Fabulously Olivier Posted December 22, 2023 Share Posted December 22, 2023 (edited) So, December was a month that was heavy on plays, light on clears. And that's by design. The OCD part of my brain wants to end the year on a nice milestone number, and it's hard to have a better one than 90. I don't think I, for example, have it in me to do 95. Especially because I lost a few days to a bad flu in there. But I have plenty near-completion that will give me a nice little first month boost in 2024. 86. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (12/03) 9/10 Spoiler + Epic setpieces + Greatly improved character work + Strong story + Solid gunplay. I personally think it's a slight step down from 3 though. + No longer disables all trophies on the lowest difficulty. Thank you for respecting my values as a gamer. - Length overstays its welcome a bit. - Not a fan of the vehicular exploration loop they added. 87. Uncharted Lost Legacy (12/04) 7/10 Spoiler + Epic setpieces + Solid gunplay + Solid story and chara.cter work + Short and generally well paced in a good way. - Act 2 with the driving to tombs on opposite sides of the map... sucks. - I don't think the franchise can really work without Nate. Chloe is great and all, but she's not carrying the insufferable Nadine. 88. Dragon Age 2 (12/09) 7/10 Spoiler Yep. I have previously never finished a Dragon Age other than Origins. To be fair, Origins is also the only must-play in the franchise. + Compelling enough story, with a big choice to make. (It's very much a step down from both the quality and the agency of Origins though). + Compelling build system for skill trees. + Some of the companions are actually delightful. Varric and Merrill specifically. Anders is also appropriately well written, love him or hate him. - Honestly, both of the Warrior companions (not counting the sibling no one picks) are boring, unlikeable assholes. Especially Fenris. Literally how do you even please Fenris without pissing off everyone who actually matters? - Environments are drab and lacking in variety. - The scope of the game just feels really small, even though the game isn't actually short. 89. Control (12/10) 8/10 Spoiler + Strong gunplay + Weird, interesting story + Awesome visuals, destructible objects, and physics system. - Excessive difficulty, though the slider settings helped a lot. I quickly dropped damage taken to half, then tried to halve it again (only to find that I was now literally invincible). I was having more fun with literal invincibility than dying constantly, so fuck it. It stayed that way. - Where is my burst fire gun? Stop leaving out my three-round burst. - Navigation is occassionally really bad. 90. Kirby Star Allies 7/10 Spoiler A solid, inoffensive, short family platformer. This is one that I've kind of played in very short bursts over years when I had opportunities to co op it with my brother. That's why I bought it, really. He loves his platformers, and now that we've cleared it, I'm handing it off to him so he can co op with his friends. + Can't go wrong with the casual Kirby platformer gameplay loop. It's pretty unique among platformers for how forgiving it is. + Copy powers are as fun as ever. + The co-op experience is fun. The fully playable co op movesets like Metaknight and Dedede also really help give other players a good time. - The game is very short. You can definitely expand it with collectibles if you care about that though. (I don't.) I am also playing Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise, Batman Arkham Knight, Alan Wake, A Plague Tale Innocence, Shining Force, Odin Sphere, and Dragon's Crown. And I've put a little time into Warframe and Diablo 3, which are my preferred long term time wasters. I am SO glad to have cross saves now. My Warframe account has been trapped on my 8+ year old computer for a long time now. And that's 2023 wrapped up. Edited December 22, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted December 29, 2023 Share Posted December 29, 2023 I just finished playing the Super Mario RPG remake, with the playthrough having been about 20 hours long. Since the game is a JRPG, I was expecting it to be a lot longer, even though I remembered that it's also a Mario game from the tail end of the SNES era. When I say completed, I also went out of my way to fight Culex. However, I have not done any of the postgame content that the remake added. It was a lot of fun. It wasn't very difficult or challenging, and I think I was probably over-levelled for a lot of it (I finished the game with my characters at level 29), but the gameplay was still fun. I like that all five characters get the same amount of experience points regardless of whether or not they were in the fight and, with the exception of Mario, they can be swapped out at any time without losing a turn; it means I can freely use all five characters whenever I want and I'm not having to either alternate between them or pick three favourites and bench the rest like in other JRPGs. I mainly used Mario, Geno and Mallow, but I still used Peach and Bowser fairly frequently. That said, there was one thing I really did not like: isometric platforming. I get that it's a Mario game, so there needs to be some platforming as a nod to the main series, but isometric layout and precision platforming with small platforms do not mix well in my experience. I like the story; it's very straightforward but it's a lot of fun. That said, there were two unanswered questions that didn't sit well with me: I might've missed something, but I could've sworn that the reason that Mallow was sent away and had to be raised by the Frog Sage is never actually revealed. What is Smithy supposed to be? I figured from the name "Smithy", his army being living weapons, and his home world being a dead world where there's only him and his weapons and anything that isn't a weapon is a ghost, that he conquered/destroyed all life in his world and intends to do the same to the Mushroom Kingdom, but, when you finally face him, he too appears to be a robot. Who, if anyone, built him? Overall, it was a lot of fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hrothgar777 Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 Danganronpa, AKA the one PSP-original video game that people actually remember (albeit I'm playing the Switch port version). I'm basically cheating since I already watched the (terrible) anime adaptation and a YouTube playthrough up to the end of the second arc, so the first Class Trial was easy peasy save for that dumb rhythm minigame. Nonetheless, it's doing a good job at keeping me in suspense. Playing this is exactly what I need to motivate myself to write another murder mystery. If I can keep my motivation up long enough to finish, then I might also try my hand at 2 and 3, since it was a bundle of four Danganronpa titles. Yes sir, I'm getting my money's worth for this purchase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted January 2 Author Share Posted January 2 (edited) a happy new year to all. I mostly dug up a bunch of retro/Genesis era games over December, but here's the more interesting stuff I played. Ecco The Dolphin (1992), Tides of Time(1994) & Defender of the Future (2000) Spoiler I’ve had a rocky relationship with the dolphin game, and I know I’m not alone. Beautiful art, atmospheric music, it’s just an ordeal to play. Explore beautiful marine locales as a majestic dolphin, but with a time limit. Dolphins allegedly have a lung capacity of ten minutes, but Ecco’s got an air meter of sixty seconds (I timed it). At full health, he’s dead in about 25 more seconds. You have infinite “lives” where each death takes you to the start of the level. A casual playthrough feels like learning a speedrun by necessity. Identify where your fishy friends must be rescued from. Touch Key Glyphs to open Glyph Gates. Take note of air pockets. Then put it all together for your perfect run. Ecco’s fast. Two of your three action buttons make him faster than Sonic – a worthy sega character indeed. I really wish more people would experience the bizarre places this game will take you, I just don’t recommend any of them actually play it. You have my permission to watch a Longplay instead. I didn’t have a moment of fun until the end where they give you infinite air, regenerating health, and you’re blowing the heads off aliens with your dolphin shout. Awesome finale. The Tides of Time adds a ton of gameplay variety. Ecco gains a shape shifting ability to change into different sea creatures, and there's feaux 3D on rails swimming sections where you must swim through enough rings to time travel. They really begin upping the ante on sci fi story telling too. Ecco encounters his distant descendant, an evolved race of Dolphins with telekinetic flight powers that have engineered gravity defying waterways in the sky linking the worlds’ oceans. He must hunt the Vortex Queen once again through time and preserve that bright future. They didn’t do much to make it all more playable though. So many objectives can be very obtuse without a guide. There’s a new Easy mode that seems to double your air and health capacities, and And the level design includes far more sources of air. They also added checkpoints, but I only noticed them in three of the 30ish stages. You also have to remember to reactivate them every time you respawn. Jumping out of water is less precise now that Ecco can flounder and hop around on dry land. That's a great addition, but the platforming based levels can be the most unforgiving Frustrating as it may be to play, I found a lot more to like in Tides of Time. The soundtrack is fantastic. Ditching the first game’s aquatic ambience stylings in favor of some harder synth tracks. I get the impression they put their best song on the worst stages to encourage the player not to put the game down there. The funniest stage is in the epilogue, where Ecco must transform into a school of fish that’s being preyed upon by his fellow hungry dolphins. Tides of Time’s final ending is difficult to parse whether it’s setting up for a sequel or is a finale for the character. The next game, Ecco Jr, is one I did not have time to play through. Seems to be a retelling of the first, but with more accessible gameplay and none of the sci fie elements. No health and air meters, just easily parsed objectives. I decided to skip ahead to the final Ecco game on the Dreamcast Defender of the Future is a reboot. It removes The Vortex and Asterite only to replace them with functional equivalents in The Foe and The Guardian. I was excited for the move to 3D, but found too many of the same issues as on the Genesis. Levels are massive with few landmarks and fairly low draw distance. It was a remarkably dark game as well which had me relying on Sonar for navigating. Sonar presents itself as a Doom style overlay map that stays up as you swim. Although its 2D image doesn’t help much with visualizing the verticality of the stage. It’s a pretty buggy game too. I haven’t gotten stuck inside this many walls in a Sega game since Sonic 06. The Difficulty is still unrelenting, but the game is checkpointing you every time you make a bit of progress which keeps it playable. The best stage is Hanging Waters. It's a revisit of the Skyway level in Tides of Time, but so much more of a spectacle in 3D. I also appreciate the inclusion of idle animations. Can't be a Sega protagonist without glancing at the screen impatiently when the game isn't being played. This is definitely a unifying trend for the whole series, but once the game stops being a dolphin simulator and becomes a sci fi adventure is where I really took interest. To save the planet, Ecco must recover the stolen intelligence of the Dolphins across several bad futures. There’s the Future of Man, where dolphins have become subservient slaves to the humans who destroyed themselves with a doomsday device. Leaving dolphin society to be too impotent and too religiously superstitious to reclaim their lot in life. The music in Shrine of Controversy is depressing yet beautiful as you piece these details together yourself. Once you reacquire Reason and Ambition, it leads to the Future of Dolphin, where a fascist Clan enslaved other marine life to power their own war machines. They're trying to stop you from recovering the Dolphins’ Compassion that they think will make them weak. Finally, you travel for the final Orb, representing Humility. Which you earn by ripping out the heart of the alien queen before you drown in her deadly acidic blood that pours in faster as you deal more damage. I’m glad I didn’t play this game as a kid. I was pretty freaked out by Mario 64’s giant eel, and this game’s boss fights are extremely violent versions of that. Even I flinched when the game's low draw distance finally revealed the Foe Queen staring directly at me. Formless and menacing. The action isn't bloody or gory, but it's imagery has clear horror inspirations when you're not watching poor Ecco get eaten alive once they catch you. If they were more accessible, I'm certain the Ecco games would be a pillar of Sega gaming. They're visual showcases for their hardware that become more and more thought provoking as they go on. They'd fit right in in today's era of indie titles that present a wholesome premise before taking you to the real game. And the way that dialogue is so un-straight forward makes the simple puzzles more engaging than if you were just given a straightforward hint on what to do. Alas, Ecco is not one of the 5 classic sega franchises that were announced to get some kind of reboot. It makes sense, none of these games are Good in the typical sense. But they're Interesting, and I think that's enough. Merry Gear Solid (2006) and Merry Gear Solid 2: Ghosts of Christmas Past (2009) Spoiler It’s hard to overstate just how big Metal Gear used to be in the mid 2000s. And indeed it’s a series with many generations of a fans with clashing perspectives. How do you reconcile between the MGS5 players, from the Rising Meme Enjoyers, to the older fans that actually want to play a stealth game? Heck, most western MGS fans refer to MGS1 as “the first one”, when that’s patently false. Solid is Metal Gear 3. Or fifth if you count the unrelated, NES versions of Metal Gear that Kojima vehemently denied the existence of. These two fan games acknowledge the series roots with a proper top down stealth experience. Join Solid Santa on his delivery to 14015 Hideo Dr, a ten floor complex guarded by naughty children who can’t sleep and have to catch Santa in the act. It’s short and sweet, developed (as far as I can tell) for some game jam in 2006. Possibly in Macromedia Flash. And lasts for about a half hour. The 2009 sequel ups the ante. It’s got a lot more depth and challenge, tons of series references (even a pretty big one from Portable Ops, I have never met anybody who’s played that one), and a great deal more sneaking tools to pick up at the Outer Savin' Mall. Otacon will bend every which way to explain the non lethal nature of the Nikita ‘kissile’ launcher for instance. The christmas-themed psuedo science at play is not far off from the nanomachine answers provided by Kojima in his games. Incredible soundtrack. Gameplay is great, until it asks you to backtrack. MGS1 has an infamous sequence where you have to backtrack to almost the beginning of the game in the middle of a boss fight. Merry Gear Solid 2 asks you to backtrack to the start two whole times, and I just feel like the joke goes too far at that point. It certainly a flex of level design that these rooms can be traversed backward with no issue (often made possible by a new item you just acquired), but it’s hardly fun to do so. Overall the Merry Gear Solid Duology gets a recommendation from me. Heard some whispers that there was intended to be a third game, but obviously it didn’t pan out. Probably for the best since Kojima/Konami were going on a tear of taking down fan projects in the 2010s. I did a search on whether the author was still in the industry. He hasn’t done much in the years since, mostly appearing in the Special Thanks section of a lot of indie games. At present, he’s plugging away at his own Stardew Valley type game. More power to him. Pokemon Puffy Pink (2023) Spoiler Nothing more exhilarating than playing a fresh out of the oven rom hack. Fire Red, but with the pokemon replaced with Kirby enemies. I always knew these designs would be a good fit, but seeing it all together in playable form really sells me on the concept. Kirby designs, like Pokemon, are color coded to match their typing. So you can guess what they are mid-battle with your eyes alone. There’s not as many puns in its naming conventions, but you could easily fool someone into thinking these are real pokemon concepts. I endeavored to catch them all, and got nearly all of them without assistance before I noticed they added a finding guide that spells out all the evolutions. There’s no getting around how arbitrary it is that this or that pokemon evolves with a stone, or friendship. Especially in official Pokemon games – how do you know, without looking up an external guide? No trade evolutions here, given the rom hack format. And all the choice-based pokemon (like your starter) can be collected in Cerulean Cave. Pokemon diversity is great compared to the original. A fine blend of all 17 types. No patch of grass or cave is carrying just two pokemon species. Typically 5 or six, with encounter rates finely equalized between them. Very Catch Em All friendly. It’s been two decades since I experienced these Kanto remakes, and boy was the revisit unwelcome. The OST hit me like a ton of bricks, forcing me to play the game on mute. The GBA is infamous for its low sound quality, but there is just no talent here. Especially when it’s forced to compete with years of incredible Kanto remixes. Hearing those songs in the show, in the spinoff titles like Stadium. Heck, Gold and Silver’s Kanto remixes are just oozing creativity while Fire Red turns in its work at just under word count. This rom hack would be immediately improved with some Kirby music of any quality. Puffy Pink also elects to remove the Sevii Island content, which I’m only remembering existed with the help of google. I can’t speak to why he did it, but it comes with an unfortunate side effect. Those islands are where they hid some valuable TMs and the Move Reminder. I actually prefer that this game didn’t add any needless Modern Pokemon mechanical additions, but the Move Reminder is a Gen 3 thing, and you’ll never know what your final moveset will be with all these brand new, undocumented pokemon. Edited January 3 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted January 2 Share Posted January 2 I'm continuing Persona 5 Royal since I made a 2024 gaming resolution to finally finish playing it. I just located the treasure in the final palace. I hope I will be able to finish the game soon. I recently got, but have not yet played, the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. I liked Battle Network 5 and 6, and I've been meaning to play the earlier Battle Network games, as well as finish Battle Network 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterIceTeaPeach Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 (edited) Tales of Arise and Octopath Traveler II Also since my last appearance about a half year ago I finished these games: Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure Ys Seven Ys VIII: Lacriomosa of Dana Ys IX: Monstrum Nox Trails of Nayuta: Boundless Trails Edited January 5 by JulieFalcom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 (edited) I finally finished Persona 5 Royal! One 2024 gaming resolution completed, and we're still in the first week of 2024! After so many hours spent (my playthrough was somewhere around 170 hours long; I'm guessing that I was very inefficient), it feels good to finally have completed the game. It's a great game with a good story that had a lot to say, and the Royal-exclusive storyline is great as well. Spoiler Maruki was a great antagonist, and the late Billy Kametz did a great job as his voice actor. He is a good example of an antagonist who means well but needs to be stopped, as the story never tries to make him hypocritically-reprehensible as an easy way out; it only ever frames him as misguided and tragic. If I had one criticism, it's that the ending should've mentioned something in regards to Maruki's ex-girlfriend; it would've been nice if Joker gave Maruki the newspaper that was his treasure and Maruki promised to make things right; it would have really shown that Maruki is done running from his pain. EDIT: I just completed the game Ocean's Heart. It was a lot of fun; it's easily my favourite 2D Zelda-like (though that's not saying much, as its only competition among games I've played is Blossom tales). I will say, one advantage that indie games have over big-budget games: brief end credits sequences. I don't want to sound old, but I remember a time when big games had end credits sequences that were skippable or fast-forwardable. Today, that seems to be a lost art, so I'm really grateful that Ocean's Heart was a solo game and, as such, had a very brief end credits sequence. Edited January 14 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) Before I start, here was my entire 2023, favorites bolded. Spoiler 1. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (1/14) 2. Samurai Warriors 4 (1/15) 3. Warriors Legends of Troy (1/16) 4. FF7R Episode Intermission (1/17) 5. Fire Emblem Engage (1/27) 6. 13 Sentinels (2/3) 7. Sakura Wars (2/10) 8. Triangle Strategy - Liberty (2/12) 9. Yakuza Judgement (2/23) 10. Spiderman (3/1) 11. Victor Vran (3/5) 12. Yakuza 0 (3/11) 13. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - Golden Wildfire (3/12) 14. Yakuza Kiwami (3/19) 15. Hi Fi Rush (3/26) 16. Monster Hunter Stories 2 (3/30) 17. Yakuza Kiwami 2 (4/11) 18. Ghost of Tsushima (4/19) 19. Assassin's Creed Black Flag (4/29) 20. Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry (4/30) 21. Doom 2016 (5/6) 22. Yakuza 3 (5/7) 23. Assassin's Creed Unity (5/18) 24. Yakuza 4 (5/22) 25. Ratchet and Clank (5/27) 26. Immortals Fenyx Rising (6/12) 27. Oninaki (6/17) 28. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (6/22) 29. Yakuza 5 (6/26) 30. TMNT Shredder's Revenge (6/27) 31. Luigi's Mansion 3 (6/28) 32. Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (6/30) 33. Dusk Diver (7/4) 34. Persona 5 Royal (7/7) 35. Outriders (7/9) 36. Infamous 2 (7/16) 37. For Honor (7/17) 38. Yakuza 6 (7/23) 39. Soul Hackers 2 (7/25) 40. Borderlands 3 (7/27) 41. Diablo 2 Resurrected (8/2) 42. Darksiders Warmastered (8/5) 43. Sunset Overdrive (8/6) 44. God of War Ascension (8/8) 45. Ryse Son of Rome (8/9) 46. Asura's Wrath (8/13) 47. Nier Automata - 2B (8/19) 48. God of War 2005 (8/20) 49. Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition (8/22) 50. Sacred 3 Gold (8/26) 51. Cassette Beasts (8/26) 52. God of War 2 (8/27) 53. Hogwarts Legacy (9/1) 54. Kingdom Hearts 3 (9/2) 55. Sea of Stars (9/9) 56. Fuga Melodies of Steel (9/9) 57. Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star (9/10) 58. Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart (9/17) 59. Ghostwire Tokyo (9/18) 60. Diablo Immortal (9/22) 61. Trials of Mana (9/24) 62. Lost Judgement (10/1) 63. Chained Echoes (10/3) 64. Infamous Second Son (10/6) 65. Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 (10/6) 66. Gotham Knights (10/13) 67. Neo The World Ends With You (10/16) 68. Titanfall 2 (10/17) 69. Yakuza Like a Dragon (10/17) 70. Kena Bridge of Spirits (10/19) 71. Like a Dragon Ishin (10/29) 72. Tomb Raider (11/1) 73. Torchlight III (11/3) 74. NieR Replicant ver 1.22474487139... (11/4) 75. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (11/5) 76. Sword and Fairy Together Forever (11/8) 77. Rise of the Tomb Raider (11/12) 78. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (11/12) 79. Torchlight Infinite (11/14) 80. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (11/17) 81. High on Life (11/17) 82. Assassin's Creed Rogue (11/19) 83. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (11/21) 84. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (11/25) 85. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (11/26) 86. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (12/03) 87. Uncharted Lost Legacy (12/04) 88. Dragon Age 2 (12/09) 89. Control (12/10) 90. Kirby Star Allies (12/23) Games Played and Paused in 2023: Valkyria Chronicles Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Fire Emblem Fates Conquest Games Played in 2023 and Quit Permanently: Persona 5 Tactica Doom Eternal Vikings Wolves of Midgard The Ascent Watch Dog's 2 Dragon's Crown Pro Now onto this year. 2024 is intended to be my landmark backlog year AFTER this month. This month was the last of my PS Plus subscription, so I got what value I could out of it. 1. Shadow of the Colossus Spoiler Cleared 1/1/24. 6 or 7/10. I could see this being a 9 for its time. This was the fitting first game of a landmark year. A very important and influential game that I've never played. Did I like it? Yeah, mostly. Does it rank high in my all time favorites? No. Not even for its year given that 2005 was also the year of Guild Wars 1, Path of Radiance, and DMC3. + Gorgeous visuals + Somber atmosphere + Some fun bosses. Most are creative. + Well paced and short. - Atrocious, borderline gamebreaking camera and controls, even in the remake. - A couple colossi can and will permastunlock you if they land even one hit. - The eel really triggered my thalassophobia. Like one of the worst cases ever. - Some jumps are a pain in the ass. 2. Jedi Survivor Spoiler Cleared 1/1/24. 8/10 Overall a bit weaker than the first, but good anyway. The combat, Uncharted style platforming, and visual customization remain strong. The two new weapon styles are a welcome addition. The story and planet selection are IMO weaker than the first game. The story does pick up, but it basically peaks at Coruscant, falls off for the whole middle, then peaks again. Also, I respect any Soulslike with difficulty settings. Seriously, thank you for not being an asshole. 3. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir Spoiler Cleared 1/1/24. 6 or 7/10 The art, story and combat are great. The structure is so bloated and repetitive that I can honestly only recommend this if you're able and willing to spread routes out by months. 4. Alan Wake Remastered Spoiler Cleared 1/1/24. 5/10 Not scary. Just annoying, occassionally cheap. Pretentious, cheesy drivel. I'd call it gaming's equivalent of The Room, but Quantic Dream has that locked down. 5. Batman: Arkham Knight Spoiler Cleared 1/1/24. A godawful 2/10 Batmobile game that occassionally lets you play a 9/10 Arkham game. Also, to those on Reddit who told me that the Batmobile doesn't appear that much in the main story, you're objectively wrong. Play the game again. It's used in basically every mission, and comprises every bad moment in the game. 6. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Spoiler Cleared 1/1/24. 8/10. Sometimes feels like a 9. You know how last year, I said Gotham Knights was a game made to personally disappoint me? A game that has everything I like, but objectively sucks? Well, this is the opposite. A game I wanted to hate because Koei went with a Final Fantasy Soulslike over a Final Fantasy Warriors. And yet the combat, so-bad-it's-good story, class system, pacing, and loot really made me dig it. But also, make FF Warriors, you cowards. 7. Evil West Spoiler Cleared 1/7/24. Devil May Cry and Dark Watch had a 7/10 lovechild and that's all I need to say. 8, 8a, 8b, 8c. Final Fantasy 15 (including DLC episodes) Spoiler Cleared 1/7 and 1/8. 7/10 Moments of storytelling, character, and cinematic greatness concentrated mostly at the back end of a mediocre and deeply boring open world road trip with bad combat. Honestly, this game is comprised of so many bad ideas that it's a wonder it's even decent. 9. Celeste Spoiler Cleared 1/9. I cheated with the assist mode on all the way because I have no aptitude for 2D platformers. So while I absolutely respect the game for letting me do that, I won't be scoring it due to a lack of qualifications to judge its game design. Nevertheless, the story, vibes, and soundtrack were a good use of 2 and a half hours of my time. I could see where someone would really find this special. 10. Gigabash Spoiler Cleared 1/13. 7/10 The 4 story modes were a fun use of 3 hours of my time. The soundtrack is good. The combat is pleasantly fast compared to other kaiju brawlers. There's plenty of modes. 11. LittleBigPlanet 3 Spoiler Cleared 1/13. 4/10 Creative visuals and vibes don't really make up for mediocre and often frustrating gameplay. And honestly, can we please stop using lives. 12. A Plague Tale Innocence Spoiler Cleared 1/13. 7/10 Good story. Tense and depressing atmosphere. Frustrating combat. Puzzle segments are more fun than stealth ones. 13. Halo: Combat Evolved Spoiler Cleared 1/14. 5/10. Time weighted to 7/10 That's right, I never played Halo. I only ever beat 2 and 3. And.... it's aged like fine milk. Confusingly repetitive map design, levels that feel like they drag due to copy pasted segments. WAY too many grenade deaths. Way too much fall damage. Bland corridor shooter gameplay. Halo 2 is definitely one of the most improved sequels of all time. 14. Soulcalibur VI Spoiler 1/14 7/10 Another fun fighting game story mode to clear. Fun, simple gameplay, a good roster, great character creator, and a vaguely enjoyable narrative. 15. Halo Reach Spoiler Cleared 1/17 8/10 Some of the mission design is questionable, but the story, tragic tone, gunplay, and soundtrack are all great as usual. 16. Halo 3 ODST Spoiler Cleared 1/20 7/10 Pretty skippable Halo honestly. Feels like a side story, but it's short, generally well paced, and has all of the positive Halo qualities. I've put about 20 hours into Baldur's Gate 3 and it is mindblowingly good. But with Persona 3 Reload dropping on Gamepass, it's going on ice for a while. I tried to get into Resident Evil with RE2 Remake and I just couldn't. Survival horror isn't for me. I put a little time into Sackboy's Big Adventure, and while it's reasonably good, I put it on ice until I renew my subscription in the future. It's the sort of game I'd play for a few minutes once and a while, not for hours. I also picked up the Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection, and started playing MMBN1. On the New Year's Resolution, I haven't progressed much. I've cleared the shortest game on the list (SotC), while also clearing 3/4 of my 3rd Triangle Strategy Run. I am playing Octopath Traveler 2 now, so that's another one. Edited January 21 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 On 1/21/2024 at 12:01 AM, Fabulously Olivier said: 13. Halo: Combat Evolved i also never played the halos as a kid (ps2 gang) and over the course of 2023 i started and stopped halo 1 like three times. the final try made it through the library and somewhere into the chapter after that before i ran out of steam again. it's got good ideas, and it's impressive for literally birthing console FPS as a thing to take seriously, but my god it's just so repetitive, blandly laid out, and generally tedious to play i need to finish gutting through it so i can play the "better" halos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 (edited) On 1/21/2024 at 12:01 AM, Fabulously Olivier said: 1. Shadow of the Colossus Reveal hidden contents Cleared 1/1/24. 6 or 7/10. I could see this being a 9 for its time. This was the fitting first game of a landmark year. A very important and influential game that I've never played. Did I like it? Yeah, mostly. Does it rank high in my all time favorites? No. Not even for its year given that 2005 was also the year of Guild Wars 1, Path of Radiance, and DMC3. + Gorgeous visuals + Somber atmosphere + Some fun bosses. Most are creative. + Well paced and short. - Atrocious, borderline gamebreaking camera and controls, even in the remake. - A couple colossi can and will permastunlock you if they land even one hit. - The eel really triggered my thalassophobia. Like one of the worst cases ever. - Some jumps are a pain in the ass. 8, 8a, 8b, 8c. Final Fantasy 15 (including DLC episodes) Reveal hidden contents Cleared 1/7 and 1/8. 7/10 Moments of storytelling, character, and cinematic greatness concentrated mostly at the back end of a mediocre and deeply boring open world road trip with bad combat. Honestly, this game is comprised of so many bad ideas that it's a wonder it's even decent. I've put about 20 hours into Baldur's Gate 3 and it is mind-blowingly good. But with Persona 3 Reload dropping on Gamepass, it's going on ice for a while. I also picked up the Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection, and started playing MMBN1. Interesting. I played the Shadow of the Colossus remake a couple years ago and I really enjoyed it; I knew the game was from the 2000s, but I had no idea it was from the same year as Path of Radiance. I honestly don't remember having any camera problems, but I do remember the two small colossi being very guilty of stunlocking; that was annoying. I have never played Final Fantasy 15, so I can't say anything about its quality, but I do know a lot about its development history, and I know that it is very much a game heavily scarred by its horrific development. It wasn't even originally supposed to be Final Fantasy 15; it was originally envisioned as Final Fantasy Versus XIII for the PS3: it was to be a darker deconstruction of the traditional Final Fantasy formula helmed by Tetsuya Nomura (and it was going to have a combat system more like that in Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 7 Remake). However, the Crystal Tools engine that Square Enix imposed on all PS3 titles could only make linear games, and members of the already-small dev team kept getting siphoned off to help finish FF13 and its spinoffs, the game was still in pre-production even after seven years. By that point, the PS4 rolled around and Square Enix needed to both recoup costs and have a mainline game for the new console, so they rebranded Versus XIII as Final Fantasy 15. They also forcibly removed Nomura from the project due to him also needing to direct Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake, replaced him with Hajime Tabata, and they gave the dev team 2 years to complete the game on the at-the-time-unfinished Luminous Engine, so the dev team was having to finish developing the engine at the same time they were developing the game in said engine. It also didn't help that Tabata and Nomura apparently are almost polar opposites when it comes to directing JRPGs: Nomura is very much a traditional JRPG director, while Tabata is known for taking inspiration from games like Skyrim and The Witcher 3. The end result was that massive swaths of the original plans for the game were outright cut while others were reworked for the sake of time. As for Baldur's Gate 3 and Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, I've been really meaning to play both of those. I've been busy recently. EDIT: As of January 27th, I have begun playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses again. Since it's been a year or two and I've played several games since, including Engage, I figured it's been long enough for it to be at least a semi-fresh experience. I decided to start the one route that I have yet to play: the Silver Snow route. Edited January 27 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 (edited) Wrapped up a bunch of big and relatively modern games this month Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (2021) Spoiler A friend of mine very generously gifted me this. It’s an odd experience, loading up this playstation game on Steam and playing with my Xbox controller. Sony has been gradually putting their exclusive games on PC – probably to recoup their outrageously high costs of production. We may yet see the end of console exclusives before we see the end of consoles themselves. Whatever the reason, I get to reap the benefits without any plans to purchase a PS5. Rift Apart got a lot of buzz when it came out, which was noticeable considering this series was always a quiet hit. Reviewing well, but selling less and less as it went on. Having beaten the game, I’m still a little questioning of that volume of response. It’s not a bad game by any stretch, but it’s also not appreciably better than what came before, and lesser in some ways. It controls the same, you’re using the same weapon archetypes, loading them up with raritanium, you’ve got the same macguffin-hunt-on-wasteland-planet that they’ve been doing since the second game along with the Arena. The only addition to the gameplay is a low cooldown dodge that looks and feels better to use than hopping over attacks. The adaptive triggers mechanic didn't make the move over to PC (even if you plug in a PS5 controller, from what I'm reading). Only reading whether you've tapped or squeezed the trigger to varying accuracy. This isn't an issue for most guns, but it borks the potential damage of the drillhound, pixelizer, and headhunter. Wish they implemented a new control option, but like the Six Axis guns in Tools of Destruction, this is going to be a real headache to solve on re-releases. One criticism I’ve had for decades is the lack of feedback in combat. Enemies don’t react to your attacks until suddenly they do. There’s no “impact” variance to weapons, no expectation that this will cause an enemy to flinch unless stunning the enemy is a specific property to that weapon. They fall over seemingly at random. Combat in Modern Ratchet boils down to 1)Look at enemy 2)Hold down fire button 3) stay on the move (optional, considering the new dark souls roll). No weapon gives you a different approach to combat. You fire it until it runs out of ammo. I just wish there were some elements of strategy. Even a low effort idea like “let’s add elemental weaknesses to enemies” would dramatically improve encounter design. PS2 era ratchet games played a lot more with environmental hazards, and that would fit perfectly with this much freer control scheme and movement mechanic. Lean in to the Schmup flow of combat. The lack of Gadget based puzzles stuck out to me. Even the hacking minigame is the same strafe-shooting controls as the main game. It’s the lowest gameplay variety in the series since Deadlocked, and I wonder if anybody levied these same criticisms at Rift Apart. The removal of Skill Points was also surprising. Achievements theoretically fulfill the same idea, but the achievement list for this game is way too tame to fill in that void. You could get them all without even having to play more than a minute of Challenge Mode. If we do get more Ratchet games in the future, I hope they finally move away from the Dimensionator and Doctor Nefarious. It’s hard to get invested in these overdone plot beats. And regarding reused weapons this is the third consecutive appearance of the Warmonger (Fifth if we count side games). More weird picks would have been appreciated like the Scorpion Flail or Suck Cannon. Old Fan Gripes aside, Rift Apart is a fine game. Definitely punching at the same weight as the rest of this series and telling a very earnest story. It’s not my favorite, but it’s still a labor of love. Tons of references to old characters, enemies, alternate dimension versions of previous planets (though I notice now the three Old Planets are all sampled from Tools of Destruction). And Clank utters his first (bleeped) curse word which made me laugh out loud. It’s a shame then that the rest of this series is unavailable on PC, because a retrospective-themed title like this can't stand beside its earlier context. And even if you had a PS5 loaded with the Premium Playstation Plus subscription, Rift Apart stands as the lone Ratchet game on the service. That’s a shame and really spotlights Sony’s lack of interest in making legacy content available. Death Stranding (2019) Spoiler I admit the futility in adding my two cents to a much talked about game like Death Stranding so many years after the fact. The Triple A Walking Simulator. Indeed, my left middle finger got quite the workout over those 60 hours holding down the W key on my keyboard. The first “Strand Type Game” in its brave new genre. Look, it’s a standard open world game that blends in some stealth and horror elements. There’s a lot that makes it unique, but none of it is its gameplay conventions. It’s funny that the worst thing people say about open world games is having a “dead” world, when that’s the very subject of Death Stranding. Only by reconnecting civilization, one bum hideout at a time, can we understand what it means to live again. That’s what “strands” are, the connections built between humans, even humans that have never met each other. Npcs AND other players alike. I’m okay with Kojima calling this a different genre if he’s willing to admit it’s a genre that also includes Journey and Noby Noby Boy at the very least. Don’t pretend you invented the Game About Movement that teaches you to appreciate Life. I’ve followed much of Kojima’s gameography over the years, and I must say I’m so appreciative that he’s off the Metal Gear project. You could say I’ve been waiting, Snake. Waiting for your birth, your growth, and the finality of today. Hideo has finally achieved the rank of Boss, with his own offshore plant of developers that say Yes to anything. He can even slap “Director’s Cut” on the re-release of a game he already had 100% oversight on. I don’t necessarily condone Kojima’s deified status in the industry. But it’s my belief that as long as he can continue making weird bullshit, he’ll have inevitably lifted the industry enough to excuse the damage he’s done. Death Stranding is not a great game. But it's says what it's trying to say so much more elegantly than Metal Gear does. Yes, even during the scenes where Die-Hardman, Deadman, or Mama explain to Sam how they got their stupid name. Kids will call it cringe, I call it post apocalyptic humans having no one to talk to for most of their life. You’d be fatalistic and cringe too. I want to talk about Death Stranding’s gameplay design issues, but it’s a long list of minor grievances that I’m struggling to coagulate into a common theme. But we'll stick to broadstrokes anyway: It came out a year after Red Dead Redemption 2, another presentation-first prestige open world simulation. RDR2 got us asking what is immersion worth if it’s going to slow down and frustrate the player constantly. Like Arthur Morgan, Sam Porter Bridges is loaded with 5-10 second animations. Many of which are skippable, but in doing so we get a full fade to black, then Load back in that saved us, at most, a second or two of real life time. Not worth the immersion break. There’s a half dozen weird quirks with UI not telling you all the information, and another half dozen speed bumps in cargo management, like how you’re not allowed to adjust cargo from your back onto your vehicle – when you’re INSIDE the vehicle. And the game’s greatest misstep is no mp3 player. A staple of Kojima games going back to 2008. Death Stranding is basically the playable music video for Low Roar’s discography, and I can’t hear their music except in pre-determined story sequences or when reading emails in Sam’s bedroom. Unbelievable My favorite part of Death Stranding’s design is my personal impact on its world via Roads and especially Ziplines. Creating your own movement network (and being told that other players are making use of it too) is extremely compelling. It’s also unique among the open world genre. Normally your character earns new abilities to interact with the environment, but Death Stranding tasks you with changing the open world itself to make it easier to traverse as Norman Reedus. That’s brilliant in a game where your character's main verb is Move. I also think it’s a smart choice to leave those systems until after you get that region on the chiral network. The player has to traverse every bit of the world the Hard Way at least once. And in doing so your mind will brainstorm ways you can master the terrain while you’re climbing it. The network comes online, you see what solutions have been provided by the sample of online structures, and then you get to work comboing off them for the optimal delivery route. The only problem is that deliveries become frictionless when you’re doing nothing but zipping from those same points, totally subverting terrain, BTs, etc. But for my tastes, mastery is its own reward. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (2018) Spoiler Yakuza 6 has a lot to prove. We westerners may be surprised to learn that this 2018 game is the first in its series not released on the PS3, but instead for PS4 exclusively. And the discrepancy is not entirely owed to a long localization period. It took them a long time to leave behind their work on the PS3 engine, leading to an extremely scaled down game. Where Y6's 'Dragon Engine' is up to the task however, is in its presentation. I love that restaurants no longer have a loading screen. It really improves the virtual tourism angle of the series. And you’ll have more reasons to go into shops with food playing such a large role in the game’s progression system. It’s got to be a nod to River City Ransom, the ancestor of open world beat em up games. Cars roll the streets of Kamuro for the first time. Disappointingly with no car-based heat actions. Kiryu has also learned the art of stepping over waist high railings, but my monkey brain still jogs around them. The Battle system is well slimmed down. Feels slower yet less precise. Throws and finishing holds performed within 6 feet of a piece of level architecture will fail 90% of the time, and that’s doubly annoying when they’re the best answer to the game’s many mob fights. They removed the generic heat move for downed opponents, and gave rando enemies the ability to block even when you're striking at their back. So it's a fighting style that's both less complex and less casual friendly at once. On the brighter side, they toned down boss health bars dramatically and reworked Heat Move depreciation. They may have overcorrected a bit and made a game that’s too easy, but I welcome some change over none at all. Y0 and Kiwami 1 were notorious for spongy boss fights, while Y6's bosses go down in two chairs. Some months back I 100%ed Kiwami 2 and the bulk of that game’s side content was combat based. Yakuza 6 meanwhile has no arena, no bouncer missions. In post game, I was pumping up my stats with only the superboss remaining. I get the impression they were a little self-conscious about this new, more restrictive combat system by leaving no way to voluntarily test its limits. The side content we do get is very hands off. Bar chats, Cabaret Club Hostesses, and Live Chat in order of increasing degeneracy. I’m told I can be a real priss about sexualized media so instead I’ll offer that Yakuza 0 let you skip the softcore porn and still get credit toward completion. Where Yakuza 6’s side content really hooked me was in Onimichi. I would get tanked at the local bar, sober up on the fun spearfishing minigame (which doubled as a vital source of cash), then enjoy some wholesome baseball. The only problem is how the game gates off Onimichi’s side activities for 80% of the time that the story is keeping you there. Technique (green) EXP is gotten almost exclusively through minigames, leaving no way to beef up your Kiryu until these very brief windows of time. I once again went for 100% completion on the hardest difficulty setting. Y6 is unique because its achievement list does not require 100% CP challenges. I might alienate some of my fellow achievement hunters, but I decided not to take the easy win and stop there. I’ve been completing games since before 2005, you see. Achievements can be a great guide for completionism, but this is a case where they just don’t go far enough. In some ways the CP List is better than the achievements, such as not requiring 100 Clan Creator battles or raising one unit to level 100. None of its individual tasks compare to such a senseless mind numbing grind. I did everything on that CP List until I was confronted with the big roadblock: Puyo Puyo. You need to play perfect for a minimum of 30-45 minutes against a relentlessly fast AI to encounter the final Rival character after 25-30 wins. This style of Endless Puyo Puyo rewards speed over strategy. I wasn’t being tasked with mastering the game, but fishing for a long enough streak of good luck. With some research I discovered this was the major roadblock for most PS4 Platinum Hunters in Judgment, and the minigame was removed in the modern/PC re-release. Probably for Rights Issues, but I took it as a sign that RGG agrees it was too hard. 99.9% completion is not as good as the Hundo, but I chipped away at Puyo Puyo for a couple weeks before accepting my limits. This writeup's been done for a month but I wasn't willing to throw in the towel lol Yakuza 6 is the finale to Kiryu’s s-pfft sorry, can't type that with a straight face. Actually, Kiryu’s had three fake out deaths before Yakuza 6 even begins, so them writing one into his new status quo as of The Man who Forgot his Name is extremely funny to hear. How could anyone think they would actually move on from Kiryu? He is as inevitable as watching his hairline get more youthful as he ages. But for a Living Saint, he can sure be a contemptible person. Repeatedly pushing those kids he cares about out of his life in the name of unwarranted self-sacrifice. Haruka calls him out on this behavior all the way back in the second game, but its sequels bend over backwards to frame a "You can't have both worlds" plot into a "Look what mess we gotta clean up next!" narrative. The only thing worse then a story that doesn't work is endlessly repeating that same story. The only new thing they have to say is about the immigrant gangs. Chinese immigrant Heihaizi “plants” all across Japan, waiting to do crimes for their Triad Dads they had never met previously. Koreans tainting Japan’s “pure” women with their sexual debauchery clubs. And they're both teaming up for their mutual hatred of Japan before a late game twist reveals they were unknowingly working for ancient members of the Japanese government. I can’t prove the racism is intentional, but I also can’t ignore it from a country that still denies the Rape of Nanking in the 21st century. So excuse me for singling out this one of countless problems with the story. The rest are what we've come to expect of Yakuza storytelling. For what it’s worth, minorities were written in a more charitable tone in previous entries, so it's certainly a shift in attitude that fails to interact with legacy characters, themes, etc. I guess the main takeaway is that the plot is once again bad, but not in a fun, funny, or earnest way this time. Not even the Baby or Beat Takeshi stopped it from feeling so bleak. Mega Man X Dive Offline (2023) Spoiler My experience with mobile games pretty much begins and ends at Fire Emblem Heroes, and I’m already confident I’ve seen the best and worst that format has to offer. A long running franchise selling you “Remember THIS?” over a few years before being quietly shuttered a few years later. Heroes is a bit of an anomaly in lasting, gosh, seven years. But even a successful one is doomed to the same fate. Mega Man X Dive Offline offers a game preservationist’s solution. Remove the microtransactions and RNG elements, then rebalance and reallocate all the resources so that players can see and do everything in a fraction of the time investment. No daily quests, no stamina, seasonal events can be played on any day of the year, and with no threat of server shut down you could come back to this in ten years if you wanted. Even with all that effort it’s still not a great game. I certainly don’t want to downplay this conversion, but it’s far from the latest, greatest entry in Mega Man X (better than X5-X7 at the very least!). Most characters are slow as molasses. Player skill takes a backseat to the RPG/grinding elements. The lack of controller support for menus is dumb, all it lets you do is move the "Mouse" so it's ideal to play with a real mouse handy. The story is meandering nonsense and the script is downright incoherent in English. I know from the game’s credits that it was properly localized but wow, they could have saved some money and gotten a better result out of Google Translate. I definitely got my Mega Man X Nerd Fix out of the deal though. As long as you keep up on the game’s mechanical systems you can pick up and play a different weirdo for each stage and just have fun experimenting. I also wasn’t expecting characters from other Mega Man series. Discovering that Tron Bonne was playable and that her ability is summoning the Gustaff which controls like Ride Armor spoke to me on a spiritual level. No notes. Unfortunately some of the mobile game content didn’t make the cut. They had crossover alts with other Capcom series, the only thing we end up getting close to that is Dr Light in a Ryu outfit, which is technically canon and hilarious. I shouldn’t brush past “keep up with mechanical systems” though. There’s a lot to learn and keep up with for a smooth ride through the story mode. Thank god for the Power Guidance menu pointing out all the things that contribute to your baseline stats and what areas you might want to focus on next. Some grinding is necessary but less than a cumulative hour of grinding got me to the end of the story mode in 20 hours of play time. If I wanted to do it as my favorite goofy characters however, a lot more grinding would be involved. Instead of punching maps 150K Power above my weight with un-hittable S Class Zero. So I like the game. Not as much as any other capcom release from the current golden age, but I like the precedent it sets for its genre. I remember when Heroes came out alongside the Nintendo Switch, there was some discussion of it releasing on consoles in a gacha-less format. And wouldn’t we want that for the game when they finally stop? MMX Dive Offline nixed the PvP stuff (to the collective ‘Good Riddance’ of all players, it seems), but I don’t think they’d have to do that for Heroes. Considering none of its pvp modes are two players connecting to a simultaneous match, it’s just uploading and downloading of static player data. Hardly need servers for that. Does Heroes work as a FOMO-less, non manipulative, play how you want to play experience? I dunno but I’d be curious to find out, and pleased to see its art preserved in a more permanent form. Edited January 30 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightcosmo Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 On 1/21/2024 at 12:01 AM, Fabulously Olivier said: I also picked up the Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection, and started playing MMBN1. Late, but my heart bleeds for you. MMBN1 is... really janky, clunky, slow and so forth. 2 is a godsend impovements-wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightcosmo Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 (edited) I would say: 3-->2-->6-->5-->4-->1 for best to worst in my opinion. Edit: accidental double posting. XD Edited January 30 by Lightcosmo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 (edited) 11 hours ago, Lightcosmo said: Late, but my heart bleeds for you. MMBN1 is... really janky, clunky, slow and so forth. 2 is a godsend impovements-wise. Look, uh, honestly, I don't hate it. I grew up with MMBN3 (don't remember if I had blue or white), but MMBN1 is fine, and toggling on Buster Max from time to time lets me bypass the worst parts of the game. It's definitely rough, but it basically created a whole new subgenre, and did an alright job of it. Maybe that comes across weird after I savaged Diablo 2 Resurrected, but I'm having a 5/10 or better experience with MMBN, and I had a 2/10 experience with that overrated guff. I guess since I'm responding anyway, I'll update with the rest of my month. 17. Halo 4 Spoiler Cleared 1/23 7/10 343's Halo games get a really bad rep, and while I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either. The story is okay, the gunplay feels good. Though the lack of Infested is EXTREMELY disappointing, and half of the new Promethean guns and grenades feel bad to use. Also, why must every 2nd Halo end in a barely functional vehicle mission? That end Starfox segment sucked hard. 18. Triangle Strategy - Utility Route Spoiler Cleared 1/25 8/10 Triangle Strategy is a special game with a great (if overly verbose and poorly paced) story, a strong artstyle, excellent tactical gameplay, a great soundtrack, and many distinct (if unbalanced) characters. It's basically the answer to "what if Shining Force was modern, good, and also ripped off Path of Radiance's narrative wholesale." 19. Halo 5 Spoiler Cleared 1/27. 8/10 So, unpopular opinion here. This may be the most hated Halo, but I actually liked it. Does it reach the heights of 2 and 3? No. But it's barely less good than Reach. The story's pretty good, the gunplay is tight, and they even fixed the bad Promethean guns and grenades from Halo 4. I guess I just don't care about the reasons people shit on this one. Why would I care if they changed the protagonist? It's first person. If they don't speak much, it doesn't matter if I'm playing John, Locke, or goddamn Leisure Suit Larry. Still no Infested though. Disappointing. 20. Megaman Battle Network Spoiler Cleared 1/30 5/10, for-its-time weighted to 7/10 Incredibly unique gameplay, catchy soundtrack, deep card system, and rewarding progression. But also, lacks some pretty basic QoL like the ability to escape battles without a chip, no style changes, no ability to scrap bad hands, and so on. I've put a few hours into Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth and it is so stupidly good. It stands a real chance of becoming the latest of my small handful of 10/10 ratings. Shame I'll be putting it down for a few months while Persona 3 Reload and Eiyuden Chronicles dominate my limited Xbox time. I'm about 1/3rd done with Octopath 2. Amazing game. Edited January 31 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 (edited) 7 hours ago, Lightcosmo said: Late, but my heart bleeds for you. MMBN1 is... really janky, clunky, slow and so forth. 2 is a godsend improvements-wise. That's good to know, as I also recently got the Battle Network legacy collection, and I plan on playing it sometime this year (I'm currently playing a Silver Snow playthrough of Three Houses). I've only played MMBN5 (Team Colonel) and MMBN6 (Cybeast Gregar) and only finished 5, so I plan to start with MMBN1. Edited January 30 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightcosmo Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 6 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said: Look, uh, honestly, I don't hate it. I grew up with MMBN3 (don't remember if I had blue or white), but MMBN1 is fine, and toggling on Buster Max from time to time lets me bypass the worst parts of the game. It's definitely rough, but it basically created a whole new subgenre, and did an alright job of it. I guess it isn't... Awful, just lacking many fun options 2 added to the series. Not to mention the chip comboes were severely lacking in 1. 2 hours ago, vanguard333 said: That's good to know, as I also recently got the Battle Network legacy collection, and I plan on playing it sometime this year (I'm currently playing a Silver Snow playthrough of Three Houses). I've only played MMBN5 (Team Colonel) and MMBN6 (Cybeast Gregar) and only finished 5, so I plan to start with MMBN1. Haha, dont take my word for it, you may actually think its great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samz707 Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance Been playing this, it's a pretty good RTS so far, it's on the same engine as the "Warfare" series of old RTS games so it's a fully featured realistic tactical RTS. (infact they've actually made things more complex it seems.) You can capture vehicles to bring them into later levels for instance and vehicles have realistic armor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 (edited) February was relatively light on clears, but I nonetheless feel highly accomplished on my New Year's resolutions, being that I'm at 6/15 goals. Both of the shortest games on the list are knocked off, as are 2 of the long ones. 21. Spider Man Miles Morales Spoiler Cleared 2/11. 8/10. I reckon I slightly prefer this to the original because of Venom powers. + Strong story, albeit weaker than Spider Man 1. + Improved on already strong combat and optional stealth gameplay. + Tones down a lot of Spider Man's worst/most frustrating side objectives. + Well-paced over a short but sufficient run-time + Traversal is as fun as ever. - Some of the side objectives are still a pain in the ass. - Too many collectibles. - Locks some powers and the platinum trophy behind NG+, lazily padding its "dollar per hour value." I may still go for this next year or so since I'm so close to the plat. - The low variety and number of crimes does eventually lead to the city feeling lifeless. It's just not very high quality dynamic content, and I am a dynamic content enthusiast. 22. God of War 3 Remastered Spoiler Cleared 2/12 8/10 OG God of War at its best, but still very much inferior to the new games. + Solid but simple hack and slash gameplay. + Tones down the puzzles and death traps. + QTEs are easier and less punishing than prior games. + Strong story, setpieces, and soundtrack - Flight sections suck a lot. - Still has QTEs. - Timed death traps that you have to rescue a certain NPC from suck. Not as much as in GoW1, but they still suck. 23. Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice Spoiler Cleared 2/13. 8/10 I allowed myself one non-resolution clear this month, and it was one that I prioritized for its short length and impending sequel on Gamepass. + Strong story + Weighty, impactful combat + Good soundtrack + Incredible and poignant portrayal of mental illness. + Gorgeous visuals - Poor puzzles pad the already short length. - All collectibles are missable. - The swamp and blindness trials are ridiculously bad. I damn near quit the game on the swamp trial. 24. Octopath Traveler 2 Spoiler Cleared 2/17. 9/10 Thus far the best game I've cleared this year. So much so that I obtained the platinum trophy, extending my time played by probably about 20-30 hours. + Top tier soundtrack + Most of the character stories are compelling. + Crossed paths and the final chapter see more conversations between party members than the original. + Excellent subclass system. + Great turn-based gameplay. + Satisfying progression. + Great art style + Each character is distinct and useful. - Some bosses are really cheap/annoying. I'd argue the secret boss in particular is actually poorly designed. - It's basically impossible to level party members evenly for most of the game. - Party members are still disconnected for the most party. - The game's approach to endgame grinding sucks. Even the rare Octopuff/Cait enemies barely make a dent in your endgame levels. Basically the only way to maybe level in a reasonable time frame is to hire a certain NPC who gives you 6x uses of either 2x/10x/100x xp or jp. 100x xp is almost underheard of, and JP rolls always feel bad. 25. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Spoiler Cleared 2/25. 8/10. So, J. S. Sterling giving this game a 7 is considered her worst take ever, but I frankly see where she's coming from. Even for all its objective qualities, the game has so many subjective and objective annoyances that I can easily see that being valid or even correct. + Beautiful art style and soundtrack. + Excellent exploration and traversal + Fun and varied puzzles + Varied enemy design. + Immersive physics system provides so much freedom of expression that people are still tackling this in new ways. For those who rate this a 10, this is usually why. - The only thing rain contributes is annoyance. There were zero situations in which I was glad for it. - Weapon durability is always shit. And the combination of fragile weapons and small inventories make rewards unexciting. Not to mention that weapons are in fact a majority of chest rewards as opposed to more useful commodities like rupees and arrows. - The same physics system that is the game's biggest strength is also its biggest annoyance. Huge ragdoll physics when you take a hit. Items rolling down hills. Items just barely not being placed into their intended destination. Etc. Etc. - The stealth section was a huge flaw. - The sand seal section also sucks. - Combat requires too much perfect defensive timing with too much penalty for error. I'm working on Persona 3 Reload. I'm in early November. I've also played a few hours of Diablo 3 to get the season rolling. I'm playing the Unicorn Overlord demo and it is beyond amazing. Edited February 25 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 i finally picked up helldivers 2 to play with mates and it's like somebody took planetside and earth defense force but asked the brave question: what if we made them fun game fucking rules Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 9 minutes ago, Integrity said: i finally picked up helldivers 2 to play with mates and it's like somebody took planetside and earth defense force but asked the brave question: what if we made them fun game fucking rules As someone who has tried Planetside 2, that is an excellent and well-deserved dunk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tryhard Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 (edited) played through and completed Morrowind after 22 years on and off of trying, because I felt obligated. expansions and all. I will say I'm thankful for the fact that there is an open source engine port of the game so I don't need to run it on the original application. OpenMW being a godsend. there is definitely things I like a lot about Morrowind, and things I do not like. the sort of feeling of being dropped in a very alien world with the giant mushroom structures and weird ravines called foyadas does have a certain unique charm to it that isn't met in the same way in Oblivion and Skyrim. and I also like the fact that the game truly does not give a shit if you break it, in fact it almost encourages you do. enchanted items are broken. custom overpowered spells are broken. alchemy is giga broken. the game in general is broken. it is not a particularly challenging game, in fact it's quite easy if you know how its systems work (in a very confusing way, is generally the answer), but being able to have the freedom to basically exploit as intended game mechanics has its appeal that not many other games do. I liked the fact the factions are rather low-key in comparison to the other games. You kinda are just sweeping some floors to begin with in the Fighters and Mages guilds to begin with, it's low stakes and it feels like there is sufficient build up to an actual threat slowly. The quests aren't particularly exciting, usually to kill something, escort something, deliver something, or pick something up. The base game main quest is also quite good for the most part. Nothing extremely exciting, but at least it's trying to pace itself. It feels like it's more of a "roleplaying" game in comparison to Skyrim especially. but then there is other less good things, such as the leveling system being atrocious (and carried over to being atrocious in Oblivion too). I completed Daggerfall in the unity port as well, and the fact that the leveling system is better there kind of just astounds me. I downloaded an 'always +5 modifier' mod and I'm not ashamed of it at all. while the main quest is definitely more interesting fare than the other games, people usually like to overlook the fact that it grinds to a halt 3/4 in and becomes extremely tedious (people who have played the game know which part I'm referring to). it's strange because the rest of the game is actually quite well-paced in terms of the main quest, and does not expect you to pursue it under some sort of cataclysmic stakes, at least not initially. and then there's the combat. which everyone knows is based on dice rolls and doesn't accurately show when you miss (there is actually less visual feedback than even daggerfall somehow). which you will be doing a lot with bad weapon skill at the start of the game, and with probably not much understand that fatigue is drained from running and affects your abilities pretty massively. it's not great, but it's also kind of what you expect to have to deal with when playing a 22 year old game. the expansions. I routinely heard Tribunal disregarded as disappointing, and I can see why. Like 70% of it is spent in the Mournhold sewers, which is not even the full intended city of Almalexia and is basically just a closed off area. The fact that many of the regular enemies in both this and Bloodmoon are made to be damage sponges feels very weird when the most threatening enemies in lore in the base game lose out to goblins in the sewers. I like parts of it but it pales in comparison to the base game. Bloodmoon can be especially obnoxious too because it throws a huge amount of enemies out on snowy flat ground and then does the whole 60% reflection bullshit on fucking Rieklings so good luck if you're a mage, jackass. It seems like a strange design decision to throw absurd reflect modifiers in the game when the base game of Morrowind lets you be broken and it's like an attempt to rein you in. Why can Spriggans resurrect and have a combined total of 600hp? The last area of Bloodmoon is also "fuck you" central. I still liked it better than Tribunal. and of course, like true power gamers, we wear robes over our armour, because that's how we roll. (Eltonbrand is a bit cryptic to get, I will admit) Edited February 27 by Tryhard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 I tried the demo for the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake. I like puzzle-platformers, and I've been really busy, so I've been looking for a game where I can easily play it for a few minutes at a time. The demo was really tiny; just four levels. I completed it in less than half an hour. That said, the gameplay was fairly fun. I played it on casual mode solely because I don't like the idea of their being a timer in a puzzle-platformer. I think I'll try the full game when I get the chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 (edited) Disney Classic Games Collection (1993-1994, 2019) Spoiler By now, Digital Eclipse is a well known entity, creating high quality digital collections of the sort of licensed games that are usually destined to never see a re-release. The most At Risk games from a preservationist’s perspective. This collection started out as fairly modest. The Lion King from Westwood Studios, and Aladdin from Virgin Games. Complete with a fascinating Museum detailing how these western game devs partnered directly with Disney’s animators to deliver such an authentic look to the movie using their “digicel” process. Two more delightful bonuses unique to the collection are the Trade show demo and Final Cut versions of Aladdin. The Demo is a rare look at a work in progress version of the Genesis version, whose In the Lamp level is totally different with unused mechanics. The Final Cut meanwhile is basically a patch to the finished version. I didn’t notice too many differences while playing, except for Agrabah Dungeon’s disappearing blocks to be way more generous. Years later, they included as DLC The Jungle Book and the much requested SNES version of Aladdin made by Capcom. So how about that 30 year old console war debate. Aladdin: Better on SNES or Genesis? As I understand it, Genesis already won – having sold twice as much during the same holiday season. I was a bit torn at first. I think the SNES version seriously excels as a platformer. There are generous windows for grabbing ledges, bouncing off obstacles, and the gliding tarp gives you further leeway on traversal. The enemy placement makes levels very speed run-able, and accessible. The Genesis version is the more challenging action game (though still "easy" for Genesis standards) with more varied level design and bursting at the seems with secret collectibles. In terms of presentation, Genesis handily takes it in the graphics department with stellar animation quality, while SNES has the better music and sound design. I think both of these games are great showcases for their respective hardware, but Capcom’s a tough act to beat. Ultimately what tipped the scale for me was the conceptual side of each game. Aladdin is not an action hero that hacks and slashes his way through Arabia. He’s a plucky guy who always helps out his friends. The SNES version captures this detail in the scenes from the movie they elected to depict. They opted against cool sword combat and even add a whole level where you must rescue Abu who got trapped in a Pyramid. That’s a plot beat that would fit right at home in the movie. So this version excels as an Adaptation. Put another way, Aladdin for the SNES really makes you FEEL like Aladdin. After having my fill of Aladdin, I braced myself for The Lion King. Boy if there’s any game in need of a Final Cut version like they did for Aladdin, this is it. I can say with absolute clarity that this is one of, possibly the first, video game I ever witnessed. Back when my eldest sibling would suggest I was too young to play and “might break the game”. Little did we understand the game was already beyond repair. I wonder what traumatized more kids: Mufasa’s death in the movie or the second stage of the game. Each level presents its own fresh hell of poor programming and punishing level design. The Jungle Book then was a much needed palette cleanser. I have never seen the film, but I quite enjoyed jumping and swinging as this tarzan child, throwing bananas at animals. Super Mario 64 Star Revenge 1.5 (2015), Star Revenge 2 Act 1 (2017), and Star Revenge 0 (2020) Spoiler If you’ve been dipping your toe into Mario 64 rom hacks in the last ten years, then you’ve probably heard of the Star Revenge series. Authored by BroDute, it currently spans 17 entries (24 if we’re counting remakes, but not counting version updates that may have replaced stars or removed Extra Lives as a QOL update. This is the second, full scale remake of the first game from 2012. You’d think with all these revisions and refinements the author would take time out to have someone proofread the text in English (Brodute is German). Someone that knows the difference between Safe and Save. Extream and Extreme. Or fixes terms of phrase like “well every bouble got to pop at some point”. I feel like a jerk for even bringing it up, but every NPC dialogue and wooden sign contained something obvious, and you need to depend on them for hunting secrets. SR 1.5 is the ideal starting point. It has difficulty that’s perfect for somebody that came hot off the original N64 game. Not much of a difficulty curve to speak of, but you won’t be asked to do 45 degree wall jump tunnels or a single Wrap Around (this maneuver). The only trick they expect you to know is climbing lava walls as Metal Mario. Pretty much the only use the Metal Cap has in Mario 64 hacks is traversing lava, I wish somebody would program in something new. The level design is very vanilla SM64. Remember that they called Levels “Courses”, because it was a 3D representation of classic, linear Mario design. You typically had a yellow brick road from start to end, with digressions to the sides of that road. This can get pretty tiresome in a game that kicks you completely out of the level when you get a star. You’ll be redoing basic platforming to get back to where you were a couple minutes ago. It’s very outdated design, but would have been alleviated with some expert-level shortcuts or maybe some hidden warps that experienced players could make use of to cut out that backtrack. Star Revenge 2, originally, was a Kaizo hack with difficulty far beyond other entries in the series. And BroDute doesn’t sound very proud of it. Apparently the Kaizo mario speedrunning community didn’t appreciate his updates to the game adding camera changes and other QOL stuff that made it “easier”. And this altercation turned the author off from ever doing a Kaizo hack again. I’m not telling you this as if it’s something I heard on the internet. I’m telling you this because BroDute told me, via his squid kid avatar, in one of Act 1’s stars titled “Drama Alert”. He later calls Kaizo players “retards” among several rants in his level titled Cancer Design Castle. Honestly, it sounds like a pretty petty feud to immortalize in your hack. Especially when this is supposed to be the “funny” entry. The 2010 memes are so pervasive that you’re literally quizzed on them for a star. I’m older than dirt, so I know the Numa Numa song and Scatman. But what the heck is We Are Number One and Nutshack? Might as well be quizzing me on Fortnite Dances. Star Revenge 0 I actually played last year. It’s my first star revenge, not because I cared about “lore order”, but because I was ready for any suggestion on what to play first when I’m staring at twenty of these games with funky numbering like 4.9, 6.25, etc. SR2 Act 1 had a big improvement in non linear level design while SR0 is even more refined. But it also asks more of the player, sprinkling in some advanced tech. The game is plenty encouraging though. With signs that explain how to line up wall jump angles. And plenty of more straightforward stars to tackle if you’d prefer not to try the hard stuff. Every level of SR0 has a 2D section, and the controls feel surprisingly good. Especially compared to his attempt at this idea in the hidden SMB 1-1 level of SR1. Bravely Second: End Layer (2015) Spoiler Yup, the Original Bravely Default 2. I played Bravely Default over five years ago and we didn’t part ways amicably. I was of course in love with its first 20 hours of reimagining Final Fantasy V. But then it asks you to play again, and again, I think four times minimum for an ending. Each subsequent playthrough is truncated thanks to its NG+ framework, but I remember being especially annoyed that the player could arrive at the correct answer of how to progress, and the game would just stop you from doing it until the main characters figure it out. Bravely Default has a meta-narrative hook to its story and it demands the player act like a total moron for it to play out as the writers envisioned. They must really hate DnD. Bravely Second does the same thing, but is obviously cognizant of player feedback. It’s only one forced Reset this time around, but the story suggests you needed multiple attempts to figure it out. This tells me it was probably exactly like the previous game until a very late stage in development. Big Difficulty spike around there too, like I was supposed to have had another 5-10 hours of levels before this point. Bravely Second leans heavily on its reused content, but has the sense to put its new stuff in the front of the experience. The main draw is of course having a whole new round of classes to try out. The first two introduced are the Wizard and Charioteer, and they’re excellent. Both to play as and providing extremely lucrative skills to take elsewhere. Spellcraft gives you a lot more powerful avenues of delivering magic damage while Charioteer lets you forgo armor in favor of slapping on more weapons. So if you understand the mechanics and know how to take advantage of each encounter, you’re dealing outrageous damage even early in the game that clears random encounters in one round. And that leads into the game’s new Consecutive battle feature. So long as you can keep beating all the enemies in the first turn, you can chain new encounters with increasingly larger bonuses to exp and JP. Your BP won’t reset after each, so you’ll have to gamble whether you can survive the next battle at a major BP deficit. I played the game alongside HCBailly’s LP, which began in summer of last year. That timing is significant because it was a few weeks before the June 30th server shut down for both games. No server access removes a bunch of superfluous features. But the biggest loss is Norende/Fort Lune. You can’t get your daily five villagers to speed up town building. The only remaining way to get more than the 1 you start with is streetpass. Specifically, you have to streetpass someone who played the game, not just any random 3DS will do. Before the shut down, completing this minigame would take a couple of real life weeks assuming you logged in for your daily villagers each day. Now, without the servers, it takes at least half a year. Your 3DS needs to be on, at least in Sleep Mode, and plugged in for all that time. RIP 3DS Battery. The main thing you get out of Fort Lune is your Special Moves. Essentially customizeable limit breaks. And playing the game without them is certainly harder. And a shop that sells battle items and ammunition for the two new classes that is really rare otherwise. So the server shutdown really did a number on the intended game balance. Overall I’m coming away from this game a lot more positive than I did with Default. Due to having played the game so gradually over eight months, I’m not so well equipped to remember what stood out to me. The story is especially a blur. I remember a lot of villains motivated by revenge for events generations ago that they did not personally witness, so that’s totally unconvincing. I don’t care for any of the main characters. If you had told me the dude on the boxart was Tiz I wouldn’t have believed it but yes that’s his freelancer outfit. Tetsuya Nomura would see that design and say “alright, settle down”. Bravely Second is carried hard on its gameplay, and I can’t fault it for that. These developers are still going. Them and Persona seem to be the last JRPGs with turn based, menu based battles. Not counting Indies. Enough of Final Fantasy 5. When’s someone gonna rip Final Fantasy 9’s ‘learn abilities from equipment” system? Valkyria Chronicles 2 (2010) Spoiler I realized recently that Valkyria Chronicles might be my favorite rpg on the PS3. It’s not much of a complement. Given the Genre Exodus to handheld systems, there wasn’t a whole lot of competition. VC1 underperformed significantly in sales, and only found its audience many years later with its PS4 and PC re-releases. In the mean time, they had to dial back development to the safer handheld market if they wanted to continue. It’s surprising then that this PSP followup really does feel like a sequel with all its gameplay refinements and additions. For me, the highlight of VC2’s gameplay is the APC. You can convert your lone Tank into an APC, which trades firepower and durability for the ability to carry units around. It really expands the capability of units with low AP (movement) when they have a mobile outpost to spawn from. And the best part is the 1 CP cost compared to the Tank’s 2. They may have overstepped though in giving your vehicle crucial new abilities unique to it – like the constructor arm that builds bridges and ladders. Gee, don’t you think that ability would be appropriate on ENGINEERS as well? Just a thought. Yes the class balance is still a little wack, but much more evened out compared to the original. Gone are the days of Scout supremacy, even in spite of the bite-sized maps. Their movement was cut by about a third, Ragnaid heals half as much, and their combat is comparatively weak. VC2 Scouts were still thoroughly useful for outpost captures, but I ended up using a more even blend of classes. Even the new one, Armored Techs. These goofballs carry a shield to block gunfire and bonk enemies with a giant hammer. Surprisingly useful. The big change is three tiers of branched promotions. The Sniper from the previous game was rolled into one of the Scout’s promotion branches, and it’s an example of how several branches lose entire class skills as well as AP and HP. These options are more like specialized side-grades than straight upgrades. I tried them all out and found merits in each of them despite the drawbacks. Plus if they were strict upgrades, I would start to get annoyed about not having the Credits to promote. Even base classes still proved viable by the end. One of my favorite features of VC1 is not needing to grind, and it’s still the case here as long as you tell yourself to spread the kills around your squad for more Credits. There are certainly a few holdover issues from VC1 that persist in the sequel. Orders are still outrageously expensive. The RNG scenarios of who dodges an attack can still frustrate. Potentials you cannot influence may determine whether you can attack or move at all. The map screen gives extremely sparse information. It’s ambiguous trying to figure out which enemy outpost is tied to a different one in a separate area once you capture it. My least favorite gimmick is Defend/Rout missions with half a dozen enemies just hanging out behind terrain or in the grass, never moving or attacking. Running scouts around a map to find them is no fun, and when you start the mission over, the enemy layout will be different. The Secure Supplies missions have this issue too, I won’t know if any of the boxes will be in the same spot until I’ve spent the CP running somebody over there. There's no saving mid-mission either, so don't expect save scumming as a way to safely gain information on the map. If you were a fan of VC1’s gameplay, VC2 is worth a look. Of course it’s unlikely to see a remaster, but if you have a Vita lying around it’s still downloadable for ten bucks as of 2024. I couldn’t tell you how well it stacks up against VC4 (haven’t played it), but I enjoyed my time slightly more with this one than the first. It could certainly stand to be shorter. It’s longer than VC1 even if you stuck to mandatory missions. And there are two optional maps for every forced one so they certainly put too much into the game. Every playable unit has their own loyalty mission after you used them enough, and you’ll want to do them since their worst Potential gets overwritten with something good. The plot involves a Gallian civil war that follows logically from the events of the previous game. Though the storytelling is ultimately let down by obnoxious main characters and “military high school” setting. It is apparently the only game in the series that takes place chronologically after VC1, so I figure it’s exciting to just see a new conflict instead of fighting more Imperials in 1935. Quick edit fact check: I said Orders are 'still' expensive but I was misremembering. Orders being prohibitively expensive is a uniquely VC2 thing. In the first game, giving Alicia a 1CP Defense Boost is key to a lot of 1 turn clears. Meanwhile that same Order is 4CP in VC2, and then in later game they take the average cost of Orders back down to 1-2. For what it's worth, I appreciate the effort to try and stop the player from that juggernaut approach Next month will probably be more backlogging, as most of the stuff I'm looking forward to comes out in April. I don't want to fall behind on 2024 games though, so I'll have Penny's Big Breakaway to talk about, and probably the new Contra. Edited March 8 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanguard333 Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 (edited) I just got the Mario vs Donkey Kong Remake. I got it because I like puzzle-platformers and because I wanted something I could play in small chunks. After playing for only 30 minutes, I am already in World 2. So far, it's been fun. So far, it has felt more like a small platformer than a puzzle-platformer, but I'm guessing/hoping it will become more puzzle-like as I get further in the game. EDIT: I have now played a lot more of the game. It does get a lot more puzzle-like as it goes on. That said, for a lot of levels, I can't help but feel that they end right before they can reach their full potential. I imagine part of it is that these puzzles were designed to be completed under a timer, and part of it is that, being a Mario game, it is meant mainly for kids. Anyway, I recently completed the ice world. Playing through the levels of the ice world, I really appreciated that the slippery ice floors was used mainly for sliding puzzles rather than being an obstacle to precision platforming. Then I got to the boss fight, and my relief quickly turned to frustration. With the exception of three small platform sections, the entire stage is slippery ice, so one must avoid both spiked barrels and falling snow while running & jumping on slippery terrain. It wasn't challenging; it was just plain frustrating. Video games have existed until the 70s, so how come it wasn't until Mario Galaxy in 2007 that developers realized that players hate slippery ice in platformers? It's not challenging; it's just frustrating. EDIT: I just learned that the Ice World wasn't in the original game; it was added in the remake. I also got, but have not started, the Advance Wars 1 & 2 Remake. Edited March 9 by vanguard333 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabulously Olivier Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) March was a month where I had immense time taken from me due to work. It was also a month in which I picked up and dropped 3 dogshit games due to difficulty and poor game design. It was also a month in which I put most of my hours into one of the best games I've ever played (and haven't beaten it yet). 26. Mass Effect Spoiler Cleared 3/3 with a platinum. 9/10 + Excellent plot + One of the best casts of characters in gaming + Top tier worldbuilding + Impressive scope of RPG choices + Strong soundtrack - I wouldn't call combat bad per say, but it is a basic, somewhat below average third person shooter - Mako sections suck. 27. Persona 3 Reload Spoiler Cleared 3/4 8/10 + Great cast + Strong story, though less so than Persona 5 + Strong soundtrack, though less so than Persona 5 + Strong combat, though less so than Persona 5 - Bad dungeon design - Takes a long time to get good, even by Persona standards 28. Shining Force Spoiler Cleared 3/17 4/10, time weighted to 7/10 + Varied characters. + Fun exploration for its genre + Nostalgic soundtrack - RNG completely screws over the player, all the time, and with no way to predict or compensate for it. Dodges, stunning attacks, doubles, and deadly attacks pretty much only happen against you. So I am not at all ashamed to say I save scummed and rewound the Hell out of this nonsense. - Enemy AI is dumb as Hell. And that's pretty much the only thing giving the player a fighting chance, given how much stronger they are and how much the RNG favors them. - A lot of maps are just open spaces that take too long to traverse. - Grinding isn't fun in any SRPG, but particularly not fun here, and the game doesn't feel like it gives out nearly enough xp to mages or healers without grinding. Several characters are just unusable without grinding, like Ests from Hell. Super Mario Bros U Deluxe - Quit Spoiler 2D Mario isn't for me. I don't think they're fun. I don't think the genre is fun in general. No More Heroes 3 - Quit Spoiler The premise is good and the humor sometimes works. But mostly, it was just well below average for most of its runtime with low quality repetitive tasks to earn money to fight bosses. Ultimately, the musical chairs segment immediately followed by a boss who does nothing but spam unacceptable oneshots cements this as one of the worst games I've ever played. Dante's Inferno - Quit Spoiler The core premise of old school God of War works. But here's the thing. God of War 1 sucked an entire bag of dicks entirely because of insta-death traps and cheap platforming sections and both of these things are massive problems in this game. No thanks. Not enduring that again. Right now, I'm playing Unicorn Overlord, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, and Pokken Tournament DX. Edited March 25 by Fabulously Olivier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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