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!
It’s been a pretty busy week for me, gaming wise. I finally finished (mostly) Dragon Quest XI S – I just need to beat the secret superboss to complete all the achievements, but I was definitely not in the mood to tackle that particular challenge after 106 hours with the game. That being said, what an absolute blast. I had more fun playing DQXI than I can remember recently. I’m pretty sure at least 20 hours of my playthrough were just making stuff with the Fun-Sized Forge. The gameplay loop was fun, the characters incredibly charming, and while the story was nothing spectacular, it had enough there to hold my interest. I would say my biggest complaint was the music. While the Overture remains unparalleled, the over-reliance on familiar themes from previous games came at the cost of emotional weight and memorable setpieces. Despite being nostalgic, the music of the world lacked personality, and there was very little in the way of variety. It’s hard to feel sad during sad moments when the music doesn’t support that emotion. The game was also too long, with a lot of padding that could have been trimmed without losing the title’s charm. I still had a ton of fun playing it – the Tickington side quest is definitely the highlight – so that excess wasn’t a deal breaker, but it was definitely felt in the latter third. Still an excellent gaming experience and I wish I’d played it sooner.
After completing that marathon of a game, I wanted to try something a little more succinct ahead of Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii‘s release later this month, so at my husband’s suggestion I picked up Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. First-person adventure games aren’t really my shtick (I think the last one I played seriously was Bioshock Infinite), but I’ve really been enjoying this one. Exploration is a ton of fun, and I’ve spent most of my current playtime just running around Vatican City trying to discover every nook and cranny. The world is beautifully realized, with a striking amount of detail to the time period that they honestly could have gotten away without. The story is brisk, and it oftentimes feels like I’m playing one of Indy’s movie outings. I also think Troy Baker as Indy is inspired casting, and the writing is spot-on. The actual character models are a bit jank and plastic with some stiff animations, but the dialogue is witty and clever and Jones sounds exactly as he should. I’m really digging this adventure and I’m excited to see where it goes.
Lastly, I tried out the PlayStation 5 trial for Black Myth Wukong. This was a game I was interested in after it was announced and then completely forgot about until it got some buzz around the Game Awards. Booting it up, the aesthetics were astounding. I love the look of the mountain, the gods, the enemies – all of it. There’s some very inspired enemy designs, and after so many European high fantasy style games, it’s a breath of fresh air to have a Chinese mythological take. The music is also subdued but immersive, fitting the general mood of the mountain. That being said, I was always under the impression this was going to be a Journey to the West game, so I was surprised when it absolutely was not that. Good surprise, to be clear. The setup is clever and gives you a taste of higher level gameplay right off the bat before tossing you into the fray as a significantly weaker character. That being said, as an action-adventure title with an emphasis on difficulty, Wukong is perfectly passable. Light attacks are snappy and satisfying, and pulling off perfect dodges feels great. I am not a fan of the heavy attack at all, though. There’s a significant wind-up animation that often left me feeling like the game just did not register me pressing the triangle button, and finding ways to weave it into your light attacks to pull off a varied combo was frustrating. I don’t want to be too critical though, seeing as it was only the first hour or so of the game and I was still learning enemy attack patterns and getting a feel for combat, so pulling off the move could very well come more naturally the longer I play, but during the demo it just did not feel good at all. I’d definitely like to give the full game a try to test that theory. – Leah
So lately I’ve been finally doing a bit of an Atelier Dusk trilogy replay. I’ve been wanting to replay the Dusk trilogy for a while now. I really enjoyed myself when I first played through the Deluxe ports for review purposes, back in 2020 when they first came out. However, Atelier Ayesha specifically, was always a bit of a barrier to me replaying these games since I really dislike the strict time limits from older Atelier games. Escha and Logy‘s time limit is super lax and not that big of a deal and then Shallie has none. In addition to Ayesha having a strict time limit, I didn’t prepare my old path that well for a future new game plus run. I remember transferring equipment between characters constantly, depending on who I needed and I didn’t initially sell all of my stuff to carry over money either.
I ended up managing to work with what I had left myself in previous save files and I somewhat blasted through Ayesha as quickly as possible. I did still ultimately enjoy replaying it though, I was quite sucked in. Plus, I upgraded various characters’ equipment, as well as completed the game’s main goal with at least 4-5 fictional months to spare this time. Despite having a strict time limit and not being my favorite, Atelier Ayesha is still quite charming. I still love the soundtrack and characters. But the other day, I decided I’ve played as much as I want to for now and I’ve officially moved on to Atelier Escha and Logy.
I’m planning to take my time more with Escha and Logy. Both Atelier E&L and Atelier Shallie were the games I really wanted to re-experience and play again. A big part of my reason for wanting to replay them, is that back when I reviewed the whole trilogy, I was already running late and skipped out on a lot of optional side content near the end of both games. I’m hoping to at least experience a little bit more of the optional stuff this time around, before I get too burnt out. Both Escha and Logy and Shallie were really fun the first time. Last time, I seem to have chosen Logy and Shallistera as my main characters, so this time I’ll be going with Escha and Shallotte.
Oh another reason I went back to Atelier Dusk, was because I finally finished my Star Ocean: First Departure R playthrough a little over a week ago now. I figured I would go back to something older, before I start yet another new game. Initially, I wanted to pick up one of the many games I’ve only partially played and put down at some point, such as, Atelier Ryza 2, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Harvestella, Unicorn Overlord, or Persona 3 Reload. Ultimately, I decided it was a good time to enjoy replaying Atelier Dusk via new game plus runs using my old save files. I don’t know that I’ll fully finish the trilogy before I take a break and go back to something else, but it’s been a good break from Star Ocean. I wasn’t ready to jump right into the SO2 remake after beating SO1 and it’s easier to pick-up a game I’ve already dropped than start yet another new game. See, I was also considering Fantasian Neo Dimension which I ordered for Switch after Christmas and haven’t touched just yet. But in the end, something more familiar fit my mood for the time being – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
