WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[Cousin Jim Bob]

1 hour ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

I haven’t got very far in it yet, pretty much the first area after the prologue. I spent far too long exploring every nook and cranny to make sure I spoke to everyone at the beginning and to beat down a creepy mime. My success rate on parrying and dodging is about 30%. I just cannot nail the timing. Enjoying it though. The premise is interesting, the main character is very different to your usual RPG protagonist and the music is cracking. 

Best tactics I have found is use dodge to get the timing down of whatever your fighting dialled in, then if your feeling confident risk a parry. Dodge is much more forgiving timing wise. It can still be a pain though as some of the enemies go "now I'm going to hit you...just kidding. Now I'm going to hit...nope. Smack".

I am rubbish at timing and rhythm games so can feel the pain. I screw up loads and rarely go for parries.

@RedTwoster the no mini map thing is a bit of a head scratcher but I think they really want you to explore and not do what I do a lot in modern games and just look at where to go on the mini map then just go there. Advice I saw that is handy is the main story path is usually lit up more brightly and side paths darker.

It does help that the game looks and sounds incredible so exploring is fun. This is an all timer music wise for me. There is some incredible battle themes.

It is awesome to have a JRPG story aimed at adults too. No weird anime tropes or school children. I love the Like A Dragon games for the same reason.

I'm just past the underwater section and got to where I can upgrade weapons and spend Lumina points. Don't sleep on the Lumina stuff. From what I can tell this is how you really set up your builds for each character.

Edited April 27, 2025 by Cousin Jim Bob

[RedTwoster]

21 hours ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

Best tactics I have found is use dodge to get the timing down of whatever your fighting dialled in, then if your feeling confident risk a parry. Dodge is much more forgiving timing wise. It can still be a pain though as some of the enemies go "now I'm going to hit you...just kidding. Now I'm going to hit...nope. Smack".

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do - or accept that I’m going to spend the early part of a fight getting smashed in. I also end up accidentally trying to dodge gradient and jump attacks far too often.

Anyone playing the game should be wary though - there’s a bug which I’ve encountered in which you can no longer upgrade your healing tints and it reverts to you only having one of them. I’ve googled and it seems a few people have had this happen to them, so hopefully it’ll be patched out soon. It makes some of the later battles a minor nightmare. 

[Cousin Jim Bob]

39 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do - or accept that I’m going to spend the early part of a fight getting smashed in. I also end up accidentally trying to dodge gradient and jump attacks far too often.

Anyone playing the game should be wary though - there’s a bug which I’ve encountered in which you can no longer upgrade your healing tints and it reverts to you only having one of them. I’ve googled and it seems a few people have had this happen to them, so hopefully it’ll be patched out soon. It makes some of the later battles a minor nightmare. 

 

I have that bug too. I was sure I had upgraded but it was stuck on one. Thought I had screwed up or something.

On PC there is now mods that can make the timing slightly easier to various degrees on parries and dodges. Something like this in game would have been cool. I tried the game on Story difficulty but it was to easy as you take barely any damage. 

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

 

I have that bug too. I was sure I had upgraded but it was stuck on one. Thought I had screwed up or something.

I thought I was misunderstanding the systems until I realised that loads of people were having the same problem. It seems pretty widespread and cross version, so hopefully they’ll address it quickly. There are multi-phase bosses as the game goes on that are almost impossible to beat without the ability to heal as intended. 

[RedTwoster]

Sorry for the double post, but I’ve been playing a few indie games in between the chunkier games I’m playing that I wanted to recommend…

Spilled (£4.99 on Steam)

I think this’ll appeal to a lot of you, in particular the fans of Powerwash Simulator. It’s essentially that, except you’re cleaning up oil spills and rubbish from the sea with your little boat. The Steam page says it can be completed in an hour, and while that’s true, I played it for a lot longer than that because it was so much fun. I really, really hope they make a meatier version of this, but for that to happen people need to buy it, so…do me a solid, guys!

Save Room (£2.49, Steam)

It’s an inventory management puzzler. It’s like the Resident Evil inventory system, and…that’s the game. You have a bunch of stuff that can fit in your inventory, and you have to figure out how to position everything. There’s something a bit Tetris-like about it, and I love Tetris so naturally I was going to like this. It’s very cheap, very addictive and a perfect palate cleanser game. 

Mouthwashing (£10.99, Steam)

I’m cheating a little as I played this a while ago, but I wanted an excuse to recommend it. It’s a slightly Event Horizon-style horror game in that you’re trapped with your crew on a space ship, with a limited amount of food, and a cargo consisting of nothing but mouthwash (hence the name). The game pieces together what has happened and can be quite disturbing at times, in a way you’d want a horror game to be. There aren’t many jump scares and the frightening aspects of it are all achieved through the hopeless situation and foreboding atmosphere - it’s very smartly done, and tells a great story. It’s also short, and a perfect palate cleanser, like the other games on the list. Although there’s a very good chance it’ll stick with you long after the credits role. Best experienced going in blind, as the internet is riddled with spoilers for it.

[FLips]

Finished the main story of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and it was decent but really loses it’s way towards the end. 

Spoiler

Wasn’t impressed by the story at all once you make it towards the final stretch, and the post-game is miserable unless you absolutely love optional superbosses which is a shame because you unlock two of the big exploration options by beating the main part of the game and everywhere I explore are unbeatable Chromatic enemies and superbosses.

Felt the idea of the gommage and the paintress was unique and exciting until they actually tried to explain what it was and it got so convoluted and confusing that I lost interest fast. Oh it’s another game about dealing with grief, how original.
The really interesting sounding bit, going and finding all the expeditioners and reviving them, it does for you in a quick cutscene. The ones you are told you can find yourself are again locked behind huge bosses.

So now my options are go fight Renoir again for the true ending, or float about getting dicked by superbosses. Will probably leave it there unless I find something interesting to do. I’ve seen the two available endings after looking them up myself trying to make sense of the story and what a Writer is and I can’t say I’m arsed about either of them.

It’s fun, it’s short, the characters are decent. The gameplay is unoriginal and the story confusing and overwritten. It’s not as good as many of the numerous games it takes ideas from wholesale such as Final Fantasy, Persona or Elden Ring.

[Jesse]

I'm into Act 2 of Clair Obscur and I think I'm done.

I'm not engaged by the story at all, and the battle system is so tedious to engage with. I've always hated this approach of "We need to liven up turn-based games by adding in timing reactions" when what I want out of a turn-based game is to spend my time considering how to win the fight, not constantly swap between considered thought and close animation attention. It makes every fight tedious and I'm at the point where I'd rather play a game that did one of those things well rather than something that does the detriment of both of them.

It's a fine effort and I can see why people like it - especially if they're not engaging with this type of game very often - but the game crashed tonight and I realised I was hoping it was broken so I had an excuse to stop playing it, so I should just stop playing and find something else.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

For a counter opinion I think its one of the best games I've ever played. Incredible story, design, graphics, music and the voice acting is insane. I love the risk/reward of the combat system too, keeps things interesting.

Its not a grindfest like the Persona games and I don't have to deal with my missus going "you playing your Japanese schoolgirl game again" when she see's me playing it like them. The last few Final Fantasy games have left me cold with their DMC style combat too. 

This feels like a fresh spin on the genre. 

Edited May 1, 2025 by Cousin Jim Bob

[Devon Malcolm]

I've played Grapple Dog and Pang Adventures as far as I can (finished them without 100%) so I've gone back to Slime Rancher. Playing the grown-up games so you don't have to.

[Jesse]

11 hours ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

The last few Final Fantasy games have left my cold with their DMC style combat too.

+1 to this. I'm a big FF defender and I've liked the various ways they've approached the idea of an 'active time battler' since the days of FF7 but XV's system left me unfulfilled and XVI was like a duller version of it. I don't need traditional, but I'm hoping the next one does something a little more interesting.

[The King Of Swing]

Maybe it's because I know the battle systems like the back of my hand, but I've never found the Persona games particularly grindy. 

P5 and P3 Reload, in particular are honestly a bit of a joke, compared to other MegaTen games, imo. 

[Merzbow]

Yeah modern Persona is just abusing the elemental weaknesses which nearly always seem very obvious.

[The King Of Swing]

Even the bosses are not much of a challenge in P5. Don't think I ever struggled in the original release and I don't consider myself some epic/pro gamer. 

Royal has was one boss that was buffed/alterered that can be a pain. Which to me felt like the devs trolling players, who complained that they were way too easy in the original. 

[FLips]

Was it P5 where you could grind an enemy by giving it the flu? 

I know what I said earlier about Exp33 but I have infact beaten several of the superbosses now with only 

Spoiler

Simon, the Pink Dragon thing and the Chromatic ball thing

left to do. A lot of that was because I tried to mop up some achievements before I gave up on it, but basic ones like collecting journals and music discs are annoyingly tied to the bosses. So I figured I’d give them a go and shockingly managed to beat what is considered the 2nd hardest one (I think) and a couple of others. 
The parry system is a double edged sword in that the game is overly reliant on it but also you can grind your way through enemies by just learning the timing.

[TheScarlettChad]

GTA VI has been delayed. May 26th 2026.