While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
I was a bit all over the place this week when it comes to gaming. I’m still playing trough Trails in the Sky and making steady progress. I see why these games take so many hours to complete: the side quests! I don’t mind this since it does help build this world and flesh out the people in it. My bro gave me an Xbox One to mess around with and since I had all Dead or Alive 1-4 I decided to check out how good they look on the console via backward compatibility, and they look damn good. Dead or Alive 2 looks just as good as some titles that release today, in my humble opinion. I went to the Mircosoft store and picked up Guardian Heroes right off the bat as well. This is the only place to get a semi modern port of this amazing Treasure title and if you have Xbox hardware I highly recommend it. Other than that I’m working on one PC port I am embargoed on at the moment. – Steve
As I mentioned last week, I’ve been dedicating most of my time to playing through a couple otome games: in particular, Amnesia: Memories and Amnesia: Later x Crowd. My reviews for both should be out by next week, but I figured I’d take a minute to chat a little about them. I don’t play nearly as many visual novels as Steve and Diego do here at oprainfall, but I enjoy them when I do, and these games are no exception. They’re a nice break from more gameplay-heavy fare, and I’m a sucker for good art and voice acting, both of which are abundant here. I also like a good mystery, which Amnesia: Memories delivers in spades (pun entirely intended). I’m playing the Switch version, which just released, but I’m curious if any of you played the original PSP or Steam versions. Either way, I hope you look forward to my full reviews when they hit! Other than dating hot men, I’m up to my usual Final Fantasy XIV and Nier: Re[in]carnation dailies, as well as sneaking in a few Splatoon 3 Turf Wars and Salmon Runs. I have so many games I need to return to that I’ve started, as well. What sort of backlog curse do you all have going? – Leah
I finally got back into some Atelier this past week. Speaking of backlog curses, like I mentioned the other week at the end of my XC3 review, I’ve been off and on burnt out on games for quite a while now. I’ll occasionally get sucked into something for a bit depending on the game. But mostly in the last year or two I’ve just started and not actually finished, a good sized handful of games; mainly RPGs. Because of this, I still have to finish both Atelier Ryza 2 and Atelier Lydie and Suelle. However, just a few days ago I finally got my hands on a copy of Atelier Sophie 2, which I’ve been dying to play. The first two Atelier Mysterious games I actually did manage to finish after starting them, at the end of last year beginning of this year. So I was technically ready for Sophie 2, which is still a pretty new sequel that takes place in the middle of the original trilogy. While I waited for Sophie 2 to arrive, I made a smidgen of progress in Ryza 2 and then I had a dilemma. Do I finish one (or both) of those older Atelier games first? Or do I simply have fun and start yet another one?
Ultimately, after I ran a Twitter poll which ended in a two way tie, I decided to start Atelier Sophie 2. Thus far, I’m having a ton of fun. For the most part I’ve been overall loving the Mysterious trilogy. so that’s not too much of a surprise. You never know though, I adored the first Atelier Ryza game, and yet I keep getting burnt out on Ryza 2 super easily and can’t seem to finish it to save my life. Nevertheless, I’m already pretty sucked into Sophie 2. First thing I noticed was the sheer charm, the menu design and all the little sound effects. Then I got further into it and now I’m anxiously awaiting certain story reveals and having a lot of fun going back to a system where you get new recipes from completing various tasks, such as collecting specific materials. In Ryza 2, you mainly learn new recipes from tweaking old ones as you’re crafting and spending points on the skill tree. It’s not as fun I don’t think, to unlock them in that way. On another note, I think Sophie is cute as hell in Ryza’s original outfit. Oh and one thing I do kinda miss though, in these more modern upscale Atelier games, is the charming anime style openings. I’ve played as far back as the Atelier Dusk trilogy and as far as I know, they only started using the in game graphics for openings in Atelier Ryza. It would’ve made sense to go back to an anime style opening for Sophie 2. I do enjoy the upgraded graphics during gameplay of course. Still, there’s something special about the old anime styled openings. – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
