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!
This week I decided to finally continue my playthrough of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. One of the things I like about the Ys series is that I can take a good amount of time off from playing and then start it up again and not be lost. Started off by finishing up the Baja Tower boss and then took on a ghost ship. The combat is still a ton of fun and I didn’t lose my edge as many of the fights were done pretty easily. Oh, and also helped deliver a baby. Just another day in the life of Adol Christin. Honestly, the most difficult thing I did in my recent playthrough is catch a giant fish with Dana. That button mashing was actually really tiring. I’m currently playing through another flashback portion as Dana, so I’m looking forward to seeing what revelations come about this time.
Next, I played through the Final Chapter of Blue Archive. The overall main story was actually pretty good, especially Volume 3 and the Final Chapter. A lot of crazy events occurred in the Final Chapter and it was accompanied by great CGs and music. Sensei really does everything they can to help the students, and it definitely showed in part 4. We got a tease of the story continuing at the end, so I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here. – Patrick
Having completed the boys’ campaigns in Resident Evil 6, it was finally Ada’s turn at the wheel and boy oh boy do I have massively mixed feelings about her section! First off, the positive: It’s Ada. She’s witty and clever and has an exquisitely sculpted ass, no problems there. Along with Leon, she’s probably one of my most favorite long-running characters in this franchise, and her route made up a lot for the lack of zingers in Leon’s. I liked how her story tied up loose ends and brought everything together in a nice neat package across the three other campaigns. The little environmental details were nice, like crawling through air ducts while Chris and Piers fought underneath us; or sniping infected from a distance to protect Sherry and Jake. RE6 is many (good and bad) things, but one can never say its campaign design wasn’t ambitious. I mean, the story itself is schlocky and full of holes and perfect B movie fodder, but it was ambitious!
I hated everything else about Ada’s campaign.
Being the nice sister that I am, I opted to play as Agent so my sister could play Ada. This was a mistake — for me, not her. I have never, in all my years of gaming, played a “co-op” game this poorly implemented. Agent cannot do anything except shoot zombies in the face (which is, to be fair, highly satisfying). Open doors? No. Solve puzzles? No. Traverse the stage? No. Appear in cutscenes? Hahahaha. Playing Agent in Ada’s route is what masochists do in their spare time. It was awful. I know the production history of this campaign. I know it was only ever meant to be single player. It doesn’t make in-universe sense for Ada to even have a partner, let alone a faceless grunt who doesn’t even have a nice ass (the true horror). But if Capcom was going to implement a partner, the very least they could have done was let me open a goddamn door. Ironically, Agent has probably the best feeling shotgun and melee finisher in the entire game. Everything else about him sucks and I hate him. It was dizzying being flung across the stage whenever Ada used her hookshot, and having Agent literally disappear for cutscenes was jarring and stupid. Ada’s storyline also had the weakest ending, since we only get half the fight with Simmons and then it’s just a flaccid cutscene where she slow-mo shoots some stuff and sets a room on fire. I liked her “boss” fight well enough, but it was hampered by originally being designed around single player so there weren’t any fun co-op mechanics to it.
There’s a lot I liked about Resident Evil 6. The cutscenes are genuinely well-crafted, with some gorgeous shot composition and lighting. I found some of the setpiece fights really enjoyable. Piers Nivans is a character who exists because of this game and I am forever grateful (give him back to me). The co-op is genuinely fun. But the weapons almost all felt anemic; combat itself was really repetitive and mediocre since there wasn’t a lot of variety in enemy design (I genuinely liked the Strelac and Napad, though). A few of the bosses were neat. Most areas were dull and drab looking. The best things in RE6 felt like watered down versions of things from other games, and the best moments were when the game called back to its better roots. Agent made an otherwise self-indulgent victory lap a painful slog. I had fun going through this with my sister in co-op mode and being big damn heroes, but it ended with a frustrating whimper in Ada’s campaign and couldn’t even reach the bombastic highs of Resident Evil 5‘s campiest moments. I’m glad I played it, but I’m also glad to be moving on.
Anyway, we started up Resident Evil 7 immediately after and the both of us screamed when Mr Baker broke through a wall and chased me around with a shovel, so look forward to those adventures next week! – Leah
It’s that time again, it’s been a while since my last regularly scheduled gaming slump and I’ve yet again found myself back in one to a certain degree. I put down Harvestella after reaching Chapter 6 and tried to get back into Chained Echoes to make some progress there. Basically, I got my hands on a Switch copy of Sea of Stars but I figured, first I should make progress in my tons of other unfinished games from the last few years. Specifically, I thought it was a good idea to actually get somewhere in the previous indie RPG I picked up, Chained Echoes, before I start yet another one. I made a good bit of progress in Chained Echoes. However, after only a few days of it, I simply couldn’t be bothered to do all the more tedious tasks, such as hunting down additional class emblems. I got to a point where the game had warned me that I’d be stuck in some story stuff for a while and I should make sure I’m prepared. So of course I knew I should go do important stuff like collecting class emblems. Unfortunately, I simply didn’t feel like it.
After some contemplation of what I would get into next or if I should go watch some shows and not game for a bit, I ultimately decided to try to get back into Atelier. Some of that unfinished games backlog I mentioned, includes three different Atelier games. I’m in the middle of Atelier Ryza 2 still, Atelier Sophie 2 and Atelier Lydie and Suelle. I ended up choosing to get back into Lydie and Suelle first and I’ve actually been quite enjoying myself. It has only been a few days though, I could still end up back in my slump and not feeling like it. But for right now, I’m having a good time. I left off I believe in Chapter 8 and since I’ve gone back, I’ve been working on completing the various requirements to unlock the next alchemy exam, which will raise Lydie and Suelle’s atelier rank. In addition to playing Lydie and Suelle, I’ve also been redesigning a few different rooms in my house in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I had a few things left to collect and put together in my new main room. Then after that, I figured why not redesign my bathroom. It turns out I should’ve left it alone, it actually lowered my house’s ranking and I’m still nowhere near 150,000 points. Because of that, I’ve now decided to redesign my music room next, which is my last really random room from the beginning of the game. It was somewhat of a music/playroom with stuff like my stereo, records on the wall, a toy box, a vanity, etc. It’s just a really random room I did whatever with.
I don’t know yet whether or not I’ll stay committed to making progress in my unfinished Atelier titles. I would like to though, I especially need to finally get through Atelier Ryza 2 since I also finally got my hands on a copy of Atelier Ryza 3. I’ve simply been in this seemingly forever off and on slump for the last few years and I’m now back in this phase of wanting to try new games I got my hands on, but knowing I need to get further in all my old unfinished games. It’s pretty much put me in this choice paralysis mode and thrown me back into my latest gaming slump. – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
