MisterIceTeaPeach Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 I finished Touhou New World, the latest Touhou spinoff. It's an action RPG, pretty much Touhou x Ys. Whilst its gameplay wasn't flawless due to poor camera angle somtimes (too far away from the protagonist), it was fun overall. The dungeons didn't offer big puzzles but at least some challenging platformer parts. The skill system was flexible; skills could be manually interchanged as manual healing at any time was possible. A reward system of bonus points for fulfilling main and side quests existed which could be used to buff the character's stats or add some slots like more healing points. Forging system also existed, but it was based on luck. Weapons even could be nerfed. At least it was nice it existed...I guess. The most standing out aspect of the game was the soundtrack. Whilst lots of the bangers from Scarlet Curiosity were reused, the exclusive tunes weren't less of a banger either. The soundtrack was amazing! Spoiler For Touhou fans who don't mind action RPGs, it's a goede game. For hardcore action RPGs fans, it's not a bad game, but it has too many gameplay flaws. For belonging myself to both categories I enjoyed this game, and it had replaybility for having two different stories / two different protagonists. 7.5 / 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 (edited) I'm currently a bit more than midway through Persona 5 Royal... I think; I'm near the end of September in the game itself. Overall, I am really enjoying the game, though there are a couple of small things I found a bit annoying: Spoiler I get Morgana choosing to bottle up everything that was worrying him until he inevitably exploded and left the team, but the story arc takes way too long, and during that time, Joker can do absolutely nothing except give the plant in his room some fertilizer. It doesn't help that it comes immediately after the Hawaii trip arc, which was fun, didn't overstay its welcome, and didn't have every day in it end with Joker being in his room but unable to do anything except go to sleep. Speaking of which, are those days where Joker can't do anything except sleep but doesn't just go to sleep automatically just so that the player can save? If so, why couldn't they just give the player a prompt to save and go to the next day? Don't give the player the illusion that there might be something they can do that day. I initially enjoyed Mementos a lot, but now I'm starting to get sick of it, and I haven't even been visiting it very often; usually only after obtaining several mementos targets. I don't mind the procedural generation since each area is fairly small, but the fact that things like the stamp stations and Jose don't always appear does make it more tedious, and I'm not a fan of the reaper as a concept: I get the idea of it appearing as a punishment for staying in one area of mementos and grinding, but it can also randomly appear in an area from the start (which, incidentally, is the one time I encountered it since I never stay in one part of mementos for too long); the only redeeming aspect being that it's much easier to escape than, for instance, the gloom hands from Tears of the Kingdom. It's clearly meant to scare the player, and my problem with it is the same problem I have with most enemies that are meant to scare the player: once the fear wears off, they just become annoying. Other than that, the game has been a lot of fun. The characters are interesting and compelling, the story's been interesting so far, the dungeon exploring is a lot of fun, and the time management aspect is growing on me. Oh, and since I'm sure someone will inevitably ask: Spoiler I chose to have Joker romance Hifumi in this playthrough. I would've had Joker romance Sumire, since her character is really interesting and feels canon, but I learned in advance that Joker gets almost no time with Sumire. Edited July 30, 2023 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 3 hours ago, vanguard333 said: I'm currently a bit more than midway through Persona 5 Royal... I think; I'm near the end of September in the game itself. Overall, I am really enjoying the game, though there are a couple of small things I found a bit annoying: Hide contents I get Morgana choosing to bottle up everything that was worrying him until he inevitably exploded and left the team, but the story arc takes way too long, and during that time, Joker can do absolutely nothing except give the plant in his room some fertilizer. It doesn't help that it comes immediately after the Hawaii trip arc, which was fun, didn't overstay its welcome, and didn't have every day in it end with Joker being in his room but unable to do anything except go to sleep. Speaking of which, are those days where Joker can't do anything except sleep but doesn't just go to sleep automatically just so that the player can save? If so, why couldn't they just give the player a prompt to save and go to the next day? Don't give the player the illusion that there might be something they can do that day. I initially enjoyed Mementos a lot, but now I'm starting to get sick of it, and I haven't even been visiting it very often; usually only after obtaining several mementos targets. I don't mind the procedural generation since each area is fairly small, but the fact that things like the stamp stations and Jose don't always appear does make it more tedious, and I'm not a fan of the reaper as a concept: I get the idea of it appearing as a punishment for staying in one area of mementos and grinding, but it can also randomly appear in an area from the start (which, incidentally, is the one time I encountered it since I never stay in one part of mementos for too long); the only redeeming aspect being that it's much easier to escape than, for instance, the gloom hands from Tears of the Kingdom. It's clearly meant to scare the player, and my problem with it is the same problem I have with most enemies that are meant to scare the player: once the fear wears off, they just become annoying. Other than that, the game has been a lot of fun. The characters are interesting and compelling, the story's been interesting so far, the dungeon exploring is a lot of fun, and the time management aspect is growing on me. Oh, and since I'm sure someone will inevitably ask: Hide contents I chose to have Joker romance Hifumi in this playthrough. I would've had Joker romance Sumire, since her character is really interesting, but I learned in advance that Joker gets almost no time with Sumire. They ought to make a stealth horror game where you must avoid Morgana telling you to go to bed. Also, I chose Makoto in my first playthrough, as I liked her a lot and it just felt canon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted July 30, 2023 Share Posted July 30, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said: They ought to make a stealth horror game where you must avoid Morgana telling you to go to bed. Also, I chose Makoto in my first playthrough, as I liked her a lot and it just felt canon. They've made every other type of Persona 5 spinoff, so that would honestly be a good idea with that in mind. Makoto is definitely a cool character; I can definitely see why she is a popular romance choice for this game. Funny enough, perhaps because I'm playing Royal, it's Kasumi that feels canon to me. Edited July 30, 2023 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted August 1, 2023 Author Share Posted August 1, 2023 (edited) Despite setting aside time for them, I had to work to fit in three July releases. And I haven't even gotten to the Mother Encore demo yet! Banjo Kazooie The Jiggies of Time Spoiler After last month’s rom hack I decided I’d like to return to the real ocarina of time. But it turns out Gruntilda and Ganondorf are in a bit of a power struggle now that Link has foolishly trapped himself in the Sacred Realm. With its hero gone, Hyrule turns to its second choice. The Jiggies of Time is a full-length Banjo Kazooie game. 10 levels that serve as loving recreations of Ocarina of Time’s locations, all sitting where they usually are. Hyrule Field is the Gruntilda’s Castle Hub World analogue and it has one of the best zelda remixes I’ve ever heard. It’s one thing to swap out some sound samples to match BK’s “sound font”, it’s another thing entirely to take a song that’s not catchy and make it catchy. Beyond Zelda references, there’s gags and nods to all sorts of nintendo games from Donkey Kong to Metroid Prime. And someone seems to have left a treasure trove of video games on the ground, still in box! Jiggies of Time is an absolute treat for lovers of Banjo Kazooie. Level design and jiggy placements are imaginative without being too obscure. Your whole moveset gets utilized, in particular the wonderwing and ability to poop eggs out behind you see way more action this time around. The Mumbo tranformations are funny, though they did remind me of Banjo Tooie in a bad way. In Tooie, a lot of your play time is spent going back and forth across sprawling levels just to change your character and get them where they need to be. It’s never as bad as Tooie, but it does drag down the experience. You’ll need to collect 100 of 103 jiggies and 882 of 900 notes to reach the final boss and credits. Technically you can get away with 96 jiggies, by foregoing the double health upgrade at the great fairy fountain. Still, these are tall asks. About on par with the original game which is a criticism I've always held of BK1. But maybe less of a problem for a romhack. BK fans won't seek out this game if they didn't already love collecting things. Plus the author made a wonderful video guide detailing where everything is which was a great help to me. Since this is a Banjo Kazooie hack and not Tooie, Notes aren’t collected permanently, so it feels like you can’t allow yourself to leave a level until you’ve tracked down those last few. Thankfully, every level with bottomless pits (except for the last one) won’t kill you if you fall in. So that alleviates the threat of losing your progress considerably. Also the Honeycomb pieces that extend your life carry over a legacy bug where the last six don’t actually extend your health. Not a lot of people know that about the original game, and it seems the author didn’t either. This is a pretty great showcase of the Banjo modding scene. Modding tools (called Banjo’s Backpack) have been publicly available for about a decade. It’s a shame though that I haven’t seen the inclusion of Tooie’s assets or game mechanics in anyone's projects. Those extra moves could really shake things up, but I guess a tool that incorporates both isn't yet feasible. I eagerly await the next release by Kurko, whatever it’s called. The ending teases a sequel named "Banjo Kazooie: Stay At Home”. I’ve also seen the trailer for Nostalgia 64. And as best as I can tell it’s current name is Banjo Kazooie 4: Quest 4 Kurkoins. Most updates seem to be locked behind his patreon. Whatever it ends up being called, I’m sure it’ll be incredible. Gravity Circuit Spoiler Like a lot of modern indie games, Gravity Circuit isn’t shy about its inspirations. 8 robot masters, a 'Maverick' Virus, wall kicks up a single wall. Where it strays from mega man X is in the moment to moment gameplay. Our character’s attacks are primarily melee focused, and there’s a hookshot for ceiling swings and grabbing defeated enemies to chuck as projectiles. Both the platforming challenges and fighting stress aggressive forward momentum. And that creates a bit of problem when the enemies have contact damage. Your basic punches can make enemies flinch, but It’s truly difficult to stop just short of touching them because Kai’s air speed is maximum from frame 1. But even so I had a breezy time clearing the game on Normal mode and discovering a fair chunk of secrets along the way. Don’t have a whole lot to say on this one. It’s new, I had a lot of fun with it, just wish it had more content and challenge. The unlockable upgrades are really potent, and you can swap them on the fly mid-level to fit the situation. This game also has probably the most satisfying Dive Kick I've every had the privilege of using. I think the melee focus really lets Gravity Circuit be the best version of Mighty No 9, rather than strictly Mega Man. In both games you want to be right next to enemy when they are defeated. Punch Club 2: Fast Forward Spoiler Punch Club is a martial arts themed management sim with a really charming world inspired by 80s pop culture and an auto battle combat system with extremely vague rules. The sequel is pretty much the same thing, both good and bad. I had considered giving Punch Club a replay before the second game, and I’m glad I didn’t. It’s a lot of retreading of that old ground, especially in that first third of the game. I enjoyed my time with Punch Club 2, but I'm not sure I can necessarily recommend it. It’s a big time sink that only rewards you with more joke dialogue and references to other media every step of the way. It strings you along with the dopamine of seeing numbers go up. Once you’ve locked down the meta of how to find time for your training, satisfy health and food meters, you fall into an unchanging routine. A senseless grind. I was hoping for a more nuanced set of systems where I’m forced to make strategic choices that impact my character progression in the short or long term. I was hoping for more out of the battle system too. The game offers few tangible numbers to grasp what’s really going on. Even up to the end of the game, a lot of my understanding of individual abilities was just vibes. I went for a Stamina based build that’s good at outlasting the opponent and timing them out by the Fifth Round if I can't brute force them. But when I went up against an opponent with the same build, I had no real way to counter it and tried out different techniques until something inexplicably stuck. It also doesn’t help that almost every opponent has a unique style with a unique set of passives or attacks to read with their own vague descriptions. The lack of numbers makes it hard to determine which abilities might be bugged. I can say for certain the Melange buff was not activating during my playthrough, and I only know because it has one of the most unambiguous descriptions in the game: 25+ energy per round. There was a ton of save scumming, since I didn't want to extend my playtime waiting for the same match to open up in a few days. The out of battle strategy can also be frustrating because of that wait for certain events. There's no way to have your character stay at a location for even ten in-game minutes. You have to awkwardly travel some place then travel back to meet a deadline. One major change from the original game that we can appreciate is the removal of stat depreciation. Your progress toward the next level up of each stat would decrease gradually over time. That doesn't happen in the sequel. In its place there is a new Tonus mechanic that's a little annoying though. The more you use certain moves, the longer it will take before the game allows you to work on that stat again. I don't think it was quite so bad, but it was annoying that the latter half of the game was only moves with these Tonus Costs. I found myself throwing the same punches and kicks I did in early game, which is boring and stunts the potential for strategy and experimentation. Rayman Origins & New Super Mario Bros Wii Spoiler Lumping these together because they share a room in my headspace. Alongside Donkey Kong Country Returns, but I already revisited that a few years back. I have fond memories of playing these games in co op with buddies in high school. The hidden roller coaster stage in World 8. Passing the controller on the chase levels and Land of the Livid Dead. Hidden Alcove secrets. Rescuing each other from our Bubble state when we die. They have the interactive credits where you can butt stomp all the names as they go up. Another funky thing these games have in common is they’re not officially reboots. Despite all evidence and vibes to the contrary, Nintendo and Ubisoft will tell you these are sequels. This is what I mean when I say “reboot” is a made up word with no definition accepted by people who actually make games. These games released two years apart and yet Rayman feels a decade or two ahead in game design sensibilities. When you die in NSMB, you’re kicked out back to the world map – a vestigial design choice that dates back to SMB3. Every level has a single checkpoint, but you’re still looking at a demoralizing 10 seconds of reloading the level just to continue from that checkpoint. In co-op that frustration is lessened since only one of you have to stay alive at a time to keep the action moving forward. The raw level design is the biggest difference. In Rayman Origins, every level is built to facilitate the player moving at full speed at all times. And they prove it with the time trial challenges and skull teeth races. And all they had to do was consider objects and hazards moving in synchronized “cycles”. It’s so eloquent, so ahead of its time by appealing to the speedrunner crowd before that was a well known demographic. Meanwhile in NSMB success is typically only allowed for players willing to stop and wait for the right jump, or else circumvent the danger entirely with the flight-based powerup. In terms of visuals I have to give it to Rayman as well. NSMB Wii's character models don't look much better than their DS counterparts. When blown up on a big screen TV it just looks really icky and polygonal up close. Thank god the camera zooms out so much in co op play that you won't notice. For the record, I played Rayman on the wii as well and there's no compromises on this 480i version of the game. The UbiArt Engine is really making an opening statement for itself. It's a shame that it's only been used for Just Dance sequels in the last five or so years. That new Prince of Persia will probably play great, but not making it in the 2D engine has me scratching my head. Unfortunately, playing these games on wii reminds me of just how awful the wiimote is. It's communication strength is so weak that it gets interrupted regularly by nearby wireless devices. That cutting of signal can only be for a frame, but that's enough to flub your jump height or other moment to moment inputs. I 100%ed both games, and on every death I knew there was a non zero chance my button press was eaten or lapsed because of the wiimote. Very frustrating. NSMB compounds the issue with forced motion controls. The aerial spin that extends your jump requires you to give the controller a good shake. And it's hard to keep your grip on the stumpy D-pad during that motion. You also have to account for the delay in the wii reading that input - since shaking your whole controller takes more real time than pressing a button. I encountered difficulties with certain levels that ask you to tilt the controller to move platforms. If I tilted too quickly, mario would spin jump and die as the platform sails away from him. It's these same gimmick stages that are probably the reason we'll never see a re-release of this game. Or it least it's a convenient excuse for them not to try. Pikmin 4 Spoiler A rushed game is forever bad, but a delayed game is eventually Star Fox Zero. Also, Pikmin 4 is nearing the end of development. – Shigeru Miyamoto Here we are, a lifetime removed from that only-half-wrong quote. Pikmin 4 is here, with expectedly no marketing, and it’s better than I’d dare to imagine. What a treat. Like Metroid Dread, a game I had been waiting for so long to play is announced and released randomly in the summer. What I like best about Pikmin 4 is that it looks forward, not just backward. It’s tempting to release a Greatest Hits album of Pikmin level design, mechanics, and creatures. But Pikmin 4’s new ideas are really good too. The night expeditions, Dandori challenges, and Pikmin 2’s dungeons, all wrapped up into one seamless campaign where you have the freedom to seek what you want. Consumable tools, an upgrades shop, and even incorporating your maximum pikmin size into the game progression. I’m an especially big fan of the customizeable shortcuts. Switch, Spicy Spray, and Disband should really have been defaults – considering they had dedicated buttons in previous games. Of course some of the credit for Pikmin 4 lies with me. Or at least that’s how it feels re-reading my personal, just for fun Pikmin 4 design document. Can it really be coincidence that they also came up with my ideas for Poochy and Dying Light Stay After Dark For Unique Rewards missions? Whatever the case, I think I’ve earned the right to critique them. The night missions are just about perfect. A sort of tower defense approach with resource gathering and a new pikmin type unique to the setting. They take a while to get really interesting – I would have preferred that they throw some truly threatening boss creatures at you rather than a steady swarm of dorks ready to fall prey to your super stun and Oatchi charge. It also feels like a waste that it takes an entire day, but your Day Count never matters in Pikmin 4, so I guess that’s debatably a moot point. As for Poochy, mine wasn’t going to be a whole playable character, but his ability to roundup pikmin for you on his back or sniff out treasure is straight out of my notes. Great execution. Riding him feels a tad too broken, both in battle and for general traversal. Pikmin on his back are safe as kittens from enemies and hazards. And did the ability to Jump really have to be unique to him? With some early acquired upgrades, there’s nothing he can’t do. Seeing as how they went to the trouble of making him a playable character, the lack of split screen co-op is the biggest mark against this game. The co-op mode they did put in the game is downright embarrassing. As far as stacking up against previous pikmin games, the level of polish is easy to appreciate. Perhaps a little overdone. I really like that I can walk nearby idle pikmin to add them to my crew. How the Whistle doesn’t pull pikmin from their assigned tasks immediately. But that makes it take to pull them away in an emergency. There's an auto aim lock on, separate from the manual lock on button and it can be hard to get the reticle to target the right thing, especially in hectic Dandori battles. When mashing the throw button, the game forcibly stops you from throwing more than what's necessary. But that also makes it remarkably difficult to intentionally add more pikmin so that an object can be carried faster. There appears to be no difference in movement speed between pikmin, and I guess it wouldn’t matter if there was if you're the type of player to ferry all of them on Oatchi’s back rather than rely on their pathing. There’s a returning stalker type monster from Pikmin 2, and he’s trivially easy to evade when there’s no danger of pikmin getting caught on walls. Feels like a piece of the charm of Pikmin is lost now that they’re not as incompetent. And then there’s the decision to lock you to three pikmin types. I can see why having eight types to cycle through, plus Oatchi and Glow Pikmin, would be really cumbersome to manage. And what if the blues had to carry a 15 weight treasure but you only brought 12? I would want to stop the player from making this dumb choice too. Still it’s an awkward, unprecedented restriction that I think would have been best for dungeons only. A lack of difficulty options is another disappointing omission, especially since they started to break some ground in that direction with Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Pikmin 4 pretends it never happened. And that’s a shame with how high the skill ceiling can get in a game like this. Many bosses can be killed in a single Oatchi charge, and so much spicy spray is given to you for free that it’s a total waste of time to farm it on the overworld. Some of the returning pikmin types are underutilized, primarily flying pikmin, which sometimes lack the AI to fly over solid walls or hazards like they could in 3. Okay time for compliments. This game is meaty as heck. And it didn't need to make 80% of it's runtime dungeons like Pikmin 2 does. Bravo. A camera closer to ground level has to render more objects by necessity. And what we gain is the ability to see items of interest in the distance. The post game's got a lot to do, including an entire optional remake of Pikmin 1. I really like that most of the castaways serve a gameplay purpose with their missions. I like the ambient dialogue from your crew. Reminding you of controls, telling you when pikmin are having trouble. Wish they made fun comments about all the weird treasures we were collecting. The only instance of that is when you bring home a picture of two pet dogs, and they comment that they look like Oatchi. They could have had a lot of fun writing jokes about this game's treasures. No Fire Emblem this month? Yeah, FE12 is what killed the consecutive streak. I was not having a fun time. I'm still interested in Fire Emblem though and hope to play more soon. Edited August 1, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted August 2, 2023 Share Posted August 2, 2023 (edited) I'm a fair bit further in Persona 5 Royal. Due to an unfortunate glitch I cannot undo; only leave a note to myself for how to avoid it occurring in any subsequent playthrough, I am locked out of one of completing one of the things that can be done. Other than that, the game has mostly been fun. I just completed October in the game itself. I was critical of how little the player is able to do in September in the game, but October is almost just as bad in this regard. It doesn't help that there is a confidant character in Royal whose bond rank must reach rank 9 before November 18th in order to access the Royal-exclusive story arc. Thankfully, I'm at rank 7 for that character and I've only just started November, but it is frustrating that there were plenty of days in September and October that could've been used for reaching rank 9. Similarly, there's another character whose bond rank must be rank 8 before November 18th or the rest of their bond conversations will be locked, and both of these characters use the exact same time slot (daytime) for their bond conversations. I really dislike permanently-missable content in games, and I suppose one of the main reasons I dislike time-management games is that they're built around the idea of being able to permanently miss out on content. All that said, there was some stuff I enjoyed in the October section of the game: Spoiler I enjoyed the school festival part of the game. Seeing Ryugi's attempt to force Mishima onto the stage was fun, as was seeing him turn out to have stage-fright. I also enjoyed the cutscene where "Kasumi"/Sumire dances. It was nice. It's funny; Sumire appears frequently throughout the game in scenes that are fun and well-written, but those scenes don't do much and rarely integrate into the main plot. Moreover, she appears in Hawaii, yet the player doesn't have the option to spend time with her in Hawaii, and here she gets time with Joker at the school festival including a full cutscene of her dancing, yet the player does not have the option to spend more time with her at the school festival when Joker has to choose to spend time with someone at the festival. It's all as if the developers wanted Sumire to be a major character that complements Joker, and yet at the same time doesn't want her to be too involved in or integrated into the base game's plot. It's rather weird to me, especially since Sumire is honestly a really cool character. EDIT: One of the characters I mentioned above actually uses the evening timeslot for the last two bond conversations thankfully, so that helps. Edited August 2, 2023 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted August 27, 2023 Share Posted August 27, 2023 (edited) I did NOT expect to smash my backlog this hard this month, holy shit. 41. Diablo 2 Resurrected Completed/Quit (8/2 - made it to Diablo) A "for its time" weighted score of 5/10, maybe 6. But my actual enjoyment was around a 2/10 or 3/10. I don't regret playing this as a historical piece. But as a game, it's like the pre-alpha version of Path of Exile. Not to mention Diablo 3, which has become a nigh-perfect loot grinder. + Plenty of room for build diversity in classic ARPG systems + Fair amount of content. - Remake did not do enough to improve visuals, or add needed quality of life. - Inventory Tetris is an actual joke in a loot-based genre. - Slow, archaic gameplay. Slow movement. Percentage misses for player, not for enemies. - Stingy loot and xp gains. - Enemy design is frequently cheap and overpowered. Diablo literally one-shotting me had to be a fuck-damned joke. - Early game is boring as shit, making the hardcore hero loop less fun. - Genderlocked classes are acceptable in an RPG from 2003. They are not acceptable in a modern RPG, or a full remake. 42. Darksiders Warmastered Completed 8/5. 7/10. I own Darksiders 2, so this one on the subscription was a higher priority. It was certainly a PS3-era game of its time, but its blend of GoW and Zelda was fun. + Fun, simple combat. + Mostly fun puzzles. + Strong lore, compelling start of a story. + Fun to backtrack and collect things. - Some frustrating insta-deaths - Clunky gimmick bosses. - Act 5 is pretty dreadful. Frustrating, boring, and takes up a huge percentage of the game. - Occassional very noticeable texture issues. 43. Sunset Overdrive Completed 8/6 9/10. Honestly, this was just such a uniquely delightful game. + Movement system is extremely fun. Grind on rails, bounce off objects, surf on water, etc. + Third person shooting is fun, with appropriately generous aim assist for a game with this much movement. + Genuinely hilarious and brimming with personality. + Strong artstyle. + Lots of flexibility in guns and modifications. - Defense missions are pretty unfun. - Ubisoftian in a bad way when it comes to pointless collectibles, side objectives. 44. God of War Ascension Completed 8/8. Somewhere around a 6-7/10. + Solid combat + Fun puzzles. Those involving repairing & decaying objects are particularly good. + Epic setpieces - Not a whole lot actually happens plot-wise. - Some frustrating moments, namely those involving sliding down slopes with the blades. However playing GoW1 & GoW2 really puts into perspective that this game is substantially less frustrating. - Quick time events. 45. Ryse Son of Rome Completed 8/9 4/10, but not unenjoyably so. If I bought this short, repetitive game on release, I'm sure I'd be pissed, but it fits in the modern Gamepass market as an experience that doesn't last long enough to wear out its welcome. + Impressive visuals that still hold up really well two console gens later. + Solid story. - Combat is seriously shallow. And not in a fun power fantasy way. In a this has no depth, and also feels unfinished way. - This is bad, because the game basically offers nothing other than this combat against the same few enemies. 46. Asura's Wrath Completed 8/13 6/10. Incredibly epic, but also very much a game of the worst era. + Amazing cutscenes + Awesome story, or at least a story that feels grandiose. - True ending locked behind paid dlc, AND S ranking 5 missions or replaying missions until you clear 50 missions. No thanks on all counts. - Combat feels like a poor man's God of War. It's functional, but it's not great. - Rail shooter segments. There are both awkward dogfighting-style mobile rail shooter segments (except left stick dictates both movement and aim), and totally disfunctional stationary rail shooter segments. - Quick time events ALWAYS suck. They're not fun, and even for a game that is basically a movie, they just needlessly distract from the awesome movie going on behind them. 47. Nier Automata - 2B Path Completed 8/19 8 or 9/10. I'm totally open to the idea that it's a 10. You know what feels better than clearing a game fresh? Going back and finishing a game you paused years ago. It validates your past gaming. For multi-route games like this and Triangle Strategy, I'd like to make their routes a yearly thing until they're all done. It prevents fatigue and lets me count them as a clear in each year. + Great combat + Soundtrack is beyond beaufiful + Compelling story + Emotionally powerful + Strong visuals + This is games as art - Never been one for genre-switching games, though in its defense, it's actually competent at all of them. 48. God of War 2005 Completed 8/20. 5/10. So, first off, thank you for starting such an awesome series. 2018 is a 10/10 masterpiece of action, adventure, and story. And I'm sure Ragnarok will be too when I get to someday play it on Extra. But boy did this ever suck in the most frustrating ways! + Good combat, especially for its time. + Strong setpieces, especially for its time. - QTEs - Bad camera - Instant death traps of an unforgiving nature. - Narrow boardwalk segments. The worst of which was coupled with instant death traps. 49. Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition Completed 8/22 10/10. Diablo 3 is everything an ARPG should be. + Fast combat with polished animations. A rarity in its genre. + Build decisions are immediate and tangible thanks to skill runes. + Generous in its xp and loot. + One of the few ARPGs to be consistently fun from low level to high level content. This is important for the Hardcore/Seasonal loop. + Incredible power fantasy. + Infinite procedural generated content + Removed the genderlock from prior games. = The Warcraft esque art style is controversial. - Story isn't bad for its genre, but it also isn't great. - Launched with a real money auction house, since removed. - Always online. 50. Sacred 3 Gold Completed 8/26. 5/10, but enjoyably so. It's one of those extremely basic, mediocre ARPGs like a Gauntlet. You know the ones. The ones with absolutely zero depth, but they still manage to be a good time in the most mundane sense. + Pretty solid visuals for an ARPG. + Pretty fluid and responsive animations. + Charming in a really shitty Amazon Prime Video LARPing series sort of way. - It wants to be funny. It really does. And it really, really isn't. - No variety in attack combos. - Only two skill slots. - Very limited build customization. - An ARPG without a loot system. - Bad story (but almost endearingly so). 51. Cassette Beasts Completed 8/26. 8/10. Extremely enjoyable. Hope it gets a sequel. It's everything Pokemon should be. + Strong open world gameplay. + Fun puzzles everywhere. + Flexible, forgiving progression mechanics. For example, you can peel stickers (moves) off of one mon and put them on another without ever losing stickers. + Levels based on party member, not mon. You don't level mons numerically (though they do have a 0-5 star rank level for evolving them). + Shinies matter. They literally change typing. Whaaaaatttt!!!! + The whole game is designed around 2 v 2's, with a cool fusion mechanic. It really works. + Type bonuses are really deep and realistic. They aren't just simple damage bonuses. IE: Fire turns plastic into poison, metal or water attacks make electric multitarget, air uproots grass so they don't heal, etc. + Chill vibes. Chill aesthetic. Chill characters. Chill soundtrack. + Difficulty settings (AI intelligence and level scaling as separate sliders). + Multiple save files is disappointingly uncommon for a monster tamer. + No HM slaves. Your character just learns how to do the movement ability. + Also the movement abilities are all fun to use, they all work well with the game's stamina system, and some of them can even be upgraded to initiate combat with an advantage. + Has little support conversations and even optional romance with party members. And everyone is likeable. - The 'mon designs are mostly really bad. - Does occassionally have really cheap bosses. Perma-sleep, one-shots, that sort of thing. - Some type advantages are too interesting at the cost of being too weak. For example, fire melts ice. But that turns them into a water type, which has advantage on fire. - Backup party members don't gain full xp, leading to likely a few hours of extra grind. - Small max capacity of items means you'll be going back to base a lot. 52. God of War 2 Completed 8/27. 7/10. Vastly improves on its predecessor. + Great combat + Great setpieces + Good story/lore + Good soundtrack + Tones down the difficulty of traps/platforming compared to the original. Huge improvement. - Still has insta-death pitfalls, and some insta-death traps. They are nowhere near as bad as the first, but yeah... - QTE's. Fuck QTEs. Especially instant death QTEs at the end of a boss fight. I'm also working on Kingdom Hearts 3 (cleared through Caribbean). My slow playthrough of Neo TWEWY is ongoing (in final in game week). The Ascent is my next co op game. I'm working on Fate Extella's side stories before considering it done. I put a little into Watch Dogs 2 and quit because it was boring, annoying hipster drivel (and not in a fun way like Sunset Overdrive or Cassette Beasts. In a hello-fellow-children way). I put a little into Ghostwire Tokyo and found it potentially fun enough to commit to. I also very much look forward to Sea of Stars' day one Ps Plus Extra release. Edited August 27, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted August 27, 2023 Author Share Posted August 27, 2023 2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said: 44. God of War Ascension Somewhere around a 6-7/10. Clearly held back by being a PSP game, but good nonetheless. oh my. That was not one of the PSP games. Ascension released exclusively for the PS3 in 2013 as the final game before the reboot. It's also the series' only attempt at online multiplayer. Will the reboot ever be man enough to put a team deathmatch mode back into the game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted August 27, 2023 Share Posted August 27, 2023 6 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said: oh my. That was not one of the PSP games. Ascension released exclusively for the PS3 in 2013 as the final game before the reboot. It's also the series' only attempt at online multiplayer. Will the reboot ever be man enough to put a team deathmatch mode back into the game? Fair. I fixed it. Also I "completed" God of War 2 now. As in, I beat the Zeus fight and had to youtube the ending. After 10+ fails at the end QTE, I just... give up. They add nothing to the game, and my bare minimum expectation of a QTE should be that it fucking works. Not that it ignores your correct press of a button, instantly kills you, and forces you to rewatch the same 30 second cutscene over and over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted August 27, 2023 Share Posted August 27, 2023 9 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said: A "for its time" weighted score of 5/10, maybe 6. But my actual enjoyment was around a 2/10 or 3/10. 9 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said: 10/10. Diablo 3 is everything an ARPG should be. inject these takes into my veins. this gives me life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tryhard Posted August 27, 2023 Share Posted August 27, 2023 (edited) I recently played through and completed Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I think it took me like 130 hours. Long game. It's also very complex, but I've never seen so many options in a CRPG which even if incredibly overwhelming, is honestly great if you do like getting super analytical. The game is very good in general, but also has some problems that kind of plague the entire thing. 1. The severely inflated enemy stats, especially on anything higher than normal. I was playing on Core, and shit gets like 50+ AC. Even more towards the end of the game. So you need to find ways to buff the shit out of your party with synergies in order to even attempt to hit stuff on anything other than a 20. This stuff would be completely ridiculous in the tabletop version of the game. 2. The entire nature of the encounter design and how the game will occasionally just fuck you completely if you don't metaknowledge your way into knowing they are coming up. The game likes to throw a lot of encounters at you in general, which is a step away from how D&D/Pathfinder does it where you usually only do a few fights per rest. 3. The heavy over-reliance on prebuffing in order to win later on. You basically need to download a third party mod that allows you to set up automatic buffing sequences to retain your sanity later on. Thankfully some of the mythic abilities let you buff for up to 24 hours as long as the spell lasts 5 minutes or more but it's still a massive pain in the ass. 4. The fact you basically need to have a leveling guide open for all party members and yourself to know wtf to do if you aren't letting the game auto-level your companions (which is also suboptimal). There are so many classes, feats, and permutations of options to take and some of them are just going to be suboptimal or even plain awful. 5. It will take some time before you even understand the combat mechanics to begin with if you are unfamiliar with this type of game to begin with. 6. The "puzzles" in the game suck complete ass. 7. The crusade mechanic a lot of people don't like as kind of a half-assed ripoff of Heroes of Might & Magic. I personally didn't really care for it but I didn't hate it with a passion like some people. The entire mythic path stuff is a total power trip which while enjoyable just means that they ramp up the encounters hard in order to deal with highly increased player power. But then, the combat is good, the story is fairly good (follows an official Pathfinder adventure path so I imagine it takes a lot from that), the characters are hit and miss (some of them are not very great), the amount of options you get is overwhelming, far more classes than any CRPG to date, etc. Visuals are pretty decent for a typical CRPG genre game but not quite exceptional production values like BG3. I guess I could say that even with all of its problems, I still played it for 130 hours and would rate it probably an 8/10, and even that may be a little generous. Edited August 27, 2023 by Tryhard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted August 28, 2023 Share Posted August 28, 2023 On 8/27/2023 at 8:20 AM, Integrity said: inject these takes into my veins. this gives me life. I've been told that my ongoing ranked IGN playlist for the year is absolutely loaded with hot takes, and this is probably one of the biggest ones. I just fall more into the Diablo 3 & Marvel Heroes line of ARPGs than the Diablo 2 and PoE line. (PoE's great though, without the need nostalgia goggles). By the way, have you seen the screenshots for Titan Quest 2? That looks insanely good for this genre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥 Posted August 28, 2023 Share Posted August 28, 2023 I recently beat Persona 3: FES and it was a wonderful game, it was a little bit harder than Portable but I kinda expected it because of its age, it's bound to be a little clunky. The uncontrollable squadmates aren't too bad as long as you know how to use the tactics menu, if you don't, you're in for a bad time. The jealousy mechanic was pretty annoying, and it made things harder for literally no reason, so I definitely despise this mechanic and I'm glad it's not in any of the other games. Overall, I rate it higher than Portable. Actually being able to actually walk around the environment instead of having everything be point and click is nice, and the cutscenes definitely made the emotional moments hit harder. All in all I think it's a 9/10, I liked it a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted August 28, 2023 Share Posted August 28, 2023 3 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said: By the way, have you seen the screenshots for Titan Quest 2? That looks insanely good for this genre. hell yes i have. my mom is the hugest titan quest fan so she's over the moon right now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted August 28, 2023 Share Posted August 28, 2023 26 minutes ago, Integrity said: hell yes i have. my mom is the hugest titan quest fan so she's over the moon right now Oh good for her. Gamer parents are the best. It's fun seeing dad light up when there's a new Dragon Quest or Horizon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 (edited) So many interesting games have come out in the last month, both on the AAA side, indie side, and that weird space inbetween. August was also the month of F3 and that loaded up my backlog considerations as well. Never enough time. Still wrapping up some non-gaming projects before I can dive in. Fire Emblem Gaiden Spoiler Echoes is the best Fire Emblem since Radiant Dawn. Just my opinion, of course, but it’s one that I’ve been trying to logic out for years. What makes it so good? Open map fire emblem is such a poor format for showing off what makes this series uniquely good among SRPGs. Is it because the presentation elements are still unmatched? Or is it just the game that makes the least mistakes? Neither of these are satisfying answers. At the very least, I think where Echoes succeeds as a remake (where the DS duology fails) is that it tries its hardest at making Gaiden what it always wanted to be – Final Fantasy. It modernizes the dungeon delving, it leaned into the town exploration/NPC interactions. It looks at the maps of the original and says “how do we make a story about these three random paladins in the woods”. I can still hear Berkut taunting "Farm boy" Alm. Lesser developers don’t think about what the original can do for them. They’re only concerned with what they can do for the game. Or else make cuts to the things that don’t support their vision. FE11’s team would have cut explorable dungeons, put in free reclassing, and throw in Kris. Not an avatar like Kris, literally Kris from FE12 wearing a Hawaiian shirt. But enough about Echoes. If I had the time I would have done a full replay after wrapping up Gaiden. Believe me the urge was hard to fight. Hearing that music, using the same weapons and spells, diving into those same dungeons. I had to stay focused. I played in japanese. I have a lot of issues with the 2009 translation provided on this website, especially now that I've taken this game in its own words. I’m finding out now that the Act 3 and beyond portion of that script was provided by someone outside SF and the contrast is stark. I remember when Echoes came out there was talk of them censoring the “I’ll crush these bastards” line in the final battle when in reality that was made up by this jagoff and immortalized into the fantranslation. What Alm actually says is “It’s alright Celica, I’ll stamp out those guys”. More a statement of bravery and assurance than an expression of anger. And the notion that any of these wooden, colorless characters would be dropping F bombs is laughable. The edgy teenager version of FE2 has done irreparable damage to a game that's plenty bad on its own merits. How does FE2 hold up as a play experience? Well, it’s slow. I don’t think I could stick through it without my emulator’s 5x speed turbo button. Animations can be turned off, of course, but there’s no natural way of speeding up the enemy phase action of watching the computer’s cursor select units and drop them. The dungeons and towns are as bare bones as I’ve ever seen. Forget that FF4 released last year, this doesn’t stand up to FF1's rpg mechanics. The only interesting puzzle is Duma’s dungeon that you have to work out as Celica’s team takes damage offscreen. People are afraid of having to “Do Math” in a battle-forecast-less Kaga era. But here’s the thing, when you equip a weapon in FE2, the speed drop and attack boost are immediately reflected on their stats screen. And all enemies of the same class have the same stats except for the boss. No stat variation like in GBAFE and Tellius. You do the math once each for the 1-4 enemy types on that map. FE3 was even more comprehensive, by having attack speed and your actual speed displayed separately when you press X on that unit. But Intelligent Systems saw the complaint "I have to read the Manual for weapon stats?" and tried to address as early as 1992. What’s the excuse for FE4? I think the better question is: What the heck is the excuse for Post-Kaga Fire Emblem? Did GBA FE’s multi page stats screens lack the space for an Attack Speed value? Amateur Hour Design on full display in the twenty first century. When did they make a UI as comprehensive as FE3’s when it comes to attack speed, Three Houses? The Battle Forecast is an overrated crutch. IS’ Famicom era developers have mentioned they regret the graphics of these games. Not fully understanding the graphical limitations of the Famicom forced them to cut the battle scenes of FE1, leaving only the individual sprites and no response to getting hit. This handicap persists in FE2, with every battle scene existing in that same black void. Furthermore the legacy bug of every sprite in this game having a green background behind it. It's unnoticeable against a grassy plain, but so little of FE2’s maps occur on grassy terrain compared to FE1. It's impossible not to notice. They really ought to have worked out a solution for transparent backgrounds because this looks especially low-rent among nintendo games of the era. It gets worse when you realize Gaiden released the same week as Shining Force. A game with beautifully illustrated battle scenes, explorable towns with shops, and a much more fleshed out script. Seeing that parallel evolution of how each game made a sequel to FE1 is kind of stunning to think about. Sega really ate their lunch. I feel like if FE3 wasn't already in development by the time Gaiden came out, the series may have ended here. FTL: Faster Than Light Spoiler I often wonder if FTL is a generational thing. Everybody I know in their late 20s was playing and loving this game ten years ago. But watching Gen Z not immediately recognize this game on streams is just...how did we not get a flood of FTL clones in the years since? Every hot new indie game gets its copies. There’s a hundred Vampire Survivors’ by now. And we were making fun of Minecraft clones by the year FTL released. Tell me you wouldn’t want to work on a “Oregon Trail but _____” project capitalizing on FTL’s success. You could do the obvious FTL but it’s eighteenth century pirates, or drop all pretense and set it in your own sci fi universe. The developers at Subset Games are regrettably disinterested in doing a sequel, so the door is certainly open. There’s a full conversion mod called Multiverse that’s been getting a lot of attention. I’m open to try it out, but I wanted to finally see all there was to see in the vanilla game before thinking about anyone else's vision. Technically I’ve been doing runs of FTL all summer, but I’ll write about it this month since I’m short on games to talk about. I'm challenging myself to clear the game with every ship layout on Normal and it's going smoothly. About 70% of the way there with every problem ship covered except for Stealth C. Learning what works and doesn’t work in FTL has been a rewarding experience. I managed to train away a lot of bad habits from my years of casual play. I learned the big exploits like sneaking Hacking through a defense drone, or the surprisingly complicated method of having two of your boarders switch positions in a single room, or how the Zoltan Shuffle can be used to refund spent power early on a hack or stealth. Exploits are fun, But the meta can feel restrictive once you know the answers. I’m always pushing for hacking on every ship. I don’t take chances on other purchases now that there's no intrigue regarding what is good or bad. A lot of cool concepts for ships just fall apart under the game's poor balancing decisions. Something like the Slug B doesn't work because Healing Burst can miss. Losing your run to things out of your control like the Mantis B’s defense drone targeting bug, getting shot up by attack drones as the stealth ship, or just not finding the store that sells you the thing your ship comically lacks. Even the best players in the world will occasionally lose a run to these things, which is a pretty outrageous statement to make of any roguelike game, the majority of whom are much more skill-dependent. FTL got years of updates, but some major bugs like the Mantis B managed to slip through the cracks. I'm peeved they never spelled out the exact % chance for fire, breach, and stun effects. Breach missiles and Breach Bombs are both listed as High, when their actual rates are 50 and 100 respectively. And I’m left wondering what they were thinking with a lot of these additions. The biggest let down is Mind Control. Seriously undercooked addition to the game. Assuming the enemy even has crew to begin with, It’s just less potent, less versatile Hacking that won’t meaningfully change the outcome of fights. It's a shockingly poor complement to boarding ships too - since you can't attack currently-allied targets. I can’t fathom a reason why it wouldn’t get past super shields either. It’s also way underutilized in events. So many of the most common ones have you making a bet on whether someone will betray you, when Mind Control should theoretically give you an easy answer or a safety net from consequences. Slugs are still pretty worthless too. Being immune to mind control just means the enemy AI will target someone else, rather than take their system offline. Slugs are characterized as the slimy, mentally manipulative merchant class of the galaxy. Soooo have them negotiate progressively better prices at shops the more you have, obviously. Currently there's no benefit to having more than one Slug on the crew, but that would at least be some advantage for Slug Ships. Super Mario 64: Last Impact Spoiler The description for this hack written by the game author "Legendary Kaze" (self described), warns you that he doesn't recommend playing it in 202X. Because it uses unique assembly code that doesn't reflect modern Mario 64 hacks. Okay, but who cares? I don't have an explanation for this bizarre comment, but I do have some context. Kaze's been at the forefront of Mario 64's Decompilation project. A 100% fan made from the ground up PC port. These are the new hotness. As far as I've heard, we've only just gotten the third, finished PC port of an N64 game a few months back: Paper Mario. The benefits include making the game itself more accessible (no emulator, just downloading an .exe and running it), and expanding the scope of fan game projects by having an engine that can support whatever you want to stuff into it. Most Rom Hacks can only add something by taking something else away, but now there's no ceiling. The drawback? Can't run it on original hardware. A lot of players love loading these hacks onto an everdrive and getting the authentic physical experience. Two N64 hacks I played in the last few months, The Sealed Palace and the Jiggies of Time, happen to be fully console compatible. And that took a lot of testing to make sure there were no crashes introduced and optimizing rooms for lag reduction. Last Impact on the other hand was developed exclusively for Project 64 v1.6. I had to contend with a laundry list of bugs when attempting to play on v3.0. Despite the headache in getting it to work, this is a fascinating and unique game. It has cutscenes, it has that Sunshine thing where each level gives you a preview of where you're going for that Star. It has FLUDD, Yoshi, and every Galaxy powerup besides Boo Mario. There are minigames on the hub world. There's so much here that is not derivative or a reskin of the original game. Not every idea is a winner of course. Some gimmicks are incredibly frustrating, and you're still stunted by Mario's restrictive, unresponsive 64 era physics. I think what best sets this hack apart from others is the emphasis on exploration. These levels are fully realized beyond the challenging obstacle course on the way to each star. When there's a secret, it's typically telegraphed by a sign or NPC dialogue, or just your own observation skills. And the level themes just ooze creativity. I think my favorite was Course 11. It's almost a shame that the majority of ideas and powerups aren't reused, because they could carry an entire hack on its own. I found the game difficulty to have a very smooth curve. It's plenty challenging by the end, but without relying on the usual Kaizo fare like extended 45 degree wall jump corridors or negotiating unpredictable slope physics. When you Game Over, you're not kicked back to the title screen. The game just behaves as if you lost a life normally. That's totally suspicious, so I looked into Last Impact’s patch history and indeed the game used to have the usual Game Over state. I 100% agree with this change - most modern Mario hacks remove extra lives entirely. But the unfortunate side effect is that your extra live count makes no difference now. All those collectable 1UP mushrooms now serve no purpose. Vestigial elements. A sore mark on what is otherwise a very tightly constructed game. Furthermore, they patched out fall damage - another standard change in most Mario 64 hacks. No one really likes fall damage. And the ability to kick let you subvert fall damage anyway. Edited September 3, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 (edited) 53. Hogwarts Legacy (Cleared 9/1) 7/10. Initially really impressed me, with its production value, combat system, and attention to detail, but wears thin over time. Also, before anyone calls me out, I neither bought the game nor had it bought for me. I used a copy dad bought for himself. + Impressive attention to detail makes the game an IP fan's dream + Flexible, excellent magic system. Fun enough to enjoy at a casual level, but also seriously technical to master. + Strong soundtrack + Strong visuals - Low enemy variety - Low content variety - Tiny inventory - Gear passives feel undercooked and shallow - Aggressively Ubisoftian in its approach to open world. - JK Rowling bad 54. Kingdom Hearts 3 (Cleared 9/2) 7/10 + Solid gameplay, if a bit shallow. + The Pirates of the Caribbean world is seriously impressive. Really streamlines the Black Flag naval combat in the best way. + KH has always had a great soundtrack - The story is incomprehensible, juvenile gibberish. - The removal of all Final Fantasy characters is lame and undermines the original premise. - Some worlds are actively unfun. Having Frozen immediately followed by Winnie the Pooh makes for a bad middle section of the game. 55. Sea of Stars (Cleared 9/9) 8/10 + Gorgeous presentation + Catchy soundtrack + Flexible approach to difficulty customization + Great combat + The characters all feel distict + Interesting lore = The story is... I hesitate to call it bad. It's more so bad it's good, with some frankly hysterical tonal whiplash. Like imagine if Fire Emblem Engage actually pulled off what it was going for. - Most of the characters lack personality, Garl aside. - I'm not a fan of the timing mechanics in battle. They don't really do anything other than make the experience worse. - A lot of the locks on bosses are a lie. As in they are actually impossible to break in the alloted timeframe, and don't even follow the normal rules of getting weaker the more locks you break. - Locking the true ending behind collectibles is cheeky. 56. Fuga: Melodies of Steel (Cleared 9/9) 8/10 Speaking of tonal whiplash. Take the most adorable set of cartoon animal children and put them in Valkyria Chronicles, and you've got this emotional trainwreck. I highly recommend this masterpiece to anyone who likes Fire Emblem and wants that experience in a turn-based JRPG. + Masterfully uses is cute artstyle and support conversations to emotionally batter you and make you want to protect them. It evokes the same desire for a perfect run that Fire Emblem does. + Particularly deep turn-based combat. + Effectively creates the same attrition-based gameplay and social sim as Persona in a more streamlined form. + Really excels at "one more go" pacing. + Interesting adaptation of WW2 storytelling. + Innovative game structure. + Likeable characters. + Beautiful soundtrack. - The difficulty choices are fake, if not downright deceptive. Not choosing the hardest route causes the player to lose out on so many rewards that the game will become harder for them. This is the problem with rewarding more skilled players with power in any game. Those who need the help fall behind, while those who don't need the help get an easier game. - The degree to which enemies hit you with status effects is obnoxious. - Blocking often feels bad because it only works on one enemy. And enemies tend to attack all at once. - Lack of saves in battle or even between many battles can result in game sessions going on way longer than intended. 57. Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star (Cleared 9/10) 3/10. So, when I of all people say a Warriors game is shit, it's really shit. + The roster's good. It's just one Lancelot short of having all of the anime essentials, and he's added in the sequel. And... that's the only complement I have. - This is not Fate. This is the same stuck-in-an-MMO isekai bullshit as Sword Art Online. In fact, I'm 99% sure they wanted to do SAO and got stuck with a different license but decided to do it anyway. - The story is so atrocious, boring, and focused on cringe fanservice that I literally started enjoying the game more after I started skipping it all. - The game is solely concerned with slowing you down. It uses the Hyrule Warriors DE style base capture where you have to spawn enemy officers by killing hundreds of peons, except the peons are more durable, you have to kill more, and they love to spread out. Also, this also applies when defending your base, against all logic. And enemies LOVE to invade your bases, so you'll be doing this alot. This game is the secret to immortality. It makes 15 minutes feel like 45 minutes. - Most of the movesets I tried feel really subpar, with slow animations comparable to FEW without Astra. - Low stage variety, and they almost all look alike. Except for the ones that have a slight Japanese flair on the same garbage online coding aesthetic that the rest of the game has. - The main story locks you into the 3 waifus (Nero, Tamammo, and Atila). And I do mean waifus, not heroines, because they spend most of the game's script uncomfortably dry humping your self-insert protagonist to death. But I digress. Want to play anyone else? You're locked into their side stories with the same 3 formulaic missions. 58. Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart (Cleared 9/17 - Platinum Trophy) 9/10. Just a really friggin enjoyable game. + Strong story, for a mascot platformer, anyway. + Ratchet's blend of third person gunplay and collectathon is always a delight. + Rivet is a delightful new character, and if they would up their production rate of these games, I wouldn't mind her getting her own solo games. Or just, you know, coming back. + The guns are all quirky and fun to use, and fun to upgrade + Collectibles are satisfying and useful + The visuals are good + The rift mechanic is fun 59. Ghostwire Tokyo (Cleared 9/18) 7/10 + Visually stunning and unique + Awesome animations + Ideal for someone like me who prefers slower gunplay. - More Ubisoftian than an actual Ubisoft open world game. Bloated as Hell. - Some enemy types are extremely annoying - The game frequently rips you away from your powers, forcing insufferable stealth sections 60. Diablo Immortal (Cleared 9/22) So, any score I give this is coming with a big asterisk. It's more fun than Diablo 2, but it's also so evil its monetization that it's a worse game. Ultimately, I decided on a 4/10 to represent that. + Excellent visuals for an ARPG. It's both grimdark and attractive. + Solid combat, if compromised by touch controls. + Their approach to channeled skill cooldowns is excellent and should be copied going forward. - Disgusting pay to win monetization - Level gates the story constantly. - Frequent intrusive reminders to try social and store features. 61. Trials of Mana Remake (Hawkeye/Riesz path) (Cleared 9/24) 7/10. + Charming nostalgic art style + Good retro music + Fun DW-style combos + Great class system + High replay value + Loaded with collectibles - Bad voice acting. - Can't smoothly combo attacks into spells. - AI is dumb. It doesn't heal reliably, and it can die on you pretty easily. - Certain trap sessions are stupidly annoying. - It's hard to like the characters. Charlotte is annoying. Hawkeye is generally likeable, until he decides to be a big creep. Kevin's voice acting is insufferable. Riesz is cool though, and I don't have enough experience with the other 2. As for what I'm playing now, I'm mainlining Lost Judgement and Chained Echoes. I'm also playing Torchlight 3 and nearing the end of my Neo TWEWY run (but it says a lot about my opinion of the game that even its ending arc isn't making me focus on it). Edited September 26, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyGrima Posted September 25, 2023 Share Posted September 25, 2023 1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said: 53. Hogwarts Legacy (Cleared 9/1) 7/10. Initially really impressed me, with its production value, combat system, and attention to detail, but wears thin over time. Also, before anyone calls me out, I neither bought the game nor had it bought for me. I used a copy dad bought for himself. + Impressive attention to detail makes the game an IP fan's dream + Flexible, excellent magic system. Fun enough to enjoy at a casual level, but also seriously technical to master. + Strong soundtrack + Strong visuals - Low enemy variety - Low content variety - Tiny inventory - Gear passives feel undercooked and shallow - Aggressively Ubisoftian in its approach to open world. - JK Rowling bad 54. Kingdom Hearts 3 (Cleared 9/2) 7/10 + Solid gameplay, if a bit shallow. + The Pirates of the Caribbean world is seriously impressive. Really streamlines the Black Flag naval combat in the best way. + KH has always had a great soundtrack - The story is incomprehensible, juvenile gibberish. - The removal of all Final Fantasy characters is lame and undermines the original premise. - Some worlds are actively unfun. Having Frozen immediately followed by Winnie the Pooh makes for a bad middle section of the game. 55. Sea of Stars (Cleared 9/9) 8/10 + Gorgeous presentation + Catchy soundtrack + Flexible approach to difficulty customization + Great combat + The characters all feel distict + Interesting lore = The story is... I hesitate to call it bad. It's more so bad it's good, with some frankly hysterical tonal whiplash. Like imagine if Fire Emblem Engage actually pulled off what it was going for. - Most of the characters lack personality, Garl aside. - I'm not a fan of the timing mechanics in battle. They don't really do anything other than make the experience worse. - A lot of the locks on bosses are a lie. As in they are actually impossible to break in the alloted timeframe, and don't even follow the normal rules of getting weaker the more locks you break. - Locking the true ending behind collectibles is cheeky. 56. Fuga: Melodies of Steel (Cleared 9/9) 8/10 Speaking of tonal whiplash. Take the most adorable set of cartoon animal children and put them in Valkyria Chronicles, and you've got this emotional trainwreck. I highly recommend this masterpiece to anyone who likes Fire Emblem and wants that experience in a turn-based JRPG. + Masterfully uses is cute artstyle and support conversations to emotionally batter you and make you want to protect them. It evokes the same desire for a perfect run that Fire Emblem does. + Particularly deep turn-based combat. + Effectively creates the same attrition-based gameplay and social sim as Persona in a more streamlined form. + Really excels at "one more go" pacing. + Interesting adaptation of WW2 storytelling. + Innovative game structure. + Likeable characters. + Beautiful soundtrack. - The difficulty choices are fake, if not downright deceptive. Not choosing the hardest route causes the player to lose out on so many rewards that the game will become harder for them. This is the problem with rewarding more skilled players with power in any game. Those who need the help fall behind, while those who don't need the help get an easier game. - The degree to which enemies hit you with status effects is obnoxious. - Blocking often feels bad because it only works on one enemy. And enemies tend to attack all at once. - Lack of saves in battle or even between many battles can result in game sessions going on way longer than intended. 57. Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star (Cleared 9/10) 3/10. So, when I of all people say a Warriors game is shit, it's really shit. + The roster's good. It's just one Lancelot short of having all of the anime essentials, and he's added in the sequel. And... that's the only complement I have. - This is not Fate. This is the same stuck-in-an-MMO isekai bullshit as Sword Art Online. In fact, I'm 99% sure they wanted to do SAO and got stuck with a different license but decided to do it anyway. - The story is so atrocious, boring, and focused on cringe fanservice that I literally started enjoying the game more after I started skipping it all. - The game is solely concerned with slowing you down. It uses the Hyrule Warriors DE style base capture where you have to spawn enemy officers by killing hundreds of peons, except the peons are more durable, you have to kill more, and they love to spread out. Also, this also applies when defending your base, against all logic. And enemies LOVE to invade your bases, so you'll be doing this alot. This game is the secret to immortality. It makes 15 minutes feel like 45 minutes. - Most of the movesets I tried feel really subpar, with slow animations comparable to FEW without Astra. - Low stage variety, and they almost all look alike. Except for the ones that have a slight Japanese flair on the same garbage online coding aesthetic that the rest of the game has. - The main story locks you into the 3 waifus (Nero, Tamammo, and Atila). And I do mean waifus, not heroines, because they spend most of the game's script uncomfortably dry humping your self-insert protagonist to death. But I digress. Want to play anyone else? You're locked into their side stories with the same 3 formulaic missions. 58. Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart (Cleared 9/17) 9/10. Just a really friggin enjoyable game. + Strong story, for a mascot platformer, anyway. + Ratchet's blend of third person gunplay and collectathon is always a delight. + Rivet is a delightful new character, and if they would up their production rate of these games, I wouldn't mind her getting her own solo games. Or just, you know, coming back. + The guns are all quirky and fun to use, and fun to upgrade + Collectibles are satisfying and useful + The visuals are good + The rift mechanic is fun 59. Ghostwire Tokyo (Cleared 9/18) 7/10 + Visually stunning and unique + Awesome animations + Ideal for someone like me who prefers slower gunplay. - More Ubisoftian than an actual Ubisoft open world game. Bloated as Hell. - Some enemy types are extremely annoying - The game frequently rips you away from your powers, forcing insufferable stealth sections 60. Diablo Immortal (Cleared 9/22) So, any score I give this is coming with a big asterisk. It's more fun than Diablo 2, but it's also so evil its monetization that it's a worse game. Ultimately, I decided on a 4/10 to represent that. + Excellent visuals for an ARPG. It's both grimdark and attractive. + Solid combat, if compromised by touch controls. + Their approach to channeled skill cooldowns is excellent and should be copied going forward. - Disgusting pay to win monetization - Level gates the story constantly. - Frequent intrusive reminders to try social and store features. 61. Trials of Mana Remake (Hawkeye/Riesz path) (Cleared 9/24) 7/10. + Charming nostalgic art style + Good retro music + Fun DW-style combos + Great class system + High replay value + Loaded with collectibles - Bad voice acting. - Can't smoothly combo attacks into spells. - AI is dumb. It doesn't heal reliably, and it can die on you pretty easily. - Certain trap sessions are stupidly annoying. - It's hard to like the characters. Charlotte is annoying. Hawkeye is generally likeable, until he decides to be a big creep. Kevin's voice acting is insufferable. Riesz is cool though, and I don't have enough experience with the other 2. As for what I'm playing now, I'm mainlining Lost Judgement and Chained Echoes. I'm also playing Torchlight 3 and nearing the end of my Neo TWEWY run (but it says a lot about my opinion of the game that even its ending arc isn't making me focus on it). Thank you for this it was fun to read Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinespark Posted September 26, 2023 Share Posted September 26, 2023 Finished up the Rayman DLC for Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, it's pretty solid! Kinda short, and being locked to using Rabbid Mario and Rabbid Peach the whole time is a drag, but Rayman's moveset is neat and the new clone Spark functionally giving you a fourth party member feels great. Loved that par times made a return in the battles, and adding some simple platforming into the overworld segments really livened up those bits, as well. Also, coming back to Rabbids after dozens of hours of Baldur's Gate 3 really drives home how excellent the controls are in the former. Pretty much every gridless tactics game should be copying the basics of how Rabbids moves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted September 26, 2023 Share Posted September 26, 2023 2 hours ago, IbrahimPasha said: I'm an avid gamer, and I've explored countless virtual worlds, but there's something truly magical about World of Warcraft (WoW) that keeps me coming back for more. It's not just a game; it's a vibrant, ever-evolving universe filled with rich lore, breathtaking landscapes, and an incredibly passionate community. The thrill of embarking on epic quests, battling formidable foes, and forging alliances with fellow adventurers is an experience like no other. WoW's ability to constantly reinvent itself with expansions and updates ensures that the adventure never ends. While I enjoy a variety of computer games, WoW holds a special place in my heart, and it's where I've made lasting friendships and unforgettable memories. For me, it's not just a game; it's a world I'm proud to call home. I get that. I regularly go back to Guild Wars 2. The Guild Wars setting has been home since middle school. Speaking of memories, I just picked up the Shining Force trilogy on my phone and ad-unlocked it. I've always had some serious nostalgia for Shining Force 1 even though I've never beaten it. Time to fix that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted September 29, 2023 Author Share Posted September 29, 2023 With the recent release of Sea of Stars, the impending release of Super Mario RPG, and the announcement of the TTYD remake, this is a good time for action command RPGs. I've been playing quite a few myself over the last few months and thought I'd focus my monthly update on Mario RPG-like games. Perhaps all that activity summoned the TTYD remake? I joke about these surprise announcements for Metroid and Pikmin in the past, but if any one person is to blame for the TTYD announcement, it's probably that blue muppet. On to the games Paper Mario TTYD 64 Spoiler With a title like that you’re probably expecting a N64 demake of Thousand Year Door. Not quite. It’s another conversion of Paper Mario featuring mechanics, music and items/badges from Paper Mario’s sequel. And it’s fresh out of the oven. Partners have HP, Superguard is in, your attacks have Stylish commands to master, and there’s a Pit of 100 Trials (though that’s not particularly a new addition if you’ve been following paper mario mods). It’s not another “hard mode” mod, more of a Paper Mario Deluxe remaster. And it comes with a built in item/badge randomizer, a prologue skip option, and a text skip toggle that lets you zoom through the dialogue at TAS speeds. At current version 0.92, the game is almost content complete. A couple bonus areas have not been implemented yet. Currently, 100% is not attainable, but it’s nearly there. Lots of extra rooms have been added to the sides of towns and dungeons. Chuck Quizmo has been removed from the game, and his 64 star pieces have been sprinkled in some clever new spaces. Everything else in vanilla is still waiting to be collected. Super Blocks are replaced with Shine Sprites, but naturally you need three for one partner upgrade. Only the most diligent of players will be able to upgrade as much as you could in the vanilla game. There are some unfortunate bugs and exploits waiting to be addressed. You can use the first attack badge to skip Pit of 100 Trials fights, the prologue apparently has an unavoidable softlock when played on Easy Mode (but you can skip the prologue, so it’s still playable). Items and abilities that modify damage and defense seem totally borked to be better than they’re supposed to be. You can swap out a party member in battle who’s currently at 0HP which I'm pretty sure isn't intended TTYD 64 features four difficulty settings, two harder than Normal. Hard and Impossible multiply enemy HP and attack power by 1.5 and 2x respectively. But really the most likely game overs are a random enemy having a time stop or dizzy dial and not being able to kill them. Thank god running from battle is so consistent. I went in on Hard which is ideal for any veteran player that isn’t specifically looking for Master Quest-level challenge. There’s not much rebalancing in the game (beyond balance decisions made in the actual TTYD), so if you want a more curated challenge, I recommend the other super hard mods. This one, meanwhile is easier to recommend to friends because you’re not expected to study and plan out every boss and come prepared with the best badge and item loadouts. TTYD64 has a long way yet to go. I’m in the paper mario modding discord and crash reports are being submitted every day. I encountered no soft locks or crashes in my full playthrough of the game on Retroarch... until the very final battle - I had to Power Bounce harder to beat him before he uses the shockwave attack. I believe this mod really raises the standard for PM64 hacks. If they wanted to go as far as rebalancing the moves and enemies. There’s other TTYD things they could add, Tattle and Recipe Logs would be neat and are probably feasible. A Trouble Center could be interesting, not that Paper Mario 64 is lacking in fetch quests. The Audience system is probably too daunting of an ask. A lot of folks are requesting the old N64 battle music back as an option. I was never a particular fan of TTYD’s generic battle music and these remixes are not about to change my mind. Ikenfell Spoiler Slotting neatly between the paper mario games is another action command RPG. This one’s about a bunch of teenagers solving mysteries in a magic school. Dungeons are laden with rudimentary puzzles and broken up by scenes of the kids learning how to become better, more socially responsible versions of themselves. The aesthetics are fantastic in battle scenes. I nailed perfect block timings the first time I saw many of the attacks in the game, because they’re so meticulously, artfully telegraphed. Like most action command rpgs, fights are rather slow in terms of minutes spent in a single random battle, but mastering enemies is so engaging that I don’t mind it. I’m not as impressed by the out of battle graphics. Character sprites are smudgy and lack detail or expression. Kind of reminded me of Celeste, which is ironic since the developer of this game is currently working alongside the developer of Celeste on the upcoming Earthblade. Battles take place on a grid, and each spell has a set range that you need to accommodate for. Might look like a Tactics RPG with action commands at first glance, but success or victory really came down to nailing those action commands and winning damage races against enemies. If you find yourself out of range of any of your spells due to poor positioning, it’s not a huge setback since you’ll get your next turn much faster if you refrained from attacking or using an item as you move closer. The battlefield doesn’t really engender much strategy either. It’s always the same 3x15 slab with no terrain. There are spells that plant traps into the ground, but that’s it as far as getting the player to think about how they move before attacking. It would be an easy suggestion to maybe have larger battlefields for boss fights, maybe some impassable terrain. A new battle “map” for each area to master alongside it’s new enemies? Small additions like this could have gone a long way in breaking up the samey-ness of battle Paper Mario Color Splash Spoiler You can't appreciate the good without occasionally witnessing the bad. Much has been said about modern paper mario, we don't have to go through the full preamble. When Color Splash came out, the common take I remember hearing was "sure it's not good, but at least it's better than Sticker Star". I'm here many years later to ask, is it really? It makes just about all of the same misteps and adds...a greater concentration of NPCs (Certainly not a greater variety of NPCs). There's a faux experience system, but it's so insignificant that it will never impact anything. It's a longer game, the longest in the series, but would Sticker Star have been improved if it were also 50% longer? I don't think so. Like Sticker Star before it, Color Splash’s world map gives you the impression of non linearity before dashing your hopes with wall after wall blocking progression. You’ll find a locked door whose key(s) won’t be obtained until 5-10 hours later in a level halfway across the map. The game will let you walk into a boss fight that’s un-winnable because you didn’t bring the Thing Card you needed to win. At least in the previous game you could duke it out with conventional stickers and still progress, Color Splash’s bosses will just kill you if you didn’t use the X card by turn Y. And oh...did you use the Replica version of the Thing card? Yeah that's not going to work. Even correct answers will game over you with no explanation. There are so many conveyance issues. It’s really obtuse figuring out when the game wants you to press Y to magically cross a gap. No visual hint beyond, occasionally, a subtle camera shift. You may have to hit an invisible block to make a bridge, or walk into a solid-looking wall. The game will verbally suggest that the best score at a minigame is optional before surprise, it wasn’t. Go back and replay it. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single "side quest" in this game, because everything ends up being mandatory. Huey can be talked to for hints, but all he’ll say is “gosh we should look for keys” instead of proposing any ideas on where to look for those keys. I don’t think he helped me out once in my playthrough. Exploration and environmental interaction is this game’s biggest strength, and yet I feel like a QA tester trying to navigate this unfinished mess. The low point of the game is, once again, the battles. One of the strengths of the original Paper Mario was having easily parsed numbers. Single Digit damage. The only variable was whether or not the player does the action command right. In this game I don’t even know what kind of damage I’m doing. There are no damage values on your attacks, and the only “health bar” is observing the paint of the enemies drain out from their sprite. Sticker Star was not like this. It’s a really ambiguous system that adds to the choice paralysis of what cards to use. You don’t want to blow your best stuff on wimpy enemies. And you don’t want to select one too many to attack with because any unused cards queued up for that round get discarded as if you had used them. You’ll pick your worst card to finish off an enemy with visibly no paint only to discover that it’s not enough to kill. Again, conveyance. I could get into a dozen hours more of battles in this game and still not have a good idea of how damage compares between cards. Enemies actually have weaknesses and immunities to certain "elements", but the game will never communicate it. And all these systems conspire into a perfect storm during one fight against a Steak. It’s a gimmick battle where you “tenderize” it with attacks until it’s ready for your Thing Cards to cook. But I failed repeatedly because I just had no feedback on how much damage was the amount the game was looking for. If you go over, you fail. And if you don’t deal enough, you fail AFTER spending all the expensive Thing cards to cook it. So battles are worse than in Sticker Star. But if you played Sticker Star than you already know that battles are pointless and it shouldn’t pose an issue. I spent more than half the playthrough with maxed out Coins through just exploration. There’s a new “experience” collectible that upgrades your max paint capacity, but it’s unnecessary. As the game explains in its first hour, Paint can be collected from anywhere in the environment, and is being refilled for you regularly. And you can restore it in battle with 1UP cards (because what else would you expect a 1UP to do?). Plus you can always run...right? Unfortunately Color Splash forces you into a lot more battles for progression, compared to Sticker Star. And when you accidentally start an optional fight, there’s the kicker: Running is no longer guaranteed to work. It’s a straight 50/50 chance, and you can’t influence the odds by mashing A like usual. The battle system is slow enough in practice that failing to run twice and succeeding on the third attempt may still be faster than fighting it out. Color Splash is actively punishing you for the “Just run from Battles” meta. And it's still the meta in spite of it. Does Color Splash improve in any area? It's a funnier game. Surprise surprise that loading your game with 5x the dialogue is going to produce one or two jokes or sight gags that will get a chortle out of the player. How the 2010s youtuber lingo, mario kart memes, and paper puns stack up against TTYD's 90s Saturday morning cartoon inspired dialogue is a matter of personal preference. Nothing made me laugh as hard as randomly breaking character to tell Punio "Guess again, Nerd!". But when you're in a miserable situation in real life, the lowest effort joke can steal a sudden laugh out of you. None of the characters have names or personalities that could stretch beyond a sentence. Except for Huey and the Koopalings, but by 2016 we were definitely tired of those guys. Even a New Super Mario Bros game will introduce a dozen new enemies, but I glanced at the bestiary, I think all of these guys were in Sticker Star. You can really feel the creativity budget straining when a Toad appears with so much as a chef's hat. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope Season Pass Spoiler My favorite thing about this series is how fun the combat is to master. And the first DLC package, Tower of Doom lets you really put your skills to the test. It’s a rogue like mode that hands you ten battles of randomized maps and objectives. Your initial team and Sparks are random as well, and you select which battle to fight based on whichever rewards you prefer. Some hand you additional sparks or a new character, while others might hand you more skill points if you’re content with your current loadout. In my first run I started with the Magnet spark and got Rabbid Mario, so the rest of that run was kind of swallowed up by the meta. I went through again a couple more times on the increasingly difficult Premium Mode for a better idea of how challenging it could get. You can’t spend money on healing before a fight, but you can buy mushrooms and pro-actively heal yourself before the attack that ends a fight. If there’s one letdown regarding this mode, it’s their decision to have your characters at 0-20 skill points, rather than something higher. You’ll be at the end of your run before you can max out one of your five skill trees, and that’s not a whole lot of exciting customization possibilities. Your reward for subsequent runs of the mode is more weapon skins. But each time I'm making the same decisions with this or that character. Next up is The Last Spark Hunter. All of these DLC expansions are separate from the main game. Can’t take your progress in or out of them except for the weapons skins you’ve unlocked. I had no issues with this until the Last Spark Hunter. Since the adventure is explicitly a detour our heroes take on the way to the final battle. They set you up with a near-completed file from the main game, before raising the level cap to 40. It's a big letdown, but this ended up being my favorite of the DLC campaigns. Exploration and puzzle solving is certainly the main focus. It’s massive, much larger than the individual planets of the main game. You need to commandeer a boat just to traverse it. The two new enemy types are an interesting pair too. One of them can only be defeated with Dashes, while the other will hurt you for dashing them because they bring poisonous goop wherever they go. Thankfully neither is as spongey as the big cat enemies. Glad those don’t show up a lot. And finally, Rayman in the Phantom Show. The eggplant makes his long awaited appearance. First the good, Rayman’s gameplay is pretty fresh. He can grab hook rings and travel independently across the map like Donkey Kong’s vine swing in the last game’s DLC. But since Sparks of Hope movement is non commital, he can pop across the map to lay down turrets, then traverse all the way back to stay with the team. The most creative choice are his costumes, the Vortex and Rocket outfits straight out of Rayman 3, and that rocket ride ability from 2, what a deep cut. These take the place of his Spark slots. Another addition comes from the first game, a ranking system for each battle. A perfect rank involves finishing under X amount of turns and with no deaths. Simple, elegant, glad to see it back. It gives the player a reason to replay missions at all for a cleaner run. What soured the campaign for me was I didn’t hear any familiar tunes remixed. Occasionally the instrumentation included a kazoo but that’s the only rayman vibes that my ears caught. Restricting the familiar cast to just two of the rabbids is the biggest letdown. Just one Mario character on screen with Rayman would have been really neat, even if only during a cutscene. But I’m guessing Nintendo was not willing to play ball. Sparks of Hope was always suspicious in building these totally unique worlds, characters, and creatures. I’ve got no problem with Ubisoft expressing their creativity in making so much unique material, but it comes off as working around what they weren’t allowed to do within Mario’s universe. Couldn’t use Mario music references or visual iconography like in the first game. So our Heroes get in a space ship to explore outside the mushroom kingdom, where in space nothing infringes copyright. And so ends Mario + Rabbids, the most bizarre and creative Nintendo anything in recent memory. They might do another, but something tells me this project will be left behind with the Switch. And if it is, it was a good ride. Even if the DLC wasn’t the highest of high notes. I wasn’t totally sure of the game’s design decisions last year, but returning to it now has me convinced that it’s still brilliant. Oh! And at some point they added an animation for feeding Sparks star bits. That was one of the most glaring omissions from the main game. I don’t know what possessed Ubisoft to pitch this idea in the first place, but they came at it with a passion many of us thought that company lacked for game development. The director cried unveiling the first game at E3. I 100%ed the Rayman DLC and it opened a Message From the Team that reads: "The bleakest dark yields to the faintest light; a light that exists within each of us. You are not alone, we are a multitude, linked together by a thin red thread that sews together our hearts and souls. Tighten the knot and we will be together forever, lighting the way." I am working my way through some newer titles as well! But don't have much to report on this time. Just Armored Core 6. Maybe I'll save them as a sort of "GOTY Watch" roundup in November or December. In October, I refuse to write up on any game that's not spooky. 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Fabulously Olivier Posted October 22, 2023 Share Posted October 22, 2023 (edited) 62. Lost Judgement Cleared 10/1. 8/10. It really feels to me like the Yakuza games are always almost-perfect but not really. + Greatly improved combat over Judgement with Crane being made useful and the excellent new Snake style. + No more fights with the Keihin Gang every 5 minutes. + Traversal is improved thanks to the skateboard. + Yakuza's side quests and activities are great as ever. - The story and pacing took a huge hit thanks to the high school setting. This is unfortunate, as Judgement had one of the best plots of any Yakuza game and Lost Judgement is a contender for the worst. 63. Chained Echoes Cleared 10/3. 8/10. People have been talking this one up like it's one of the greatest JRPGs of all time. And while it makes some clever innovations and is truly impressive for a one-man effort, I can't say that I agree with the consensus. + Excellent QoL features. Full heals after every combat. Quick rematches to lost combat encounters with no penalties. + Innovative level system in which levels are party-wide and gained only from bosses. You can't grind levels, but can grind skill points. + The story is acceptable, and the lore is impressive. People are confusing deep lore for deep storytelling here. + The overdrive system adds a bit of much needed depth to the turn-based combat. - The game has some pretty severe pacing issues. You'd think its particular QoL features would alleviate that, but no. - Skill design is pretty basic. - Progression/customization systems aren't deep so much as they are obtuse and inconvenient. The gem system in particular kind of blows thanks to the purity mechanic. - Mech battles kinda suck. 64. Infamous Second Son Cleared 10/6. 8/10 + Improves on the prior game with a protagonist who had varied powers and an actual personality. + Greatly improves on traversal. It's particularly much easier/quicker to get to the rooftops. + The power styles feel pretty distinct and good, despite them all using similar button maps. They're designed by formula, but also have a different feel. - The story is weaker than Cole's games. - Enemy variety is low. - It's still an Infamous game. That means lots of generic Ubisoftian filler content of low quality and lower variety. - One of the powers isn't obtained until the very end of the story, and the final boss is literally a tutorial for that power set. I can safely say I've never seen a tutorialized final boss before, wtf. 65. Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 Cleared 10/6 8/10 I'd be a hypocrite in recommending the former to FE fans as a masterpiece if I didn't also jump on the sequel. + One of the most effective franchises at delivering emotional gut punches and making you care about keeping its characters alive. + No, seriously. To keep spoilers minimal, there is a certain event that happens in this one that has a severe emotional impact on the entire cast and it is executed extremely well in both narrative and gameplay. + Improves on the gameplay balance of the original. Characters are rebalanced, there's no more fail percentages on crafting (replaced with Great Success chance), and resources are generally more in demand. + Turn based JRPGs do not get deeper than Fuga. You are constantly swapping your gun & support unit placement to plan for the next 3 moves. You are always balancing hitting weakpoints with reducing enemy armor, dealing damage, and healing. And while the game definitely gives you enough mp recovery items, you will need to balance your skill uses. - Status effects are still excessive. - I'm not a fan of auto-Soul Cannon when you take major damage in a boss fight. It never actually ruined a boss fight for me since it gives you 20 turns to end the fight before sacrificing a character, but it seriously adds a lot of (unwanted) stress. I guess it's thematically appropriate. - The Easy/Normal/Dangerous route system is misleading as a difficulty option. If you pick easier routes, you WILL have a harder time on bosses because the resource gains are really inferior. 66. Gotham Knights Cleared 10/13. 5/10. So, if a bunch of game development scientists got together in a lab with the purpose of making a game intentionally designed to disappoint me personally as much as humanly possible, this is definitely one of the potential results of that incredibly niche and unprofitable field of study. + I can play an entire game as Nightwing, my 2nd favorite superhero (after Gambit). + The story is kinda good, I guess. + Has some decent boss fights. = Literally why can transmog suits not be customized. I'm not giving you any points for having half a transmog system, lol. - The combat is shallow and boring. - The city is way too big, and way too empty. - Traversing the city is not fun. - Content variety is minimal. - Enemy design is basic and occassionally frustrating. - I love looter shooter/brawlers, but the gear system in this is so basic and dull. It's literally just one armor piece, one melee weapon, and one ranged weapon, with basic stats and a simple mod/gem slot system. This is pointless. The whole goal of a gear system is exciting drops with unique effects. - I never even noticed the soundtrack. Which is to say, it's dull. 67. Neo The World Ends With You Cleared 10/16 6/10. Honestly, this was a case of sunk cost. I had fun at first, got far enough that I felt I should finish it, but wasn't having enough fun to play for more than a couple hours every few weeks, and I blame the game's pacing for that. + Striking artstyle and great soundtrack. I expect this from JRPGs nowadays. + The story is decent. + The characters are endearing and interesting. Aside from Nagi. + Being able to drop one's health and chain battles together for better rewards is a unique approach to grinding. - The pacing is just actively atrocious. One ingame days feels like an ingame month of Persona 5, and not in a good way. The game only took me about 30-35 hours, but it felt like twice that. - I've been told that the combat is deep if you're really good at it, but on an average player skill level, it's just a button masher with excessively long cooldowns and overly tanky enemies. - Maybe the puzzles would feel natural to a fan of AR games. I found them obtuse. It was a real "read a walkthrough" game. Until the last few days when the game guides you by the hand (thank you!) - I don't think I've ever seen a worse gear system in my life. A majority of equipment pieces have Style requirements to unlock their passive ability that are so high, the gear will be long obsolete by the time you reach it. And I was actively going after food with high style bonuses. - The game is absolutely loaded with useless pins like tripwires and mines that felt unusable in any practical battle. 68. Titanfall 2 Cleared 10/17. I dislike first person shooters and first person games in general, so it says a lot that I rate this game at a 9/10. I'm actually putting it above the Halo trilogy in my ranked playlist. + Strong gunplay + Fast, tightly paced storymode with impressive level design and a gripping narrative + Excellent parkour (for a first person game) + Both pilot and titan combat feels really good. This game is overwhelmingly successful as an fps and as a mech game. - Some may take issue with how short the campaign is. I liked it that way, but I did complete it in 5 hours and I am not good at video games. Still, I get that perspective is only possible because I played it on Playstation Plus. If I had bought it for $60 at launch, that's a hard sell. 69. Yakuza Like a Dragon Cleared 10/17. So, I had a real debate on this one. Is it a 9/10 or is it a 10/10. Ultimately, when I give out a 10, I am not saying that a game is perfect. I am saying that it represents the best of its genre. I am probably saying that any flaws it might have are either nitpicks or subjective enough that they could be positives. And well, I'm about 90% sure that Like a Dragon meets that threshold, and even if it doesn't, I'm damn sure that Infinite Wealth will. (For reference, other 10/10s I've assigned are Guild Wars 1 & 2, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Diablo 3, Persona 5/P5R, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana, Mass Effect 2, The Witcher 3, and God of War 2018). + Excellent cast of characters + Great story even by Yakuza standards. + Yakuza's crazy tone is amped up to 11 and perfect for a JRPG. + Unique real-time physics mechanics in a turn-based JRPG are innovative as Hell. Being able to curb-stomp downed foes before they get up in real time or knock someone into a car. Or wait until enemies clump together or stand near an environmental weapon. There's a lot of added depth here, and I'd say that it's one of the most successful games at fleshing out turn-based combat. + Yakuza's side content and minigames are as compelling as ever. I actually got addicted to business management. + The class system is really unique, quirky, and fun. - Brutal difficulty spike in Act 12. The game suddenly shoots from level 37 enemies to level 50 enemies, with 2 bosses at once. Basically, it warns you to grind the Sotenbori arena first, and you HAVE to. If this place wasn't also such a great place to alleviate the game's gold and resource grind, this difficulty spike would have resulted in me bumping it down to a 9. - The early pacing is pretty slow thanks to Yakuza's notorious love of cutscenes. - The economy is pretty brutal, until it isn't. - Honestly, if you weren't going to have any sidequests in Sotenbori or Kamurocho, why even take us there? - A lot of the inherited moves from classes really don't seem like the ideal ones that should be inherited. 70. Kena Bridge of Spirits Cleared 10/19. 8/10. This one feels like a modern PS2/GC platformer, in a good way. + Striking artstyle. Like if Pixar was doing their best Ghibli impression. + Strong soundtrack + Platforming and puzzles are usually fun and straightforward. + Solid combat. - The difficulty is a bit high for my liking. - Some of the later platforming segments with bombs don't quite work. There's plenty of times when the bomb will stick to the ledge that you're on rather than following its displayed throwing arc. Right now, I'm playing: Like a Dragon Ishin Shadow of War NieR Replicant version 1.2whatever Shining Force I Assassin's Creed Rogue The Division 2 Edited October 22, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted October 22, 2023 Author Share Posted October 22, 2023 58 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said: 62. Lost Judgement Judgment discourse was always funky to me. When it came out it was heralded as a brave new era for the series. But then I play it and I'm once again in the shoes of a 40-something man raised by a benevolent Yakuza patriarch but always has to insist he's NOT Yakuza as he solves all their problems. I half expected them to give him his own Haruka. And, would it kill him to show a little more emotion than Kiryu? He talks like he's staring into the abyss and dude you went to law school and work as your own boss rescuing cats for a living. Life's funny some times, so Lighten Up yeah? Wish Kaito was the main character instead. Anyway, my question: do they still have circa 2007 Assassins Creed tailing missions? And do you ever walk a full lap past the place it eventually ends at? I fist pumped when it finally happened. Didn't think they had the GUTS to risk me noticing. But they did and I did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted October 22, 2023 Share Posted October 22, 2023 4 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said: Judgment discourse was always funky to me. When it came out it was heralded as a brave new era for the series. But then I play it and I'm once again in the shoes of a 40-something man raised by a benevolent Yakuza patriarch but always has to insist he's NOT Yakuza as he solves all their problems. I half expected them to give him his own Haruka. And, would it kill him to show a little more emotion than Kiryu? He talks like he's staring into the abyss and dude you went to law school and work as your own boss rescuing cats for a living. Life's funny some times, so Lighten Up yeah? Wish Kaito was the main character instead. Anyway, my question: do they still have circa 2007 Assassins Creed tailing missions? And do you ever walk a full lap past the place it eventually ends at? I fist pumped when it finally happened. Didn't think they had the GUTS to risk me noticing. But they did and I did. I actually find myself wishing that Sugiura would be the protagonist of future Judgement games. It just seems like the games are preparing him for that role. They still have a few tailing missions, but they're a lot easier now. The missions that actually annoyed me were the stealth missions (stealth in a Yakuza game? Gross!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightcosmo Posted October 22, 2023 Share Posted October 22, 2023 I played The Legend of Heroes: Kuro No Kiseki Crimson Sin: this time in English! Storyline was alright, the early acts were the best parts. Late game needed some work. Gameplay was as always, leagues better than CS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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