roguebook
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yet another rogue-lite/like deck builder. this one seems really good. firstly it looks incredible. i love slay the spire like few other games i've ever played but it looks like dogshit and it's a miracle anyone can get past the awful visuals in order to get to the world class gameplay. (hoping slay the spire 2 gets artwork from magic the gathering artists or any great artists, really.) roguebook's visuals approach stunning and the gameplay that isn't far behind. i've only made a handful of runs so far but even this early in i've discovered extremely fun synergies and can't wait to try to recreate them later on with increased knowledge of the mechanics and enemy behavior. this game feels like the closest to slay the spire in depth, and that's saying quite a lot


devil may cry 5
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it's ok? another game where the art design and graphics are shockingly good. i was legitimately blown away by the character models when i first saw them. animations are amazing. enemy designs are a little bland but very detailed. backgrounds are well done but post-apocolyptic urban settings are kind of done to death at this point. the action in this game feels off to me. the pace of it and the dark-souls-adjacent commitment to moves is something i'm kind of struggling with. my bar for these kinds of games is bayonetta. this is probably an unfair statement. i am admittedly working with a limited data set here — played a little DMC here and there, and the ninja gaiden games but not much else in this genre — but i think bayonetta is the pinnacle of stylish character action games because it controls absolutely perfectly. i find myself struggling with the camera and dodging in DMC5, taking hits that knock me out of S rankings. i think once i get a better grip on how to not get hit and maximize style points, unlock dante, and finish the game so i can go back and attempt to S rank levels more easily, this game will be more fun to play


guilty gear strive
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dropping SFV for this. learning ky. ram was my main in xrd but she's legit broken in strive and borderline unfair. i don't like playing her. plus ky has cooler looking combos. i'm spending most of my time in the dojo training muscle memory for combos, occasionally jumping into the park ("casual" play) for matches. the game is pretty close to being good. i'm curious as to how the dev team plans on balancing things after explicitly stating that they don't want to balance it. i feel like i understand the thinking behind a "no balance" policy but ram and sol are completely busted and kind of not fun to play against even in the hands of novices. there were a lot of netplay tournaments run on 6.26 and 6.27 and watching high level play was utterly fascinating, even (especially?) with the game in its infancy. the teamsp00ky stream on 6.27 was awesome. ts sabin was hosting another tournament concurrently and a lot of those matches were good too. i highly recommend watching some of the netplay tourney vods for tech and increasing understanding of situational gameplay


monolith
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cool roguelite bullet hell shooter. not much to it but it's fun to play. good music. charming visuals. nice gameplay loop. good controls. it's a solid game to dump 30 minutes into every now and again