My main games have been Blasphemous 2, Sea of Stars, and Halls of Torment.
Blasphemous 2 has been an excellent follow up to the original. It’s very tough Souls-like (punishing, skill based combat with a strong focus on parrying and dodging) 2D Metroidvania (Large focus on exploration and getting new abilities to explore new areas) with incredible pixel art. The imagery is based on the Catholic imagery and lore of Spain, where the devs are from. This makes for a unique and bloody experience with art that feels fresh and classical at the same time. Highly recommend.
Sea of Stars is possibly the prettiest pixel art game I’ve ever played. It’s a JRPG with lots of interesting systems to mix up combat. In addition to the classic timed hits to deal/block extra damage the game includes several other systems that combine to make combat quite tactical and occasionally puzzle like.
Halls of Torment is a Survivors-like with a Diabloish aesthetic that mixes things up a bit. Unlike most of the genre you’re able to attack fully manually, but there are also options to make you attack and aim automatically. The extra nice thing about that is even if you auto-aim it’ll still let you aim manually, letting decide moment to moment how to play. There’s also a system where you can essentially sacrifice an item from your run to unlock the ability to buy it permanently back at camp. Been playing with the summoner character.
Late to the party - Still working through BG3. Into act 3 now and still finding random side quests that are really cool. The third act has a lot more badly described actions where you chose an option and it doesn’t do what you expect; having to do a lot of quick loads because of that.
I also picked up Old World in the summer sale, so am playing through a tutorial game of that to try it out.
I keep meaning to make a new thread but I’m kinda scattered. I haven’t been playing BG3 much because I wanted to play through the first time with friends but we’re not all on that regularly so I think I’ll start my own campaign soon. The badly described actions is one of the biggest troubles across CRPG’s. I suppose it’s not always easy to communicate some things until you get feedback.
Strategy games are fun but they overwhelm me and kick my butt, hahaha. I can win civ cultural victories on medium and that’s about it.
It turns out that virtual d&D has the same organisational issues as real d&d 🤷♂️
It’s best to start you own game to get the story you want (and get all the companion stuff), then play multiplayer for all the random hijinks.
If I play to win I can win on resonably high civ difficulties. I tend to play a little RPey though which doesn’t lead to wins on higher difficulties.
Hahaha, too true. I didn’t even think about that. And I think you’re right. I’ll have to figure out where in my roto to work it in.
Doing RP for long strategy games does sound more fun. The Endless games would probably be pretty great that way.