playing it and never went back. Every time I think about going back I remember how horrible the platinum is and it completely stops me from wanting to go back.

Unfortunately the server for the online portion of the game was turned off in October. Was bummed when I realised, had the game sitting in a box for two or three years and missed out. Haven't checked the full trophy list to see if there is anything that requires online gameplay yet, but know some are actually RNG based at least, as I randomly got a Gold Baku Statue without realising. I saw that trophy has a too low achievement percentage to be a specific treasure find.

From what I've been reading, the platinum goes from a 50-60 hour time, to a 150-200+ hour time without the online function. 

There seems to be a split on opinions about whether or not the platinum is even achievable anymore without being able to grind Flags online. You need 20 flags for a trophy and the best way to get them was from enemy squads in online wars. I've seen some people say that you can get them as drops in offline, but they are so extremely rare that you're going to be bashing your head against that wall for a very long time.

Getting the trophy to learn all skills on one character is also going to be a lot tougher. Since characters learn different skills even when they're the same class, you need to keep leveling up characters to 52 over and over again until you finally get the scrolls for all the skills you need from them. Online was the best way to level up and without it leveling is going to take a very long time. 

Most people who played the game heavily during the online days believe that the Flag trophy is either unobtainable now, or will add at least 100 hours to the platinum time, while the much slower leveling will add 50-100 hours additionally. 

Possibility that the 10 DLC flags are required for the platinum now.

UPDATE: So after doing some more digging, it seems that it's true that the platinum is completely unobtainable if a player did not manage to get at least 2 flags through online before the shutdown. Otherwise the most you can get offline is 18 flags (10 DLC + 6 in-game). I don't remember if I got any flags in the brief time that I spent playing online mode, but if I did, then I can still get the platinum.

Either way this is really stupid and the fact that NISA hasn't done anything about the broken platinum is crap. They need to patch the game to make all of the flags obtainable in-game.

[queenzelda]

Animal Crossing New Horizons [Switch]: I finally got my paving permit, water permit, & land permit. I'm going to be saving myself some bells & making my own slopes where I want em. I'm moving my house to the top of old Bacon & then plan to plant a bunch of different fruit orchards & live off of that while just enjoying island life.