Artist credit: Verdimand

Context: Yesterday Level-5 (a well-respected developer of such franchises as Yokai Watch, Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven and Ni No Kuni) held a livestream for their upcoming games that was stuffed to the brim with really bad, and really obvious, AI content.

We seriously have to stop accepting the laziness of the Pokemon Franchise that we've seen in the mainline games.

Unfortunately, they know we will still buy it either way.

Edit: I know Gamefreak did not make Pokopia or OoT

I should have separated them better. The connection between the 3 games is Game freak + Nintendo + Pokemon Company

Edit 2: Graphical fidelity does not have to mean hyper realism. Games can be stylized and be high fidelity, without looking like real life. Recent HD2D games are examples of what I would call high fidelity, and they're pixel art.

High fidelity just means quality, care, and style. Beautiful environments, things that make you stop and say "Holy shit", it doesn't have to look like a photograph to do that.

Whatever you make of friendslop games, there's a real silver lining to trend of cheap, goofy indie games blowing up right now. To me it seemed like we had a long stretch of time where everything multiplayer was focused on pvp or some sort of live service grind, but now I’m seeing all sorts of interesting co-op titles pop up.

These chaotic little low budget games kind of reminded everyone how fun it was just to play something silly with friends, and now people want to play together more. Devs are picking up on this and the co-op section in steam is looking better than ever. I personally had a similar realization and I’m playing a bunch of games with my gf and friends now regularly. Recently we had a good few weeks of fun with Mechameleon with friends and I’m pretty much running out of 2 player co-op games to play with my gf at this point. It Takes Two and Untitled Goose Game were our favorites so far and we want to play Water Me & You next when it comes out, it looks similar to It Takes Two but with some base building stuff as well. 

I feel like it was way harder to get someone to try a game like that with you before, everyone was just stuck on their “main game” be it League, WoW, Counter Strike, whatever. Now it's kind of become more popular or cool you could say to play something with your friends, and people don’t just ghost you when you’re supposed to play together.

Has anyone else noticed this shift? It may be just something that happened my own friend group but it feels like a bigger trend.

Sadly, the ball is not made of adamantium. Still a solid 9/10 for me

I broke my right hand, what can I still play?

One thing I’ve always liked about Skyrim is how easy it is to completely forget what the main quest even wants you to do.

You can start out planning to finish one mission and suddenly spend hours exploring a cave, joining a faction, finding some random quest, or just wandering somewhere because something in the distance looked interesting.

A lot of newer open world games are bigger but sometimes they feel like you’re just clearing icons from a map. Skyrim always felt different to me because wandering off course could become the actual adventure.

I wish more open world games made getting distracted feel this rewarding.

Felt a bit different at the time, anyone else play this?

The build took about 100k+ blocks and a week to complete! I got more photos if people are interested!

Gotta be honest, the crazy taxi world tour network test isn't hitting at all. It being entirely online (at least by the looks of the menu) feels super off, but yes it's just a network test so they might have just hidden offline mode or something.

Feels even weirder driving around a very boring Germany landscape, the passengers don't really say much, they used to comment on surroundings and talk about the places they wanted to go in quips.

Something feels super off, can't put my finger on it, but it's not there yet.

Also the cars are very mundane looking..one of them is just a sports compact and the most drab looking thing I have ever seen. Only like 2 of the cars are actually taxis.

There is a few maps, but even the classic Americana one feels a bit drab. Lots of advertising too, five guys is in there for example which is a great nod to the original, just not sure why it doesn't hit right.

I have a pc at home and just want something to use at my girlfriends house. mostly wanna play some triple A games like red dead 2 and gta v, and of course some of indie game collection. Been contemplating what my best choice should be for weeks I feel like the screen looks a lot better on the oled but I know the rog has higher refresh rate and probably runs games a lot smoother. Somebody give me their opinion who’s had both, thank you 🙏🏻

I like playing handheld games on my Switch 2. Sometimes the game I'm playing is on my PC or PS5, which are both at my desk. Can't play them when away from my desk, so I like the idea of having a "side game" for handheld time, or even when I just need a break from a big main game.

Of course not all games will work as a side game - I'm not going to run Persona 5 on the side while I play through other AAA games on my desktop.

Do others do this as well? What sorts of games are your go-to games?

I am currently doing my first run through of Red Dead Redemption 2 and having a blast. But I know eventually it will come to an end. I was looking for my next game and stuck on 3 options. Important note: I’m on PC

Final 3 game choices are Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

I want to play all of these, but can’t drop $150.00 on games right now, so which one do you think I should play.

I really like all the side stuff you can do in RDR2 and hoping the next game can have me invested for 100 hours+

Thanks for any advice!

Tell me if you've played this game before:

You start in an easy area with easy monsters. The materials are oak and stone and iron ore. The flowers you can pick are daisies, and the fruit are blueberries. You can craft basic iron weapons and armor.

Then you unlock enough stuff to advance to the next area. The monsters are a little harder. The materials there are birch and flint and silver ore. You can pick daffodils, and there are apple trees. You can craft silver weapons and armor.

Then you unlock the next area with silver, hardwood, gold ore, roses, and banana trees. You can craft gold armor and weapons.

Then the next area, with the same gameplay but new materials.

Etc.

Don't get me wrong, I love these games and have played the hell out of some of them (Valheim, Enshrouded, Terraria, Core Keeper, Necesse, Palworld, etc), but once it becomes clear to me that tier 4 is exactly the same as tier 1, the spell is kinda broken.

What would you recommend in this genre that isn't the same mechanic recycled over and over? Looking for a coop multiplayer game to play with my 13 year old.

I plan to post a review on the game when I can, but just wanted to make this quick post in the meantime, because it seems it's flying criminally under the radar.

I haven't been this this happy with a game purchase in as long as I can remember. The last time I felt this way with a purchase was Elden ring, and before that I cannot even remember. Not only is it incredible, it is less than $20. I don't exaggerate when I say it is restoring my faith in gaming; that games can still bring me with this much enjoyment.

This team deserves way more credit and attention than what they seem to be getting.