What Games Are You Playing?

D1tchd1gger said:
Yes. Played Ghouls n Ghosts on the Mega Drive in the early 90s.
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Oh, wow. Nice. 😀

I love the Mega Drive version of Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The music and graphics are awesome! I play it on the Mega Drive library on Nintendo Switch Online.

D1tchd1gger said:
The knife is very good, it's the fastest weapon to throw and can be thrown straight down
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Yeeeah, you know your stuff, dude! The knife is the weapon for fighting the boss of stage 4 (the giant maggot), in my opinion. Because it shoots out at two slightly different heights, it lets you just crouch and fire to take out four of its five weak points. 😌👌

Do you remember how far you got through the game? Did you ever finish it?
 
D1tchd1gger said:
Yes. Remember being surprised after "beating" it that you had to go through it again!
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Hohhh, very nice job. 😌👍

Yeah, it's a Ghosts 'n Goblins tradition, that. That and having to get the short-range weapon to be able to finish the second loop.

Ghouls 'n Ghosts has been the only game in the series so far that I've been able to beat without consulting a guide or video at some point. They're kinda tough. 😅
 
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Game #4 - Vanity Fair: The Pursuit (PlayStation 5)
Acquired: 30.11.2025 - Started: 20.01.2026 - Finished: 21.01.2026 (Story), 21.01.2026 (Platinum)

Moving away from the recent digital pickups with a lesser-known title and one that was developed by Chinese developer MuYan Studio. Vanity Fair: The Pursuit is an FMV game, aka Full-Motion Video, like the ones that you would get back in the day but for the modern audiences. It's almost like playing 428: Shibuya Scramble but the scenes were in motion than static. Anyway, the reason why I wanted to play this one is because it's pretty much a Chinese drama series disguised as a video game and I don't often see C-Dramas available to watch legally.

The story of Vanity Fair is all about a young filmmaker who starts out rough and has to work his way through various hurdles to become a successful director whilst also getting involved with a few individuals whether it would be revenge, or trying to resolve an ordeal that doesn't get them into serious trouble. The story can lead into different outcomes, thanks to the visual novel style structure where one choice you make could end to a bad ending.


The game has a lot of bad endings and even endings that aren't necessarily bad but not the ideal route. For example you could decide to sleep with a girl, get them pregnant, reject being a father, give up your career as a filmmaker to become a bolt maker and then when the girl and young boy appears you decide 'nah I'm good back to making bolts' and watch the others react with a surprise Pikachu expression. That is literally one of many endings this game has and it's pretty entertaining.

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The story is divided across six chapters and a prologue, with various options to go back and forth to see different outcomes and be able to skip scenes if you have witnessed them already, which allows for easier replayability if you're trying to see different routes and endings. The timeline structure is a bit messy because you're using the D-Pad to go back and forth whereas I would have preferred a model similar to a world map to make exploration of the timeline easier. It's fine for the most part but you can easily get lost with the navigation. Another major issue is unfortunately the localisation of the game.

The English translation for the most part was fine, but there were noticeable grammatical errors and when there's profile segments appear on screen, the spoken dialogue during that moment isn't translated. The subtitles are also fairly large and because they're white with no borders it can make the reading experience a bit challenging, which is made worse by the speed that which the sentences appear which I think is due to the sentences that appear are single line only.

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Despite the issues, I had a good time with Vanity Fair: The Pursuit. As a game it's not perfect but as a Chinese drama series it's a solid experience, with a cast that definitely looked like they were having a great time with the various endings and scenarios and the story was honestly pretty unpredictable from my perspective. The true ending was good too. It took me 5 hours to finish the story and get the remaining trophies for the Platinum, which isn't a 100% completion but a good majority of the scenes experienced.


Four games done and we're still in January. That's already ahead of last year's game completion!
 
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Game #5 - Nobody Wants to Die (PlayStation 5)
Acquired: 22.01.2026 - Started: 22.01.2026 - Finished: 23.01.2026 (Story), 23.01.2026 (Platinum)

As I was struggling to figure out what to play next, a new game arrived in the post from Limited Run Games and it was for the Polish developer Critical Hit Games' narrative adventure game Nobody Wants to Die, a very intriguing futuristic but classic dystopian noir vibe that almost looked inspired by BioShock's aesthetic.

The game is centred around a detective named James who is investing a murder in a world where people can live for hundreds of years thanks to being able to transfer their consciousness from one body to another. What hooked me to the game was the aesthetic and art style which was really striking from the get-go, and you can interact with various objects, rotate them and witness James react to what it is, whether it be a bullet, a book, or a note written by someone. James' attitude can change depend on what dialogue choice you wish to choose, whether to make him a sarcastic guy or a decent person who's trying to make do with events that happened to him in a previous body.

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In various parts of the game you have a special investigation mode where you look around the room, checking items and encounter clues as to what transpired in the scene. Now what made this even more fascinating for me is the game's reconstructor device that visualises the scene from a previous point in time and allows you to go back and forth to see how an individual died in that moment. Since the game takes place hundreds of years in the future, this type of device was really cool and I'm surprised I haven't seen this as much in other media. The closest would probably be Minority Report.


Also included in the detective work are UV lights to identify tracks of blood from one point to another, and a scanner to see where cables are located or spot any signs of bullet fragments in bodies. After an investigation, there's also a small segment where you gather your clues and determine a path from start to finish to finalise your findings and come up with a conclusion over what had transpired. All of the investigative work can be done without any help since you can find the objects and where to go on your own, but the game does support an option where you can scan around and find the next go-to if you need a holding hand.

The PlayStation 5 version is how I played Nobody Wants to Die and there's a good number of customisation features for the settings which includes performance and graphics mode options. I went with performance mode but honestly I think the graphic mode may be the best approach since this is not a fast-paced type game that required any form of high frame rate.

The story took about five and a half hours to finish and I enjoyed my time with it. I do think the story does falter during its latter half despite a lot of interesting plot points here and there, so I reckon they could have expanded on various areas like the police side of things and the antagonist. Still Nobody Wants to Die is an interesting narrative game and worth checking out. Great visuals, interesting mechanics and a decent story so I'm glad I took the time to check it out.


Still in January with five games completed! Going to take a break on games until Code Vein II arrives.
 
Finished up the 3D Gex Games - pretty decent with some catchy OSTs but collecting all 100 flies for each level and hub area was a tedious timesink.

I have RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army on PS5 lined up next. Have done the prologue and some of the first investigation and am curious to see how this holds up.
 
Played a few more hours of Pokemon Scarlet

Seem to have slightly messed up the order as Psychic Gym was like 45, then I went on to the Normal Gym and it was only 35. Two Gyms left - Ghost and Ice

Haven't been this close to over leveling Pokemon in a while. Even early badges I was having to box some Pokemon to make sure there weren't any obedience issues

Then started Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (1.5 Remix)

I've been looking at playing Kingdom Hearts for a while now so decided why not :)
 
Dino Crisis
I revisit Capcom's PS1 horror games quite frequently, but this is always the most awkward one to get through (as long as we ignore the atrocious Resident Evil Survivor, which deserves to be forgotten). When a developer makes a bunch of similar games these days, we expect there to be quality of life improvements along the way. Releasing after the first few Resident Evil games, and determined to offer a familiar but distinct experience, Dino Crisis makes the questionable choice of introducing quality of life reductions.

The core gameplay and atmosphere have the same winning formula as RE, but there's a lot more friction to your progress through the game. The first change you'll notice is how storage boxes work. Instead of the universal magic storage of RE, there are now different boxes for different types of items (ammo, health, etc), and you need a certain number of keys to open each.

The change that's most likely to trip up first-timers is the lack of a menu log for any documents or codes that you find. This was a standard feature of RE, but Dino Crisis expects you to either remember important information or write it down. Combined with some puzzle clues that are easy to miss, and puzzles that are generally more frequent and difficult than early RE, and it's easy to get stuck without a guide.

The other major change is the shift from pre-rendered backgrounds to full 3D. It makes things feel more dynamic when dinosaurs are chasing you, but comes at a cost. The PS1 could only handle very limited environmental geometry and textures, so the whole game ends up being set in a dull grey research facility. There's none of the gothic atmosphere of RE1/2's mansion or police station, and nothing as detailed as the city streets of RE2/3.

Despite all the caveats, the original DC is still fun to return to once in a while. It's just not in the same league as Dino Crisis 2 or the early RE games.
 
Last time I posted, I had just started Witcher 3 and figured it would keep me going for a while.

Well it's February and I'm still here 😂 I'm on the final DLC though, Blood and Wine so I'm nearly done, but this DLC is huge so I still probably have another 20-30 hours easily left. Absolutely loving the experience though. I was pretty addicted at one point.

I did take a mini break in December to play Hogwarts Legacy because it dropped for free on Epic and that was a nice 2 week break. I took another 2 week break to play through the first Bioshock too, just finished that today.

I've also been socalising through Arc Raiders. My friends play so I joined in and it's a good time. I'm a loot goblin so these kinds of game call to my soul lol.

It's back to the Witcher 3 grind, probably to finally finish it. I did need those breaks though because as much as I was enjoying the game, I needed a change because it got a bit stale. Unsurprising after 170 hours I suppose lol.
 
01. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA via NSO)

Though not the first game I've started this year it is the first I have beat.

This was my first time playing and beating a Metroid game and this was absolutely fantastic.

I've struggled to get into Metroidvania's before but this has changed my mind about them and I understand the appeal.

The gameplay loop of exploration and upgrading I found an enjoyable one. Samus just felt good to control for the most part as well. Near the end of the game, the gameplay style changes briefly and I liked the change but the devs made the right choice in not letting that section overstay its welcome. I am aware this final section isn't present in the original Metroid and though I haven't played the original, this felt like a welcome addition to me.

The bosses were a mixed bag, most of them were enjoyable enough but some were just annoying, especially the final boss from the original games section, that wasn't fun at all. Thank goodness for the rewind feature on the Switch, I'm not ashamed to abuse it during sections like that.

I really liked the atmosphere as well along with the graphics and sound design which were pretty great for the system I'd say.

I've already ordered Metroid: Samus Returns on 3DS to continue my Metroid journey and then I'll be onto Super Metroid, Fusion and Dread. I'll tackle the Prime series and Other M at a later date. I may also try out the original Metroid 1 & 2 at some point but they're not a priority. Speaking of the originals though, I found it neat that once you beat Zero Mission you unlock the original.
 
Metal Gear Solid Delta
An amazing graphical upgrade, modernised controls, and welcome quality of life improvements for what is possibly the best MGS game. As I understand it, the developer took the same approach as the recent Oblivion remaster, where the original game logic is retained but the graphics are completely replaced in an Unreal Engine 5 overlay. So the game still feels like MGS3, but with tweaked MGS5-style controls, and one of the most artistically impressive implementations of UE5 that we've seen so far.

There was a lot of controversy about the game having poor framerate at launch. I don't know how much that's been improved by patches, but I didn't find anything distracting about performance mode on PS5.

Cyberpunk 2077
CD Projekt only have themselves to blame for me waiting until this was heavily discounted before buying it. They massively overhyped it during its lengthy development, to the point that it was hard to expect anything less than a generational leap beyond previous open world games. Then they released it in a broken state and took years to fix it. So coming to it now, long after both the hype and subsequent backlash have died down, I finally felt in the right mindset to give it a fair chance.

I'm glad I did. It's not the revolutionary new experience that it was once hyped to be, but it's good. Essentially it's the gameplay and setting of Deus Ex stitched into a Grand Theft Auto style of open world. The biggest disappointment is that it's not doing anything that those two series weren't doing over a decade ago. Well, that and some remaining glitchiness and more crashes than a game should be experiencing several years after launch.
 
02. Resident Evil VII: biohazard (Gold Edition) (PS5)

This was the first game I started this year and though I technically did beat this first prior to Metroid: Zero Mission, I was waiting until I complete the two main DLC expansions before marking this as complete.

Though I'm not trying to write a review, I am trying to improve on how I format my thoughts on media.

Also, spoilers will be present for both the base game and its DLC.

Resident Evil VII: biohazard

To go back some years, I remember playing the demo for this and though I did enjoy it, it wasn't what I wanted out of a RE game at the time, with it being first-person. I'm not the biggest fan of first-person games in general and they tend to cause me motion sickness which doesn't help. Some years later I played it a little on Steam but due to motion sickness it went on the back burner.

This time around, as I'd like to play and beat every mainline RE game eventually, I went in with an open mind and would play it in shorts bursts to prevent motion sickness. To my surprise I did not get motion sick as much as I had expected and could play it for a decent amount of time before needing to take a break. The second surprise was that I enjoyed the game a lot and it has become one of my new favourite entries in the series.

Though the beginning of the game is more akin to popular indie horror titles of the time, this is a classic RE game at heart, with puzzles, inventory management, tense enemy encounters and over-the-top bosses, to name a few.

The first half of the game is set in the Baker family home, where our protagonist, Ethan Winters, is searching for his missing wife, Mia. Mia is encountered very early on but something is not right with her, even having to defend yourself against her. Outside of her though, you come across the Baker's themselves, Jack, Marguerite and Lucas, with the former two being infected by what is known as the mold, which is causing everyone in this home to act strange. The Baker home is split into three sections, each corresponding to one of the family members. First off is Jack, who works as a stalker enemy which has become a bit of a mainstay of the series at this point. Secondly is Marguerite, she patrols an area of the home which is infested with mutated insects. Both Jack and Marguerite's sections end in a boss fight against them. The third section of the home, when coming across Lucas is more unique though as he is not a character you fight directly and instead, sets up various traps and death games for Ethan and his other victims to take part in, with the highlight being an escape room of sorts which I found a lot of fun to figure out.

Once dealing with the Baker family, culminating in a final boss fight against Jack, you have the chance to save Mia or Zoe from the mold infection (Zoe being another member of the Baker family, though not in the same state as the rest of them and has assisted Ethan upto this point). The choice here will change the outcome of the ending though regardless of who you choose, the next section of the game takes place on a wrecked ship in which you now play as Mia. This section contains all the revelations of the plot and that a young girl, Evie, is responsible for everything that has gone down throughout the game. Compared to the Baker house, this section is much linear and tends to drag on a bit as well I felt, the ship was also just not that interesting of an area to explore either. Once the game jumps back to Ethan there is one final new area to explore, the mines, which is more of an enemy gauntlet than anything and isn't to long of a section before coming back to the Baker home and fighting a mutated Evie as the final boss fight. This boss was quite underwhelming to be honest and was more spectale than anything. Once beaten we are saved by none other than RE veteran, Chris Redfield, sporting his worst design in the series and depending on if you chose Mia or Zoe to save earlier on, we leave in a helicopter with or without Mia. The canonical ending though is saving Mia as that is what leads into the next entry, RE Village.

My original plan was to get both the bad and good endings but I made the rookie mistake of not making an alternate save so I didn't have to start an entire new playthrough for the other ending so on this playthrough I only got the bad ending. I did start a second playthrough but it became a bit repetitive after just beating the game so I'll leave that for another time.

Though I talked about the main antagonists of the game, I didn't touch upon the generic enemies you fight throughout. Unfortunately there is not a lot of enemy variety in this game at all and they are all variations of these humanoid mold creatures. They're decent enemies to fight though as their un-natural movement can make it a challenge to aim which adds to the tension.

Another gameplay feature present throughout are these video tapes you come across from time to time. When put into a video player, you get to play the recordings on them, usually in the shoes of Mia or another victim of the Baker's. Outside of adding extra backstory these also work as hints for an upcoming section though are completely skippable but for a first-time playthrough, I'd say they are best doing.

Plot wise, I enjoyed this a lot, it was actually a nice change of pace having a story not focusing on the main cast from RE1 - RE6 and just being about a regular guy trying to save his wife (until Chris shows up at the very end of course). Though Ethan was a bit flat and Mia wasn't the most interesting character either, the Baker family were very entertaining and are some of my favourite villains in the series up there with Wesker and Salazar.

Overall RE7 is a fantastic entry in the series which really surprised me and going forward I am looking forward to delving into Village. I was planning to jump straight into Village next but with Requiem not far now I don't want to rush Village or burn myself out on RE so I'll tackle that entry at a later date.

 DLC

RE7 has a lot of DLC which was all included in the Gold Edition, these include "Banned Footage", "Not a Hero", "End of Zoe", "Jack's 55th Birthday Party" and "Ethan Must Die"

I will say I decided to skip on the latter two as they were game modes which didn't really interest me nor add any extra lore like the others did.

Banned Footage

Banned Footage has four scenarios to play through, the first three, "Nightmare", "Bedroom" and "21" focus on Clancy from one of the video tapes in the base game surviving the three members of the Baker family while the fourth, "Sisters", focuses on Zoe and the origins of how the Baker family became infected.

Nightmare is a survival mode which I didn't survive long on, this game mode didn't interest me enough so I didn't finish this one.

Bedroom is another escape room scenario with the twist being, anything you change in the room has to be put back to how it was before Marguerite comes in. This requires a lot of trial and error but is super satisfying once you get the perfect run. This was definitely my favourite DLC out of them all and I'd love a game that just focuses on scenarios like these.

21 is a life or death game of the card game, 21. I almost beat this one but because of either bad luck or it being rigged in Lucas' favour and I was a missing a trick, this one was also incomplete but as I got the majority of the experience I'm okay leaving it as is. This was a bit of a fun though.

Daughters is more lore heavy than having any unique gameplay feature like the other three but it does feature two endings. The good ending I had to look up honestly though but I regret not figuring it out for myself. This was a decent time as well.

Not a Hero

Taking place instantly after the ending of the base game, this focuses on Chris Redfield in pursuit of Lucas as we never defeat him after completing his section and this wraps up that plot point of the game. Compared to the base game, this is much more action heavy and if you've played RE5 or RE6, then you'll be used to Chris being a tanked out powerhouse. I do enjoy the action side of the series so this was right up my ally. It isn't to long either, and is a good companion piece to the main game.

End of Zoe

This DLC focuses on what happened to Zoe as that was also left unanswered in the base game. With the infection taking over her body more, her uncle, Joe Baker, Brother of Jack, is on a mission to save and cure her. The gameplay in this one was really fun as Joe is a physical powerhouse, opting for fists only, no guns, with the only other weapons being spears to deal with alligators and homemade bombs (which I used only once). It was so much fun beating the mould with bare fists and it never got old for me once. We also discover that Jack is still alive and we get a final, final fight with him, both Brothers fighting hand-to-hand, very entertaining indeed. At the end, Zoe is saved and that wraps it up for the plot of RE7.

Though I didn't experience all the DLC at its fullest, I thoroughly enjoyed what parts I did play and they were great additions to the game, adding new playable characters and new gameplay styles, I appreciate how experimental they got with some of these. If you enjoyed the base game, the majority of these are a must.
 
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