catalyst
@catalyst@lemmy.world
- Comment on Day 439 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 week ago:
As a plot and gameplay device i love when games with party mechanics remove the Main Protagonist from the party for a bit and have you control someone else.
Same! These moments always feel special. I also really love how Wall Market is depicted in this chapter.
- Comment on Ghost of Yotei | Review Thread (89/100 OpenCritic) 1 week ago:
Well dang, that is shitty to hear. I had hoped to play this one. At least I found out now before giving them any money.
- Comment on "Dan Da Dan" Season 3 Announced 2 weeks ago:
Nice!! Not that this news is terribly surprising, after all, and the article is scant on details… I’ll still allow myself to do a little happy fist pump for this. 🙂
- Comment on The Purpose of Difficulty | GMTK Mini 3 weeks ago:
You can go explore and get a whole lot of stuff, but a lot of it seems totally useless?
Oh yeah I totally feel this. I’ll complete a quest or some fiddly pogo area only to see the reward and go “huh?”
Still liking the game a lot, to be fair.
- Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Tops 4.4 million sales - IGN 3 weeks ago:
Easily my game of the year.
- Comment on Day 423 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 3 weeks ago:
Ooh, will be fun to see you work through these. The remake series is polarizing to be sure, but I quite like them despite their flaws. The combat system in particular to me feels like such a fun blend of action and ATB-gauge style inputs.
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
Man… this looks rough. I’m not sure what to even think. I really want to be excited for Prime 4 but none of the trailers have done it for me. Now we have this weird bike that looks awful.
I’m happy to be wrong and will wait and see how things turn out but the faith is being tested.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 3 weeks ago:
Silksong coming out actually motivated me to do what I’d been putting off, which was getting platinum in Expedition 33. The Simon fight was tough but fun and satisfying, then picked up any lingering journals, music disks, and Monoco skills.
Amusingly my final trophy was the mime you can encounter during the prologue, which I had completely missed on my first time through. So I fired up NG+ mode, knocked that out for my plat trophy, and decided to watch the Gommage cutscene one more time. It still hit me just as emotionally the second time around. This game really was beautiful and it’s going to stick with me for a long time.
With that out of the way I’m now a few hours into Silksong and enjoying it so far. The bosses I’ve encountered have been tough but not “throw the controller and rage quit” tough. But I’m sure that is coming soon, haha.
- Comment on Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 37] 4 weeks ago:
Haha. Yeah 100%.
- Comment on Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 37] 4 weeks ago:
A while back I lamented on this community that I had tried and failed to get into Steins;Gate. Well, I gave it another shot and will say - it does get pretty good, eventually. Things start to feel more intriguing around episodes 8 or 9, and by episode 12/13 the tone shifts dramatically. That was the point where I started to actually feel invested.
The thing about Rintaro is that he comes off as a dick for quite a while. His positive attributes don’t really start to show until later (though maybe on a rewatch I’d be more able to see glimpses of that). I also found some of the humor, particularly concerning Daru, to be unfunny and at times off-putting. It does find it’s footing though and the build to the finale was really exciting.
Ultimately, I’m glad I came back around on this one and gave it a second shot. To quote Mayuri, do do doooo🎵.
Having wrapped that up I scrolled through my to-watch list in search of something short and sweet, and settled on Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Ah, this will surely be a delightfully positive palette cleanser! Kidding, obviously, but I had been curious about this show for a while and this felt like the right week to dive in. I’ll likely finish the series tonight or tomorrow.
Honestly, I like it a lot! Yes - it’s “the dark magical girl show”, but it doesn’t even feel as dark as I was personally bracing for. Like I would not say that it is edgy just for edginess sake. I also just really adore the creative, mixed-media approach to the presentation of the witches and their labyrinths.
Next I have queued up: Serial Experiments Lain. This one doesn’t seem to be readily available on any streaming sites but I found a copy on the Internet Archive. The quality seems kind of dodgy but otherwise it’s probably fine?
The only show I’m watching in the current season is DanDaDan, which I’ll just say is still amazing and I’m so looking forward to the next couple episodes. I hope the wait for the next season isn’t terribly long because that builds into my favorite arc of the manga.
- Comment on Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 36] 5 weeks ago:
This! It gets so, so good.
- Comment on Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 35] 1 month ago:
We watched the first three episodes of See You Tomorrow at the Food Court over the weekend. It’s, honestly, delightful. I love how it blends moments of humor, inanity, and genuine insight so fluidly.
I could watch these two girls talk about nothing for hours.
- Comment on New Key Visual for 'Dan Da Dan' Season 2 1 month ago:
I wondered that too. I’m actually surprised at how fast they are getting through the content. And we only have 4 episodes remaining, I think.
Spoilers
IF they finish the Kaiju battle, it would be fun to end it on Vamola bursting from the suit and kissing Okarun. That would make for a juicy and hilarious cliffhanger. But I could also see them stopping in the middle of the battle simply for lack of time.
- Comment on New Key Visual for 'Dan Da Dan' Season 2 1 month ago:
So excited for this arc!! This kicks off / leads into probably my favorite chunk of the manga. Gonna be epic.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
This is my answer as well!
- Comment on Day 399 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 month ago:
That sounds about right. I feel like it played more like an expansion than an outright new game. I do remember banging my head against some of those tougher levels now.
- Comment on Day 399 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 month ago:
Good point about the music, it really was quite memorable!
- Comment on Day 399 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 month ago:
I replayed Galaxy sometime around 2020 and had a lot of fun doing so. I remember liking this one quite a lot. It was also fun to let my kid who was around 5 at the time hold a remote to help collect stars.
I’m… reasonably sure I played Galaxy 2 as well but my memory of that iteration is completely blank.
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 1 month ago:
It’s worth it! I am still chipping away at Expedition 33 as well. I’m in the endgame portion now but just don’t have a lot of time to game at the moment. I’d like to eventually do NG+ and 100% everything.
- Comment on Games Where Nothing Happens (SPOILERS for various game plots) 1 month ago:
Stanley walked through the red. door.
- Comment on Games Where Nothing Happens (SPOILERS for various game plots) 1 month ago:
Was going to comment this as well! I enjoyed the story quite a bit too. Despite nothing really “happening” per se I remember the ending feeling emotional regardless.
- Comment on Day 386 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 month ago:
Even with the warp ability it feels like you still have to do a fair amount of sailing because the warp locations are fairly spread out. I can see double speed helping considerably, though.
Thinking on in some more and I guess another problem with the sailing for me is how often I had to stop and play the wind requiem. It really makes navigation a chore. I could see a mod that lets you change the wind direction much more quickly would help tremendously (maybe there is one, I have not looked).
- Comment on Day 386 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 1 month ago:
I’ve started this game twice. Once recently and once back when it came out. Still have not managed to finish. I always lose interest about half way.
When I think about why that is, I think it’s what you pointed out - the sailing gets monotonous fast.
Which is too bad cause I do think the game is otherwise very charming and fun.
- Comment on Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted – Pre-Order Trailer 2 months ago:
I loved pvz back in the day, before it got junked up by EA. I have no idea what the state of the game is anymore. Curious if this would be worth playing for a bit of nostalgia.
- Comment on Remembering Descent, the once-popular, fully 3D 6DOF shooter 2 months ago:
It really was incredible. Especially back then when I hadn’t had much exposure yet to that style of music. The fact that it was CD quality instead of midi really helped.
I vividly remember discovering how you could just put the game disk in a regular CD player and it’d work. Kinda blew my mind lol.
- Comment on Remembering Descent, the once-popular, fully 3D 6DOF shooter 2 months ago:
Adding this to my wish list!
- Comment on Remembering Descent, the once-popular, fully 3D 6DOF shooter 2 months ago:
Man I friggin loved Descent II. Game was so fun and immersive. I watched that opening cinematic over and over. The soundtrack was fantastic as well.
I later went and played Descent 1 as well but 2 was the one I played the most.
- Comment on After 18 years, a surprise Half-Life 2 update makes it once again possible to beat a honking train on Highway 17 2 months ago:
There is indeed! My kid played it on the switch and loved it. Well, right up to the point where they couldn’t proceed due to a level being completely broken. They ended up having to finish the last few stages on my PC instead.
- Comment on After 18 years, a surprise Half-Life 2 update makes it once again possible to beat a honking train on Highway 17 2 months ago:
Wow! I somehow never knew this bug existed. I guess it’s been a long time since I played this one. 😅
Now, how about fixing game-breaking bugs on the Switch version of Portal 2?
- Comment on Day 369 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing 2 months ago:
Man, I should revisit this one sometime.