A friend and I played through Grounded last year, and are have been playing Valheim the last month or so- me via my StD. Now it’s out on Xbox, I’ll probably switch over to that, though I just found out there’s no way to link my account (though it is cross-play), so I’ll probably have to start a new character. If you have a co-op group that wants to explore and build and fight stuff in a procedurally-generated world, it’s a good one to try. Not sure how good it would be solo, though.
I prefer Tiny Kin to Grounded, though Grounded is fun for a couple of hours. Not big into “crafters” myself.
Soul Hackers 2 is really good, I’m about 40 hours into it. Too easy though, like most JRPGs I regret not starting on hard instead of normal difficulty.
I put it on hard after a few hours and it’s better, but the game isn’t balanced well.
The boss fights can be a little tough even on standard difficulty (especially those optional encounters you can run into), but the basic encounters aren’t necessarily more challenging on the harder difficulty, they just have more HP, making the fights drawn out and making it so you run out of MP by the time you fight a boss.
Great thing about this game though is that you can momentarily stun enemies before beginning a battle and just run away a bit and they disappear. But so far, it seems enemies don’t use too many support or CC skills on you. Still enjoying the game as overall it’s pretty good.
Aaargh never mind, old news.
First I’ve heard of this game. Day One Game Pass in 3rd quarter 2024.
That was shown at one of the ID@Xbox showcases some time back. I remember thinking it looked pretty cool.
edit: maybe it was this one. Kind of funny, was expected to release in 2021 at the time.
Yeah, that was announced with game play shown a couple years back. Another year and a half? whoa.
Coffee Talk 2 is coming next month too. I enjoyed the first one, it was a pretty chill game, kind of playing a barista to Shadowrun types.
Aw, not Mike Myers pretending to be a middle-aged, middle class Jewish woman from Long Island? Color me disappointed.
I loved Valheim, and didn’t find it particularly janky when I played the first EA version.
It has a unique art style, but great crafting and exploration mechanics - fun smoke mechanics when building things.
It does sound like development has been glacial, but I am excited to try it again in Gamepass.
Also trying Civ6, despite the series going away from what I like. Curious about the controls.
Finished Undertale last night before it went away. I really enjoyed the last half. Got a “go to hell” ending… oops.
I should’ve played Kentucky instead though. I didn’t notice Undertale was only a $3 game
These showing up as leaving soon on the app now:
Double Dragon Neon
ClusterTruck
MLB The Show 22
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
Kraken Academy!!
A Memoir Blue
Chinatown Detective Agency
Any of those worth trying before they leave? I don’t think any of those have been on my radar, so I basically breathed a sigh of relief this time.
I was about to write that I’ve played none of those but turns out that’s not true: I did play A Memoir Blue apparently. Feel free to draw your own conclusions that I have no memory of the game. I did kind of want to play Chinatown Detective Agency though, sounds kinda cool.
My conclusion: You must have done it for the achievements. Hmmm, I do need 3 achievements in the next two days for my weekly Xbox rewards thingie if I don’t want to lose my 180 week streak. So maybe I should fire this up. I hope the achievements come quick though.
Not much point trying MLB, unless you really want to play with old rosters, as the new one will be on the service imminently.
I played A Memoir Blue, a pretty short walking-sim/visual novel type thing. I think it took me 1-1/2 - 2 hours to get through. It’s very pretty to look at, there’s some simple puzzles and then, yeah, a bunch of achievements if that’s your thing.
Been meaning to play Chinatown Detective Agency, so I guess that’s my next Gamepass game.
I generally don’t play games just for the achievements, it’s an odd point of honor for me, I realize. But it’s entirely possible I was looking at the end of the month and needed to hit my points for MS rewards. I’ve swallowed my pride for that more than once.
I finished Atomic Heart the other day, and then was looking at the achievements for it last night. It seems that at least two of them didn’t trigger- the end game ones. I really wouldn’t care, but sometimes my brother and I get competitive over them when we’re playing the same game at the same time (the Vampire Survivors competition was pretty great).
Double Dragon Neon -
Didn’t finish, but I thought the music and art were pretty cool. Starting this up will give you a 1 point achievement so maybe don’t play if anyone cares about keeping those numbers perfect.
Clustertruck -
It’s a fun idea. Worth playing a little bit, but can quickly become frustrating. There’s also additional seasonal levels hidden away in a menu.
Power Rangers -
It’s okay. Tag team 2D fighter similar to Marvel vs Capcom etc. I only played arcade modes, but I’m going to revisit the story section. Most of the cool characters are locked behind DLC.
I’ll try the ones no one mentioned yet and report back.