Intro
As fellow gamers, the Selective Hearing team has been immersed in various games this month. Busy times at the end of the year with the holidays coming. However, lots of games are being released, and big sales are ahead. Has it taken a chunk out of our gaming time, or are we building our backlogs?
Allen
What Have You Been Playing in November?
- Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake
What Are Your Thoughts?
SPOILERS AHEAD
After a busy October, I was looking to relax a bit and play a semi-mindless, cozy JRPG. Even though this is bundled as one game that shares trophy and achievement lists, I’ll treat it as two games. Let’s start with Dragon Quest I.
I forgot that the game was a solo adventure with the Hero all on his lonesome. It was good that you only had to plan for one person when it came to equipment and skills. It was great not to have to think about who to give seeds to to boost stats, just give it all to the Hero. On the downside, the enemies still come in parties or packs. So if you don’t hit hard and crowd control, they can take a whole bunch of turns beating you down until it’s your turn again. Then you have to make a choice decision on what to do, maybe buff or debuff or remove your status ailments, or try a skill to get you two turns.
Some of the boss fights can be super challenging as they can take multiple turns debuffing you, striking you for damage, or even calling in extra mobs for help. A lot of times, I felt like I put the controller down while they took turns setting me up for death. Sometimes the solution was to ensure you had high agility or were a bit higher levelled than the enemy.
You can choose between keeping the Princess with you for the rest of the game; you just have to carry her. I found it funny that I kept her for so long. She can walk, right?? The story does call back a lot to Dragon Quest III, so I understand why they chose to release the HD-2D games by story and not by number.
Dragon Quest II is similar in respects; you see some similar cities and land from the previous game. This one starts heavy-handed, with the monsters of Hargon attacking cities. The voice acting is very well done, effectively conveying the emotion of what is at stake in some of the cut scenes. I wished there were more voice-acted cut scenes.
You do have more party members, as they are descendants of the Erdrick line. You do get to play a bit of the new side character for a dungeon, but I don’t have her permanently. I do have the usual three members for most of the time I played. Now they have more defined roles so that you can set them up as your primary damage dealer or your support mage. The difficulty is pretty well balanced as I played on the normal level, which is called the Dragon Quest difficulty. However, if you aren’t paying attention, your party can be hit hard and wiped out fast.
This game already feels a lot larger than the first one, so I think I’m only a third of the way through. The map is larger, with more towns, dungeons, and other features. I hope to have a whole party of four soon so I can get through the remainder of the game. I’ve been enjoying the banter between the other characters, especially when the Hero is another of the silent protagonists prevalent in games back in the day.
What Are You Looking Forward to in December?
I plan to finish up Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake. I did get into the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls Closed Beta, and I’m down to try that for a few days.
Big one for the month will be Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It’s been 18 years since Metroid Prime 3, and I can barely remember anything from that time. I’ll be happy to see what is in store for Samus in her next chapter.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition — Launch Trailer
Greg
What Have You Been Playing in November?
- Street Fighter 6
What Are Your Thoughts?
I had a short trip to Tokyo planned for mid-November, and one of my annual traditions is to go to a game center and play Street Fighter against the local competition. Depending on the time of day, it could be any random tourist, an unemployed slacker or a salary person taking their work frustrations out by opening cans of whoop ass.
For this trip, I ended up in a game center just outside of Akihabara around mid-morning, where I found a series of updated Street Fighter 6 cabinets. I did a quick recon to see if there were any active players and sat down at an open cabinet.
As usual, I took a picture of the cabinet I was playing on to post on social media before putting my yen in the machine. It wasn’t long before I got a new challenger, an aggressive Ryu player who bounced my Juri from corner to corner. I ended up playing that guy around 10 times and maybe won 2 rounds. I think he got sick of tossing me around because after a while, I never saw him paired with me. So I assumed the player left or went to a different cabinet.
When I switched up to Sagat, I ended up getting paired with a Guile player. Sadly, I wasn’t well-versed in the new version of Sagat, but I at least was able to last a bit longer per round, thanks to using long-range defensive tactics while I figured out what his new moves were. Not that it helped, once the Guile player got his groove going, I could have just taken my hands off the controls and let them go on autopilot of ass kicking.
Suffice it to say, my win/loss record was skewed heavily towards the L column. But I had fun regardless, and playing so much helped get rid of the many, many, many coins I had accumulated from previous trips to Japan.
What Are You Looking Forward to in December?
I have nothing exhilarating loaded up in my new game queue. But I’ll see what backlog games I want to finish instead.
BigFreaky
What Have You Been Playing in November?
- Ghost of Yotei
- Pokémon : Legends Z-A
- Pokémon GO
- Pokémon TCG Pocket
What Are Your Thoughts?
Ghost of Yotei
New Game + has dropped, and I’ve begun my story in Ezo again. New Game + allows you to replay the game while keeping your power-ups and gear that you earned in the first playthrough. It’s not a speed run, but I’m in no way taking time to smell the Ghost Flowers. I was utterly obsessed with Ghost of Tsushima and played the game 3 times in a row. But with Yotei, I feel satisfied after my initial adventure. The game is still very much enjoyable, but GOT was really the first time I played a game like it. I will continue at my glacial pace to power up my weapons, armour, and gather all the new items. I’m basically biding my time until Legends DLC or regular DLC is released.
Pokémon : Legends Z-A
In November, The PKMN Company gave us a free drop of research for Diancie. As well as the Mega Stone to Mega Evolve. The story took about 15 minutes to finish. Waiting til next month for the DLC.
Mobile Updates
Pokémon GO
Wild Area came and went. It was mostly uneventful. Most of the PKMN that were spawning, I had plenty of and all the shinies, so it was a bit of a wash. Did a fair amount of Grimmsnarl GMAX, but not nearly enough Shadow raids of Cresselia or Darkrai.I would like to do more of those. No shinies for me from the raids.
I’ve also continued to level up quickly as expected. The real reason I’m not levelling up faster is that there are many time gates. (i.e. “catch a Pokémon 10 days in a row”) or some other very grindy task. I definitely have enough XP to level to 80 and well beyond. But that will take some more time.
Pokémon TCG Pocket
Just another month of standard pulls, but I did finish up some sets thanks to the new trading/sharing feature. Also filled some nice, rare pulls with the trading feature. Like the beautiful Dialga card shown below.
What Are You Looking Forward to in December?
Pokémon Legends: Z‑A – Mega Dimension
The DLC will arrive on Dec 10. A bunch of new Mega PKMN inbound. But it also looks like we’ll get access to the Legendaries of the past.
Still on the back burner
I have a feeling in my gut that I need to get to older Pokémon games sooner rather than later if I ever want those Pokémon to be traded up to the current Home system we have. Nintendo is bound to shut down the Bank and Transporter service at any time. Especially with the Nintendo DS system’s online shop being shut down since 2023.
