Some Game Announcements
Burn My Dread
We got an announcement for Persona 3 Reloaded, a remake of OG base Persona 3. This is something that has been a a long time coming. I know so many fans of Persona 3; that game is a classic for people in my age range. I have a lot of love for Persona 3. An ill-fated Windows update crashed my computer and killed my save for my playthrough of it(and thusly, most of my urge to restart it since I was a little over halfway through), but I loved what I played before that point. Persona has great chaarcter work, and that game is no exception. Plus, 3 definitely has my favorite tracks out of the Persona games I have come into contact with(Like most people, I have experience with 3-5. I know 1 &2 are good games, but I’ve never played em and Atlus acts like they don’t exist.). Like that Budokai Tenkaichi 4 announcement a couple months ago, I’m just so happy this is real. They got a killer new voice cast on it, too. It’ll be jarring to hear new voices, but also really exciting.
30XX
30XX , sequel to 20XX is coming out in August. I haven’t tried any of the 30XX early access, but I have played 20XX and that game is crack. Just a really solid roguelike with cool characters and a banger soundtrack. I have all the reason in the world to believe this is gonna be more of the same and then some. Be on the lookout for this one.
Some Metroidvanias
These got announced this month, so I have nothing to say besides that they look really cool. I am a sucker for Metroidvanias, so I’m gonna keep my eye on em.
Genshin
A game by the name of Honkai Star Rail released recently. I’ve seen a lot of my friends hop on it, and decided I’d give it a try whenever it dropped on Playstation.Now, Star Rail is developed by Mihoyo, the same developers as Genshin Impact , a game I tried on release and fell off of very quickly. I figured that since I planned to play another of their games anyway, I should give Genshin a 2nd chance. Also, a side note - The most recent Star Rail trailer had no mention of a PS4 release, so it looks like I’m only playing Genshin.
Coming back to this game has been a lot of fun. Way more fun than I ever expected. Granted, I knew Genshin was a good game; I know a lot of folks who play it and enjoy it. Hell, I enjoyed it when I tried back on release. I just fell off very quickly because of how you’re gated in progression. You need to be a certain Adventurer Rank to progress through the story and unlock more quests to do. Very early on back when I first tried the game, I ran out of quests and would have to grind/explore a bunch to get the exp to level up my rank. It was tedious back then, and it was tedious this time, too, but I had way more fun with it this time since I opened my mind to just running around and exploring shit. And it’s not that I’m against running around and exploring shit- I play JRPGs for God’s sake. I just didn’t feel doing it because it was a requirement rather than a choice. I couldn’t progress through the story, see that I’m underleveled/ran out of the stuff, and then run around; I had to run around first and then go through the story. Still, it’s not too big of a deal here since there’s a lot to explore and do in Genshin.
The game kinda reminds me of DFO. Lots of farming dungeons, finding stronger/optimal ability rotations, cool ass characters. There’s just a lot more running around and exploration since Genshin is open-world and DFO is a 2d beat em up dungeon crawler.
My big issue with Gacha style games is that I am very motivated by characters. I like playing as my favorite characters, so it sucks when I can’t do that. A big reason I was able to stick with Marvel Snap despite its god-awful collection system is that I got some really cool cards of characters and archetypes I liked early on. Even if the card game part of Snap is good, I would’ve dipped if I couldn’t use a character I liked a lot in a superhero game. Genshin has a lot of cool characters, more than I gave it credit for. I haven’t pulled muh waifus yet, but I have gotten a lot of cool and interesting Units to use for my team comps like Razor, Ningguang, Yun Jin, etc. The story so far has been pretty cool, too. Being real, my only real complaint about any of the characters is that the male MC looks kinda lame. I can put up with a lot of the pretty boys in this game because a lot of them at least have cool designs, but the male mc looks wack as hell. I honestly forget what made me pick him instead of the female mc. I think I just wasn’t in the mood to pick a female avatar for some reason.
Genshin’s content is mainly the story/exploration stuff. Its endgame content is a dungeon called the Spiral Abyss, where players challenge floors of enemies with the goal to clear them within a certain timeframe to get big rewards, with the rewards being available twice a month due a reset on them in the middle of the month. I haven’t gone for the serious floors yet, but I have dipped my toes in the lower ones to try it out and get the two free characters offered as rewards for them.
My current team comps are:
- Razor(DPS), Yun Jin(Support), Kaeya(Support), Qiqi(Healing)
- Ningguang(DPS), Yun Jin(Support), Xinyan(Support), Barbara(Healing)
- Xiangling(DPS), Kazuha(support), Collei(support), Barbara(Healing)
The Razor Team works really well. I apply Cryo with Kaeya and Qiqi and then set off the Superconduct reaction with Razor, which lowers enemy physical resistance, which is great for Razor since he’s a physical DPS. Yun Jin creates shields and also buffs normal attacks, another great thing for Razor.I’m still messing around with Ningguang comps, but the idea is to take advantage of the Geo resonance, Xinyan’s shield, and Yun Jin’s normal attack buff to have Ningguang do a lot of damage, with Barbara slotted in for burst healing. For the Kazuha team, it’s my attempt at a Burgeon team. I cause the Bloom reaction with Barbara + Collei, gather them up with Kazuha, and activate Burgeon with Xiangling. Really fun team.
The game’s really fun, and I expect to play it a whole lot. It gives me a nice alternative to DFO, which is very big for me right now because at the time of writing, Proton needs to be updated to work with DFO again.
Some helpful sites if you wanna try the game yourself.
Game8 - Walthroughs and guides
Genshinhelper - Tips for endgame content
KeqingMains - Character Guides
Street Fighter 6 Release
If Guilty Gear Strive exists because Arc Sys took Guilty Gear Xrd and asked, “How can we turn this into Street Fighter V?”, this game exists because Capcom took Street Fighter V and asked, “How can we turn this into Guilty Gear Xrd?”
This game has taken the community by storm, and it’s honestly deserved. The game is a complete package, and has a lot of things everyone can enjoy. It has really good single player that lets you do a lot of silly stuff and gives character interactions, it has good netcode, good lobbies, and populated matchmaking so people who just wanna play online can do that, and it has a really good training mode so that lab monsters can find answers so questions that no one probably asked.
Now, I’ve already explained my stance on SF, so it should come as no surprise that I know all this from watching rather than playing. Now, I’ve still come around to this game. Watching gameplay, I can admit that I’m actually missing out on something really fun here. I still have no intention to buy it, though. I’m just not a SF guy, and instead of playing a more anime game-esque SF, I could just play an anime game. Still, though, definitely give this game a shot; it’s pushing fighting games in the right direction. Indie games like Skullgirls have been doing a lot of what SF6 brings to the table for years, but now that a big developer has come and done them, it puts more pressure on other big devs to deliver quality products.
DNF Duel
DNF Duel has finally given the date on the Spectre’s release, as well as the system update patch. Both are coming July 12th. DNF is still really fun, but the bad marketing, lack of dlc, and now SF’s release have gotten people off of it. Still, game’s a great time, and the community is still putting on for it, so I’m all to keep fucking around with my boy Grappler.
The trailers -
You can check out some community tournies to see what’s up with the game so far -
Omega Strikers
This game came out a while ago, but I only just tried it this month. This game is so much fun. This game reminds me very much of Rocket League, and I played the shit out of that game all the way until they dropped Linux support. This is a 3v3 Hero soccer kind of game. You’re trying to score more points than the other team, but you’re doing so with some really cool characters with specialized abilities. It’s kinda like a fusion dance between Overwatch and Rocket League. I’ve found quite a few characters I like, namely Asher, Atlas, and Era.
I’m a big fan of this game’s whole aesthetic. It’s bright, colorful, and the music is pretty damn good. The online experience has been pretty nice, too. Getting in and out of games is quick, and the game is on every platform with crossplay, so playing with friends is always on the table.
Game’s got my stanp of approval. It’s in the rotation.
Megaman X Dive Offline
Recently, it was announced that the Megaman X gacha, X Dive Online, was ending service. A little while later, it was announced that it would be recieving an offline version. Now, I didn’t play this game at all; Genshin and Snap aside, I stay away from gacha games. Still, I am very happy to see this. There are some really fun and beloved games in the gacha space that just get lost to the ether once the service ends. I think of games like Brave Frontier(RIP!!! Ny first mobile game and the only gacha I ever spent money on.) and Dragalia Lost. Offering an offline version of these games for people to try out and grind and just geenrally enjoy is good and also helps with game preservation.
If this is free, I’ll definitely give it a shake. I can easily Capcom charging for it, though.
Snap
Marvel Snap added Conquest mode this month, which is competitive battle mode. You queue up against another person and play a whole battle mode match.
I really like Conquest. Marvel Snap has always been more interesting to me when the BO1 “gotcha” or reliance on surprise is off the table. Battle mode gives both players the opportunity to feel each other out and not get completely hoed by bad location flips since they can back out for one health and still be in the game. There’s a lot of back & forth to be had in a mode like this, which is great. The meta is also a bit different from the ranked ladder. On the ranked ladder, you can kinda tell yourself " X card doesn’t exist." What I mean by that is unless it’s run in a meta deck and you’re in the higher ranks, you can play a deck without fear of the tech cards that blow you out. You can always just retreat and aim to win more cubes in the your next game than however many you just forfeited leaving the last one. Battle mode doesn’t let you do that; in the silver, gold, and infinite leagues, you have to win consecutive games. If you’re playing a deck that loses hard to a tech card, you can’t just concede the match without conceding your entire run. This means it’s better to play decks that don’t just auto-lose to things and have good value. This is fine with me because I like those kind of fair midrange decks best in this game anyway. The Darkhawk Stature deck has been doing really well for me in Conquest because it’s just a solid deck that puts respectable numbers on the board and has tech cards & hand disruption to help itself handle some tougher matchups. I slotted in Ghost over Ice Man this month. It’s not the biggest change in the world, but Ghost gives a little extra layer of protection to my Darkhawk on the final turn and, more importantly, helps me hit my opponent’s key cards with Shang-Chi and Enchantress on the final turn even if I’m ahead.
Another cool thing about Conquest is the Proving Grounds, which people can enter for free to try to win a match to get a ticket to get into the silver league. The Proving Grounds:
- are free to enter
- let you complete missions(as do the other conquest leagues)
This means that you can play in the proving grounds to complete dailies if you don’t want to put up with the featured location, and it also means that the community gets to engage in something Streamer KMBEST has coined as “Conquest Communism,” where both players snap on turn 1 to turn it into an 8 cube game on the first game, and whoever loses that 8 cuber just concedes the whole match. This is a very funny way to make farming tickets for the Silver league very fast. Unlike the higher leagues, losses in Proving Grounds don’t mean anything, and it’s free to enter, so you can just jump into another match right after. Proving Grounds is essentially unranked - People can complete their dailies free from the stress of the ranks and the featured location. I’m all for it.
Frieren At The Funeral
Frieren: Beyond The Journey’s End has been one of my favorite ongoing manga for a good while now. it has all the character love & attention i love with a compelling premise to go along with it. Its anime, which got announced near the middle of last year, finally has a release date - September.
I can’t recommend Frieren enough, man. I’m excited for this.