It’s the Freakin’ Weekend! So What are You Playing?

Since you gotta get down on Friday, sound off in the comments and let’s discuss our weekend gaming plans!

Truthfully, I haven’t been playing much of anything lately. Between college, helping my mom take care of her sick dog, a few trips to the dentist, and running errands, I just haven’t had the motivation whenever free time rolls around.

Thankfully there’s a vast library of entertaining Let’s Plays on YouTube, so I just collapse on the couch with my girlfriend and our cats and watch games instead. I finished watching Christopher Odd thoroughly play through Bloodborne, along with the first few bosses in Dark Souls 3.

Both games look amazing, particularly the Gothic architecture and meticulously crafted, labyrinthine world of Bloodborne. That was one aspect I loved in the original Dark Souls that I didn’t get the same feeling with in the sequel, but I’m happy to see it return in Dark Souls 3.

I fully intend on playing through both of them myself at some point, I just know it won’t be anytime soon. And I really, really want to see the upcoming DLC for Dark Souls 3 without waiting to play it for myself.

If you enjoy Let’s Plays of longer games, particularly ones with great stories, I highly recommend giving Christopher Odd’s channel a visit. I stumbled on his channel about two years ago when I was looking for a good playthrough of Demon’s Souls and really admired his thoroughness. He played the game as I would, exploring every nook and cranny, trying to piece together the cryptic narrative while experimenting with different weapons and boss strategies. He doesn’t yell or scream for entertainment, but still remains an interesting narrator in his videos.

I’ve been chipping away at Superdimension Neptune vs. Sega Hard Girls on Vita, which is a pretty standard JRPG set in Idea Factory’s Neptune universe. In it, you control IF (pronounced eye-eff) as she travels to different eras named after Sega’s home consoles in order to correct historical events.

I’m no more than 2 hours in to it, so I can’t really speak for the story. The combat is fun though, reminding me a lot of Fairy Fencer F (which I really liked). Plus I’ve always had a soft spot for Idea Factory’s quirky characters.

I also keep telling myself to give up on Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness. It’s easily one of the worst, if not the worst, JRPG I’ve played this entire console generation, but I keep holding on in hopes of it righting the ship and finally becoming enjoyable. This isn’t uncommon in JRPGs, after all.

However, the characters and overall narrative are both poorly written, environments are extremely dull, and the combat is sluggish and hard to keep track of — odd, considering this is the one aspect the Star Ocean series has excelled at since its inception.

The real-time combat has a paper, rock, scissors approach where weak attacks interrupt charge attacks (heavy swings, spells, abilities), guarding deflects the weak attacks, and strong attacks break guards. However, with 7 (yes, 7) party members all firing off their flashy spells in unison, it’s nearly impossible to take advantage of this. You might as well be blindfolded while mashing the attack buttons and hoping for the best.

It’s not very difficult either, since the Day One edition shipped with a DLC code for +20% XP and characters level up relatively fast. I’ve yet to grind at all, really, and I’d estimate I’m halfway through it.

I’m just not having a good time and I know it’d be better spent playing something else, but I just hate leaving games unfinished. Even some of the bad ones.

But yeah, I have another busy weekend ahead of me so it’s highly unlikely I’ll get around to (or even want to) play anything. Breaks are good though! They help prevent us from becoming jaded, which is something I struggle with from time to time. I did pick up a few comics from the library, namely Batman: Legend of the Dark Knight 1 & 2, Wonder Woman: Eyes of the Gorgon, Batman: Hush, and Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne, so that could be in the cards.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep watching this Dark Souls 3 run.

What about you folks? What are you getting in to this weekend?