De_Narm

How is Shiren the Wanderer a roguelike without any meta progression, aren't they part of the genre?

The original game Rogue didn't have any meta progression, that's been tacked onto the genre later. Back then, people tried to establish 'roguelike' for games without meta progression and 'roguelite' for ones who do. Didn't stick apparently.

Shiren ist actually quite faithful to Rogue as a whole.

There are ways to keep gear between runs to force some meta progression, but most dungeons don't allow you to bring items in anyways. It's mostly a thing for the story dungeon.

Any recommendation to try? To see if the genre is for me or not.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is generally the most popular sub-series. Especially the first two games - with Explorers of Sky being the best one overall. There is also a Switch remake of the first game.

These games aren't roguelikes at all, you keep your level and everything and there's an actual story.

If you don't care for that, Shiren has the most depth instead but can be quite overwhelming. Unlike Pokemon you can get these games for like 2 bucks during sales.

Started 13 Sentinel Aegis Rim!

It's a weird mix of a strategy game and a visual novel. It didn't grip me immediately, but I'm really starting to get into it. There are 13 different perspectives you can follow - they all overlap, but they are not told in order. There's giant mechs and time travel shenanigans involved. The biggest hurdle thus far was simply starting it. From the get-go, the story gets told like you already know most things, and it's on you to make sense of it all. I like this approach, but I'm not always in the mood for it.

Dabbled in some rougelikes this week.

Played some Ball x Pit while it was free. I did really enjoy the game, it has a certain addictive quality to it. At the same time, I don't feel like there's enough player agency outside of picking upgrades. Most of the time, I basically just needed to walk left - right to collect EXP. It's one of those game I can see myself putting a lot of time in really fast and then kinda regretting it. Every blue moon, that happens with an idle game.

Also played some Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate. This one is quite the opposite. There's little to no meta progression and it's choke-full of decisions to make. I simply love Mystery Dungeon games and this is no exception, even though I specifically avoided it for so long because I prefer the story based ones like Chobo or Pokemon. But that makes it perfect while I only have Visual Novels going on and sometimes need a burst of pure gameplay.

Just did the 4th trial of Danganronpa.

Seeing how slimerancher finished the game, chances are I'll finish the game over the weekend. If so, I'll add another post about it here while it's fresh in my memory.

Finished Octopath Traveler II!

The final stretch using all characters together within the story and allowing you to swap them at any time was the best part of the game by far. The final boss was quite epic and even had a cool new mechanic!

Sadly, the hidden final boss was none of that. It's one of those 'wiki bosses' you'll usually only beat by looking up either just a guide or lists of all available abilities and pieces of equipment and where to find them. I didn't feel like doing hours of prep work.

Overall, I did enjoy the game a fair bit more than the first one, but Octopath is still leagues behind Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default in my personal ranking. Still, anything by Team Asano is at least good. (Well, maybe except for Various Daylife, but I never played it myself. Someday on sale, perhaps.)

More Danganronpa!

Still enjoying the game, but I think the class trials could be a tad shorter. They can also be somewhat frustrating, I died twice testing every single combination in an argument, simply because I didn't know or forgot about being able to carry absorbed arguments into the next cycle. Luckily, you don't have to repeat the whole thing when running out of hearts.

Next up is 13 Sentinels! Actually my last game on the backlog, discounting Nioh 2 (lent out my PS4) and stuff on Steam I've had for almost a decade (I was waiting for the crypto craze to die down before buying a modern PC, then AI happened...).

Wait, what? Is that something people experience?

The logo is such a downgrade, I would love to see the last build they had before restarting. The original announcement had me way more interested than this one.

Still, I'm glad there was anything at all to show. It's been 9 years since DQ11. Almost a quarter of the whole 40 years they are supposed to celebrate. Seems like it will take a few more years, given the barebones trailer.

Yep. I loved Joker 1 + 2, but questioned my nostalgia with Dark Prince. That one just felt off, Joker still is great.

I was starting to get hyped, but no Switch (2)? It actually ran suprisingly good on there. Also, seeing how the Steam Deck is priced now, I probably won't buy a Steam Maschine once it gets properly announced. Or any other PC.

Almost finished Octopath Traveler II.

Finished my run through with the 3 character team, finished most side stories and am almost done with Hikaris solo run. From what I've heard, the post-game isn't very long, although it does require a lot of annoying grinding. Normal content only goes up to level ~50, but the final boss seems to require level ~80. You can only reasonably reach this level by hitting a 7% chance for 100x EXP from a certain (expensive) recruitable NPC within a fight with a rare monster encounter. Think metal slimes. I don't have a number for that one, but I've seen 2 during my ~65 hours. Rinse and repeat for multiple teams.

...yeah, not really feeling that one. I'll try fighting him low level. I'm not good with resetting for random stuff.

Did the second chapter of Danganronpa. Just an hour ago, actually.

The status quo changed so much, I feel like any semblance of normalcy or trust are gone.

I remember putting so much time into the GameCube version as a kid, but I don't think I ever finished the game even once.

For the most part, I just enjoyed doing the police chases and dragging them out as long as possible. Think multiple hour long ones. Destroying police cars and creating as much property damage as humanly possible. Sadly, on the higher levels these became quickly frustrating as the police started deploying instant K.O. spike traps. Losing your run an hour in to one of these was the worst feeling.

The actual racing was fun, too, although I never liked drag races. Their control scheme was just awful. And I probably wasn't any good at racing, given that I don't remember ever finishing the game.

Still, I have a lot of nostalgia for the game and the soundtrack shaped my tastes in music to this day. I haven't enjoyed another racing game since then, I should probably go back and finish it.

I think it's worth to have a look at either the Gothic or Risen games, both made by the same people. They are quite old and janky, but they check a lot of your boxes.

There's also a remake comming up for Gothic 1.

As someone who's lived in Germany for years: that's a first for him.