What we've been playing - "The dev team all moved to Hawaii to make this one, and you can tell"

1st August

Hello, pinch, punch and all that, and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we've been playing. This week, Marie goes thrifting, Connor discovers the virtues of oxcarts, Dom goes back to an all-time favourite, and Kelsey gets cosy with... nautical horror? Sounds about right.

What have you been playing this week?

Here's another question: do you remember what you were playing last week? You don't have to! The What We've Been Playing archive has you covered.

Thrifty Business, PC

I've only had a couple of hours on this game so far, but it's one that nicely fills those moments where you want to unwind for a bit and focus on something else. The art style was the initial part of this that attracted me to it, the colourful combinations you can make by expanding and stocking your own thrift shop are chaotic yet somehow cohesive.

I went into it not knowing much more about the game other than you ran your own store, and the small extra bits you need to think about were a pleasant surprise. You need to order stock for your shelves, but you need to think about what is going to go where. You must organise the shelves in such a way that customers will be able to find what they need, for example stocking crafting items with crafting items. You then need to consider your stock purchases with the current themes you've got on your shelves. There's also requests you can fulfill and events to put on.

Like I said, I've only had a little bit of time with this but I can safely say that this will be my 'I need five minutes to breathe' game for a while.

-Marie

Dragon's Dogma 2, PC

Ahead of the Dark Arisen expansion, I've been going back through this strange, wonderful game. Buried perhaps beneath the weight of its predecessor, I'm still blown away by the little details here. The challenging little hurdles the game throws at you.

I'm also trying my best to max out as much as I can about this game. I'm trying to get one of every piece of armour, every weapon. I'm sinking an absurd amount of money into upgrade pieces I particularly like. I'm also nearly finished gathered all the seeker tokens, and all the golden beetles.

Like has been said by many before me, Dragon's Dogma 2 is best played when you're just having a good time navigating the world. Rushing through it does rip the magic out a bit, though I will confess the infinite ferrystone in my inventory has tempted me to just warp all over the place. Still, taking an oxcart, or going on a big trek across the map, remains enjoyable. If you see a pawn looking to kill Chimera, why not take them along. It could be mine!

-Connor

Final Fantasy 10/10-2, Switch 2

Final Fantasy 10 turned 25 this week. The game, which originally launched on July 19, 2001, is one of my all-time favourites: somewhere between a treatise on the dogma of organised religion, and a reflection on the doomed nature of young love. The dev team all moved to Hawaii to make this one, and you can tell in its world; at once nostalgic and weirdly hostile, cozy and undercut with this dense feeling of dread, Spira is probably the most complete FF world in the whole canon (and I say that as someone who loves FF8 the most, and the best thing about that game is the scale and nuance of its world).

Coming back to FF10 - with progression boosters like permanent overdrives, all item toggles, and 2x/4x speed options - reminds me why I fell in love with this game. Breaking the Sphere Grid from the opening hours actually makes me appreciate how well-balanced the game is even more, and getting to dash through some of the sloggier bits (Via Purifico, anyone?) makes me appreciate the likes of the Calm Lands and Djose and the Mi'ihen Highroad even more. What a game. It's aged like fine champagne, even if the HD Remaster graphics are ugly as sin.

-Dom

Dredge, Switch 2

I've had a tumultuous week, so what better way to unwind than by fishing in the cosy albeit spooky world of Dredge? I'm aware I'm getting to this game pretty late, and honestly, after having spent a few hours with it now, I'm rather annoyed I didn't play sooner. If you're a fan of both fishing in video games and horror in general, as I am, it's pretty much the perfect cosy game.

-Kelsey

Newspaper