6. Grim Legends 3: The Dark City - 4 hours
It's an okay HOG game, but since it's for some reasons in the same series, I have to compare it to original Grim Legends. GL1: The Forsaken Bride was the game that made me interested in this genre again, it was really well made and balanced HOG game with stunning graphics and engaging storyline. Well, unfortunately I can't say that about The Dark City, it's fine on its own, but story in it not as exciting and gameplay focused too much on mostly boring minigames. I'm not sure why these games are in one series and numbered like they are direct sequels, they are not, they have different settings and characters, even artstyle and graphics looks completely different in each Grim Legends game. Anyway, despite my disappointment that it's not as awesome as The Forsaken Bride, Grim Legends 3: The Dark City is still a good game and worth playing if you want to play a short and simple adventure game.
#8
Arcade Saga
PC VR (Vive)
Completed: January 25, 2019
Playtime: 6h 41m (started in 2018)
Imagine a classic old-school arcade brick breaker pong game. Arcade Saga is sort of like that, but in VR, on steroids, and in 3 different variants/games in one package. It also reminds me of other old-school arcade games in the sense that while the concept is as simple as it gets and visually it's not much to look at, once the gameplay starts you tend to quickly forget everything else. The 3 included VR action games are Fracture, Smash and Bowshot, each with its own series of stages/levels, bosses and upgrades/power-ups (purchasable with earned points in Arcade mode). I found it fun and addicting. Played around a bit with each in Fun mode, and managed to finish Fracture and Smash in Arcade mode before my monthly subscription time for this game ran out.
#9
Don't Knock Twice
PC VR (Vive)
Completed: January 30, 2019
Playtime: 2h 39m
My first venture into VR horror. Don't Knock Twice relies heavily on cheap jumpscares, which normally wouldn't work on me. For reference, the most SOMA and Amnesia: Dark Descent managed to 'scare' me was a mild sense of unease and nervousness in some parts. It's different in VR though - turns out it's pretty damn hard not to go "GAH?!!!" when you realize that something creepy has started to embrace you from behind all of a sudden. Beyond such pleasant memories, however, there isn't much interesting that can be said about this game. The minimalistic story is forgettable, and the puzzles pretty straightforward.
#10
Apex Costruct
PC VR (Vive)
Completed: February 05, 2019
Playtime: 9h 29m
One of the longer and more traditional action/adventure VR games I've played so far. You have your hub/safehouse from which you're sent out on a decent number of story missions in a post-apocalyptic world devoid of human life. Fighting boils down to shooting different types of arrows at annoyingly persistent robotic enemies, and either physically avoiding their return shots (my legs got a decent workout in some parts) or blocking them with an energy shield in your off-hand. There's an inventory for usable items, and an XP system for upgrading your bow/arrow damage and shield's defensive capacity. The game is pretty good, I enjoyed my playthrough despite some obvious shortcomings. Such as difficulty spikes in some levels, especially horde mode swarm missions are annoying and could stand to be toned down a bit. The ending was disappointing as
it not only recycles an earlier boss, but also is very abrupt and never really delivers on all the hints of an upcoming twist that can be found scattered in various logs.
#11
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Switch
Completed: February 07, 2019
Playtime: 122h 40m (started in 2018)
And so, 99 shrines and 237 korok seeds later, I finally finished Breath of the Wild. I am left with mixed feelings about it - while there's quite a lot to enjoy here, there's also plenty annoying issues that drag the whole experience down. My favorite parts of the game were the enjoyable traversal mechanics (moving around, paragliding, shield surfing, sailing was all very well done with snappy controls, even climbing is cool as long as it's not raining all over again), exploring the Divine Beasts, visiting new settlements where one can find lots of new characters and new quests, and going through some of the more interesting hidden shrine trials - like the giant maze puzzle one, or the shadow labyrinth one. There are lots of little details and mechanics that aren't immediately apparent, but make you go "woah" when you discover them for the first time. However, in a lot of wilderness segments the game tends to flow into a not particularly exciting routine of digging up shrines and korok seeds. The runes system in this game was not nearly as interesting to me as playing around with masks and melodies in Majora's Mask was (which is the only other Zelda game I have played). Combat was ok at most times, frustrating at rare times, but never got to be something I loved about the game. Always too limited inventory space was annoying because it meant often leaving behind loot that I felt I earned by completing challenges the game placed before me. Constantly breaking, fragile weapons meant I always felt pressured to preserve better weapons for stronger opponents and bosses instead of making good use of them. It also meant that receiving a weapon in reward for something elicited an exasperated groan from me more often than not (even if I do have space for it, the weapon will last me maybe several minutes of active combat and then it's gone), while in contrast getting a new armor piece was always a welcome rare event.
#12
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - The Master Trials DLC
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - The Champions' Ballad DLC
Switch
Completed: February 07, 2019
Playtime: 20h 16m total for both
I don't have any kind words to spare for the Master Trials one. Somehow someone somewhere thought it was a good idea to introduce a "challenge" by taking away all your hard-earned weapons, equipment and healing items and throw Link naked into a gauntlet of kill-everything-that-moves levels filled with enemies. If you die at any point - too bad, restart from the beginning. Maybe if someone loves combat in BotW, this DLC could be for them, but I absolutely loathed it and only trudged on because I wanted to see what a fully upgraded Master Sword looked like. It was frustrating in the Beginner Trials. It got aggravating in the Intermidate, or whatever the second part's name was. I didn't finish the final Master part, having died at one of the (I presume) last levels to a Lynel accompanied by a stampede of other enemies and a Guardian sentry, after running out of all healing and arrows, and down to last several intact melee weapons. Wiping out my last several hours of progress through the master stage. Go home, Nintendo, you're drunk.
The Champions' Ballad, on the other hand, is a much better expansion. I enjoyed figuring out the locations of new hidden shrines on the map from the clues given, and exploring the new divine beast was fun. It even had a decent amount of interesting backstory for all the champions. But I have to question the design decision making process at Nintendo that led to focusing a whole new DLC on adding even more shrines, was it not enough to stuff the whole base game with them? I guess I should be thankful they didn't try to squeeze more Korok seed madness in as well.
#13
Cloudlands: VR Minigolf
PC VR (Vive)
Completed: February 08, 2019
Playtime: 2h 40m
Not much to say here - it's mini golf in VR. The game is fun and relaxing, but is probably better played with a friend so the two players can take turns at swinging the club. While the provided levels are sufficiently varied both in difficulty (from a mere 1-2 swings to complicated mazes of 20+ swings on average to reach the hole) and appearance, the limited amount of them available is disappointing. The playtime above was enough for me to play through the whole 18 hole course twice, plus finish two more sets of randomly picked 9 levels, at which point I grew bored of replaying the same thing. There is a level editor included, but I can't really afford to waste time on playing around with that.
#14
Battletech
PC
Completed: February 21, 2019
Playtime: 94h 10m
An excellent tactical strategy game in the style of x-com but with mechs. I loved it so much that I practically breezed through the campaign in half the span it would normally take me to finish something this long. I'm actually familiar with Battletech universe since I did play one of the older Mechwarrior sim PC games (I think it was Mechwarrior IV: Vengeance). And it's very impressive how they managed to faithfully reproduce that feel of mech combat and managing your mechs in this strategy game, a very different genre. I didn't realize I missed tinkering with mech equipment and trying to squeeze something extra out of given mech's tonnage that much. It's not without its share of problems, of course. The random maps are too small and rarely feature interesting landmarks other than some hills, lakes and mountains. Performance often tanks, with regular frame drops and stutters even on a beefy PC. You're limited to drop lance size of just 4 mechs for the entirety of the game, which makes building new crew habitation modules and additional mech bays on your ship for the most part pointless. Anyway, here's the equipment setup my final elite lance of assault mechs that completely wrecked everything in their path in the final missions: 1) Long range/Sniper unit = King Crab with 1 x Gauss Rifle, 2 x PPC++ and 1 x AC2++; 2) Short range/Brawler unit = Highlander with 2 x AC/20++ and 2 x MG; 3) Short range/Skirmisher unit = Highlander with 1 x AC/5++ and 4 x SRM6++; and 4) Long range/Indirect fire unit = Stalker with 2 x LRM20++, 1 x LRM15++ and 1 x LRM10+.
Retired/dropped playthroughs:
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
Vita
Playtime: 1h 37m
This game was next on my list to play in the MGS series, but I quickly found the PSP game controls on Vita insufferable. And so I chose instead to let someone else suffer in my place, and watched a random let's play playthrough on youtube while eating snacks and sipping a drink in comfort. Best decision ever, this is quite clearly the worst MGS game in the series up to this point.
PaperDolls
PC VR (HTC Vive)
Playtime: 55m
Another VR horror (what can I say, I guess I was in the mood to be frightened this month), which I dropped pretty quickly because of its awful control scheme. There's no teleport locomotion which I'm firmly used to by now, and you only get a choice between nauseating "move-where-you-look" mode and having to repeatedly pull trigger buttons to move ahead in tiny, tiny steps with each pull. Which seemed like an excellent way to quickly wear down my vive controllers, and so I wisely chose not to do it. In any case, the game seemed a bit too similar to Don't Knock Twice which I just finished, so no big loss.
Seeking Dawn
PC VR (HTC Vive)
Playtime: 3h 48m
I liked the game at first, it's a great-looking VR shooter with potentially promising story and sci-fi lore. But then first it started to introduce survival-gathering-crafting mechanics and it got tedious. More importantly, combat suddenly became difficult to the point of aggravating. There are big predator opponents who are quick, kill you in several hits, and take like over several dozen shots with your starting gun to kill. The final straw was the 1st encounter with human grunt opponents, who are quick/constantly moving around, kill you in several shots unless you also move (which is difficult to accomplish with teleport locomotion while also shooting), and take forever to kill because they have regenerating shields. The game throws such encounters at you, but doesn't provide an adequate weapon to match the challenge - you're stuck with the default gun which frankly feels like shooting a BB gun for all the effect it has. After dying repeatedly in over 15 attempts to beat that encounter with 3 grunts, I gave up on the game - I have pretty low tolerance for bullshit these days, and my time is better spent on things I enjoy doing.
Currently playing:
Divinity: Original Sin II (PC)
CLANNAD (PC)
Hitman 2 (PC)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PC)
Nier: Automata (PC)
Elite: Dangerous (Vive)
+ other monthly VR games
#10 Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2/21/2019 ) | 9/10 | 3DS XL | ~ 25.5 Hours | Recommend: Y
# Overall -9 | A game that grew on me the deeper I got into it, was sad to see it end! Gameplay -8.4 | The maps where lackluster but the game still provided exhilarating combat. Sound -9 | A great orchestral soundtrack Story/Online -9 | The story grew better over time and was well animated throughout. Asking Price- 9| Great game with the right amount of content.
#11: Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (2/22/2019 ) | 9/10 | Xbox One | ~ 8 Hours | Recommend: Y
# Overall - 9| Aggregate of 4 components below. Decimal rounded up or down by personal bias. Gameplay -8.6 | Gorgeous world that invites you explore more. Only negative was scripted areas with loose controls. Sound -9 |The soundtrack is fantastic, giving earthly vibes throughout Story/Online -10 | It told a subtle story that made me shed a few tears. Never getting in the way of exploring it was told excellently Asking Price- 9| A good amount of content and areas to explore. Can't wait to play #2 later this year!
I just got a HDMI adapter for my Wii, so I figured it was time for my bi-yearly playthrough of Pokemon Snap. I admittedly have a lot of nostalgia for this game, but...I honestly think it still holds up! Even graphically I'm always shocked by how nice everything looks.
As far as the game itself goes, I just find it super chill, and while I do wish it was longer - it being so short makes it perfect for a lazy night at home. I know the game inside out at this point, but it's always fun to try and get high-scoring pictures. The image above shows some of my favourite shots this time through.
I don't have any real criticisms of the game tbh. It does what it sets out to do perfectly. I just wish it was longer, and that Nintendo would finally give us a sequel.
#9. Metroid Fusion
Only the second Metroid game I've ever played, the first being Zero Mission which I played last year. This one was every bit as great, with a bit more of a horror feel to match its obvious sources of inspiration. Like ZM, my only minor quibble is that it can occasionally be unclear how to proceed. Power Bombs can help clear things up by unveiling if certain walls can be destroyed using one of your various power-ups, but they won't help you find certain hidden morph ball passageways... which would be totally fine if those passages were just for bonus powerups, but there was at least one point on the critical path where I was stuck and had to look up the way forward on YouTube because of one of those. But that's a relatively minor complaint, since the game usually does a great job with signposting... I'd say about 95% of the time., to pull an arbitrary percentage out of my ass. 5/5 - "Great"
I know you can't actually "finish" games like this but I've sank about 20 hours into the online multiplayer over the last week and it's starting to crap out on me so eh.
I managed to beat 34 games last year but I suspect I won't even come close in 2019 because I'm putting a lot of time in games I've already beaten.
1. Dead Cells (Switch) - (22 hours) ★★★★★
What a game! I didn't expect to like the randomly generated levels but when paired with almost perfect controls and a sense progression that makes every attempt to beat the game meaningful it becomes something special. I beat this game prior to the 1.1 patch that changed the difficulty so I should come back to this title some time and beat it on a higher difficulty level. Dead Cells and Hollow Knight were the two best games I had purchased in 2018.
2. Super Metroid (SNES Mini) - (6 hours) ★★★★★
I beat this game back on Wii Virtual Console but the game is just so damn good that I played through it again, and probably I'll give it another playthrough in the near future. The second playthrough was probably even more enjoyable than the first, because I was paying more attention to the environmental storytelling and really let the atmosphere sink in. It's a masterpiece and probably one of my top 10 favorite games of all time.
3. Parascientific Escape ~ Gear Detective (3DS) - (5 hours) ★★☆☆☆
The Parascientific Escape trilogy is basically a low production value lite 'clone' of Zero Escape in which typical escape room puzzles obstruct the player from unravelling some big mystery. Because each game in the trilogy only lasts for a couple of hours one can't expect a story arc with the same impact as say 999 but they're enjoyable nonetheless. Gear Detective is the second game in the trilogy and focuses on chronokinetic powers and preventing a murder from happening. I did like Parascientific Escape ~ Cruise in the Distant Seas a little better than this one but I hope that the third game ties everything together.
4. Parascientific Escape ~ Crossing at the Farthest Horizon (3DS) - (5 hours) ★★☆☆☆
A little bit better than Gear Detective in the gameplay department with much better puzzle design but on the other hand it does overboard with the amount of dialogue IMO. If I were to rank the whole trilogy then 1 > 3 > 2, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.
5. Okami HD (Switch) - (31 hours) ★★★★★
I had three versions of this game but never finished it because I couldn't get through the slow introduction, but finally I manged to beat it this time around. It's a Kamija game through and through with a Zelda-like structure although it holds your hand quite a bit more. Maybe I'll try Okamiden some time too.
6. Monument Valley (Mobile) - (4 hours) ★★★☆☆
The majority of this game I've played on Korean subways so perhaps I would've enjoyed this more in a different environment and with audio. Still I enjoyed how the game played and how gorgeous it looked, I've already purchased the sequel and all DLC so I'll be coming back for more.
7. Double Dragon (Arcade) - (<1 hour) ★★★☆☆
I'm well familiar with the NES game but unfortunately that version doesn't support 2 player co-op. The arcade version does and I had fun playing through it with a friend of mine in a video game museum in Korea.
8. Dogyuun (Arcade) - (<1 hour) ★★★☆☆
Shoot-em-ups seem an acquired taste to me and it took until the Psikyo collection on Switch to appreciate the genre; when you become familiar with the game's patterns it has some sort of meditative quality. Dogyuun was a pretty standard type of shoot-em-up with a few power-ups and standard stage with mech-boss cycle, but I was surprised by the part where you can turn into a giant walking mech and stomp the @#% out of enemies on screen. I've played better but I've also played worse.
9. The Simpsons (Arcade) - (<1 hour) ★★★★☆
When I was in my early teens I saw this game running on an arcade-cabinet on vacation and then made the mistake to purchase one of the NES games expecting it to be a beat-em-up. Fortunately I've been able to find this game in an arcade again and had a lot of fun seeing all these familiar characters drawn and animated to well. It's a short and simple game but somehow nails the Simpsons feel just about as well as the Turtles beat-em-ups did.
10. Valkyria Chronicles (Switch) - (32 hours) ★★★★★
My favorite SEGA game of all time. Amazing game, can't believe I never played this even through I own it on three systems. The setting, gameplay and progression are really well done.
11. Half-Life 2 (PC) - (15 hours) ★★★★★
Couldn't get into it at the time but I recently installed this classic again and finally it clicked. Apart from a couple of dragging parts it was an excellent showcase in how to model a cinematic experience without resorting to cut-scenes. Still looked good too.
12. Our World Is Ended (Switch) - (40 hours) ★☆☆☆☆
This has to be the weakest VN I've played in years, it makes the Parascientific Escape series look really good. The main issue with OWIE is that it's quite mediocre and even fails to have one area that's interesting. On top of that the story really goes nowhere which made the ending incredibly unsatisfying to me.
13. Dragon Quest 1 Mobile - (40 hours) ★★★☆☆
A bit grindy for my taste but it was interesting to see how the series started and its parallels to DQ Builders. It's the fourth mainline game I've finished.
14. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Switch) - (65 hours) ★★★★★
Fantastic game, best Square-Enix game since The World Ends With You probably, It has exploration, humour, memorable characters, epic story, beautiful graphics, lots of variation. I prefer Builders 2 over any of the mainline games.
15. Final Fantasy VII (Switch) - (23 hours) ★★★★★
It still holds up after all these years though it also hows its age. Whereas Midgar is the most atmospheric scene of any FF game I do think it's also the most boring part of the game. This version allows for a 3x speed-up of battles so this playthrough was a lot shorter than my first one.
16. Astral Chain (Switch) - (? hours) ★★★★☆
To me Astral Chain scores a bit below both Bayonettas and above Nier Automata. It's a great foundation for a new franchise but a bit rough around the edges. Still I enjoyed the combat system and setting a lot.
17. Gears 5 (PC) - (? hours) ★★★★☆
Thanks to Game Pass I played this on PC on "experienced" difficulty. I'm not sure whether I like the 'open' parts of gears 5 (e.g. the part with the skiff) and the encounter design doesn't match Gears 1 and 2 but otherwise it's a beautiful game and one of the best of 2019.
18. Root Letter: Last Answer (Switch) - (15 hours) ★★★☆☆
I already had this game on Vita but when Last Answer content and the sequel were announced I decided to go for the improved version. It's a pretty decent ultra-lite Ace Attorney ish game that pretty much plays itself but offers a nice setting, The Last Answer content IMO actually takes away from the experience though.
19. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch) - (? hours) ★★★★☆
Still a great game after all those years, in some ways I enjoyed playing this remake more than the original back in the day, but it's clearly a very template-y Zelda with its dungeon designs and structure. Not that that's a bad thing of course.
20. Little Nightmares (Switch) - (3 hours) ★★★☆☆
I disliked the first quarter of the game because of the many trial & error puzzles and platforming, but then the game started focusing more on hide & seek mechanics and that worked quite well, it also nails the atmosphere. It's a gem, just not an outstanding one like Inside.
21. Raging Loop (Switch) - (33 hours) ★★★☆☆
Good. almost great visual novel based on the popular werewolves board game. Although the production values range from bad to acceptable I must say that the writing and localisation carried the whole experience, it's really good. Thanks to its structure and how it keeps track of your choices in a flowchart it's always clear what your options are to change your fate. The reason why I only gave it three stars is that the final 3rd of the game wasn't as good as the first part of the game.
22. Grim Fandango (Switch) - (14 hours) ★★★☆☆
Grim Fandango was one of the few Lucas Arts adventure games that I didn't play when I was young so I was happy to try the remastered version. It didn't age very well though and generally controls poorly, but it makes up for it with its setting and humor.
23. Dragon Quest XI S Definitive Edition (Switch) - (65 hours) ★★★★☆
Probably my second favorite mainline Dragon Quest game. It could've been my favorite if the pacing had been better but at some point gameplay hardly evolved anymore while the story was trying to carry the experience for at least 15 more hours and I haven't even touched the post-game content so far.
24. Celeste (Switch) - (7 hours) ★★★★☆
Brilliant game with quite possibly my favorite platforming mechanics of any game in its genre. It was quite difficult most of the time but never too difficult. The B-sides have to wait though.
25. Micro Mages (PC) - (? hours) ★★★★☆
Excellent game in co-op! If this would've come out in the early 90's it would've been a classic.
26. Crystalis (NES) - (10 hours) ★★★☆☆
Really enjoyed this game, it feels like a blend of Illusion of Gaia's combat mixed with the setting of Phantasy Star.
...I actually didn't beat anything at all this week!
First I got roped into playing a lot of The Sims 4. My friend recently got it and started streaming it. Then we came up with building challenges and stuff so I spent most of my week with that. I also played a lot of Hollow Knight but due to computer problems I didn't manage to beat it this week as planned. I think I am getting close to the end tho so it will probably show up in next week's update!
The PC problem seems to have been due to a faulty GPU and that is very inconvenient now that I was planning on starting some big games that I was looking forward to playing on the new card. I guess I will have to change my plans and find smaller stuff to play on the old card while I sort this thing out.
This game's aging textures shows. While airplanes and air vehicles look nice, everything else looks really simplistic. Still I rather enjoyed my time with the game, but its reliance on DFM was disappointing. It's a good thing I didn't get too nauseous while doing the jet plane stages at least. The non jet plane stages felt tacked on and not as exciting as the jet planes, and while there are 4 missions of these, they tend to be rather lengthy (pro tip, player helicopter stages in first person view mode).
While I can see this being the weakest of the AC games, I still find it enjoyable, with some missions being fun to play. I don't mind the militaristic aspects of it, but it does come off with a lot of green being used. Also I got to fly over Dubai and that was neat~
16. Metal Gear Solid - Masterpiece. I've been slowly chipping away at it between games and finally decided to finish it up tonight. I've played Metal Gear games in portions before, but never finished one previously. I'm glad I did as this convinced me to get Death Stranding day 1. Great characters, narrative and OST. The combat is a bit dated, but everything else makes up for it. Will definetly check out MGS 2 at some point this year.
17. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - I had a lot of fun playing thru this over the past week. The game does have a lot of faults like a bare bones story and dated combat, but something about the game just felt right. I'm now looking forward to Jedi Knight: Fallen Order after not really having it on my radar.
I enjoyed Y0 quite a lot so I was excited to finally play Kiwami. It's pretty much more of the same but it doesn't have as many side activities as Y0. And honestly, I liked that fact since I usually end up doing much of it and that takes a lot of time. The substories weren't as fun as in Y0 but Kiwami still had some good ones. I also think I preferred the pacing here. Just having one storyline with some flashbacks probably helped in that regard. I hope we'll get Kiwami 2 on PC next year.
#12: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (2/24/2019) | 9/10 | Xbox One | ~ 8 Hours | Recommend: Y
# Overall -9 | An audio experience with a greatstory. Gameplay -8.8 | Tense grounded world with beautiful locations. Start & end sections best Sound -10 | One of the premier audio experiences worthy of playing with headphones the entire way through. Great voice acting Story/Online -9 | A story relatable to harms that can be caused today told in a fantasy world. Made you pull for the main character Asking Price-8.33 | Game is a good length. Don't see myself replaying it but has a long lasting appeal.
#1 - Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine | PC | 10 hrs | 02.14.2019 | 7/10
Doing a let's play for this game right now so you can pretty much double the hours spent if you want. It's a game from my childhood that I loved and decided to revisit this year. The game is basically a Tomb Raider clone with an Indiana Jones skin, but one that I find controls a lot better than the original Tomb Raider games. Does it still hold up? To me, absolutely. The story is fantastic, the level design is fantastic and the music is also amazing for a game that came out in 1999. There definitely are some negatives though. It's a late 90's 3D platformer so you can still expect a lot of clunkiness navigating through the levels; Uncharted this is not. Combat can also feel a little stiff because of this as well and there's no manual aim button so when you are trapped in a room with a ton of enemies it can get frustrating when Indy decides to shoot at a dude way off in the distance instead of the guy right in front of him.
Overall though I had a great time going through this game again and it wasn't nearly as hard or confusing as I remember. Just a great 3D platformer that deserves much more recognition than what it gets.
Started playing this game last year and unfortunately had to restart several times due to computer failures lol. Finally was able to finish it today with a 90% completion rating (got every collectible except for the cars and finished all the side cases as well). Overall it was a fantastic experience and really captured the feeling of being in a Noire film of the 40's. Nicely paced between investigation and action sequences, the game gives you a very complex intertwined story taking place over the course of all 5 desks. The technology they used for the faces still holds up well today and LA itself is very alive and detailed.
Now onto a few negatives. The ending wasn't very satisfactory to me. I knew because it's supposed to be a noire film, the ending would be bitter-sweet but I felt it cut off very abruptly and left a lot of things unanswered. Maybe they were leaving it for a sequel but at this point I think a sequel is very unlikely to happen making this ending feel pretty lackluster. Some of the driving could also get tedious but they do give you the option to just fast travel to locations which fixes this pretty easily. The last thing I want to complain about is that some of the questioning can get a little confusing at times when you aren't following the games' logic. Clues that seemingly have nothing to do with the question at hand were the right answer a few times because Cole pulls some convoluted reasoning out of his ass that would never hold up in court. Oh well, this can pretty much be expected in any detective game (looking at you Ace Attorney!) so it's not a huge flaw to me.
Overall I had a great time with this game and hold on to the faintest glimmer of hope that it will get a sequel some day.
I grabbed this mostly for collection purposes and ended up blazing through it. It's as much fun as I remember though with the added benefit of actually being able to save my file and beat the game like I was never able to on the N64.
Still holding onto the hope that the Starlink team gets to make a new Star Fox game.
This was a pretty light adventure game, and a rather relaxing stroll for the most part. Granted it has a few annoying jump scares but nothing in the side of horror. What's funny about this game is how simple and basic it is, as the gameplay part of it is easy enough for anyone to pick up and play and any puzzles aren't too difficult to solve.
#11 Silent Hill 3 - 8.0 PS2 - Feb 22nd - 5:30 hours
This game looks incredible on the PS2. Very similar to the games before which is not a bad thing. Heather is a good protagonist, and the game had one moment that genuinely freaked me out
#12 Grim Dawn - 7.5 PC - Feb 26th - 15 hours
Pretty good, same massive build variety and loot as Titan Quest but with better combat. The setting is not as interesting as that games Greek mythology though, the locations are pretty generic.
Just reserving my place (I know I'm like 2 months late).
1. Subnautica (23 hours)
It starts off really fun, but my enjoyment declined through my playthrough.
2. Just Cause 3 (42 hours)
Fun, but really grindy.
well finished ff6,, i dont think i enjoyed it as much as i had in the past,, doesnt help that the 2nd half of the game is barely better than the 2nd half of bravely default
i think my biggest issue with the game is that there are too many characters and the lack of a set party by the game in the 2nd half really hurts,
Weirdly, this game improves and falters in the opposite ways of its predecessor. Combat is so much tougher and deeper, yet the expanded story kind of falls flat in comparison to the deliberately minimalist narrative of DDS1.
Still between these two games is the crown jewel of Shin Megami Tensei.
Played the story mode to completion in addition to did a bunch of towers with most of the character roster.
Not particularly familiar with (or interested) in MK lore so the story mode basically just played as a bunch of people fighting for unknown reasons. I had more fun with the towers, especially the living towers and their varied gameplay shifting requirements.
Definitely a step down from the first game in both a remaster and general sense. Wasn't a big fan of the increased focus on mini-games and the like but I'm glad to have finished this still. Adjusting my expectations for the third game.
Games beat in February:
1. Fe (Switch) | 20th Feb - 6 hrs | 3/5
Progress so far:
January - 5 games
February - 1 game
Thoughts on February 1. Fe - This one has been on my radar since last year but since it got mixed reviews on release I wanted to wait until I could get it on sale (which I never did, I just used a Best Buy reward on it once I realized they sell eShop games too). It's a 3D platformer version of a Metroidvania, which was a satisfying thing to find out once I realized what the game was doing. I love the aesthetic (I'm a sucker for monochrome, it was vaguely reminiscent to me of Hollow Knight's), there were some really cool set pieces (the Shadow of the Colossus inspired section is the obvious standout) and I thought interacting with all the different animal types was charming. Hell, they even managed to make me OK with relying on stealth to deal with enemies (I was waiting for the moment where it would get frustrating but they pulled it off surprisingly well, I got caught just enough to be challenged but never got stuck).
I do have a few gripes, like the performance. I played it on Switch and it was definitely apparent from how it felt that it was just slightly downgraded in performance (probably fps). It's a slow paced game so it didn't effect gameplay for me but I could see it annoying someone who insists things to be buttery smooth and I'd be lying if I said it didn't occasionally take me it of it. The story was... okay. I thought the narrative while playing was pretty good, some nice wordless story telling involving the robots, but I feel like nothing really clicked when it came to the found lore (lots of drawings on rocks that kind of make sense? I don't know, I never felt compelled to try to make sense of it). This goes in the gripes section though due to the flashback sections. Basically if you find these helmets that the enemies drop, you get sent to a flashback from one of the robots' perspective (in first person no less). I LOVE the concept of that but you move so. Damn. SLOW. Plus it's really just a controllable cutscene and it's only kind of clear what's going on (it helped me figure out the ending's twist after a few of them but that's about it). Even if they didn't elaborate more, if they got rid of a few of these and made them faster, I think I'd be more okay with them and they are optional so I'll cut them some slack, but for a game that's trying to get the player to learn the story on their terms (which the devs specifically said was their intention), I think this combined with the ineffective rock paintings are worth docking a point for.
Issues aside, I did really like this one, I just didn't LOVE it like I wanted to. At the end of the day, it was satisfying so 3/5, maybe even 3.5.
I started a lot of games in February (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Paper Mario and The End is Nigh, Fe) but due to life being life and me breaking my glasses the other week, I only got to beating this one. Gotta pick up the pace but March is looking like I'll have more time to play so let's see where I'm at in a few weeks!
Damn trash. Really, really boring campaign with maybe 2-3 cool scenes. Nothing really to speak of, just glad we have a lot of games to take home in the office.
2. Resident Evil 2
Pre-ordered this one but went on vacation on it's release. Missed all the hype but finished it in 2 sittings. Amazing game, amazing engine, amazing talent in the studio. Really looking forward RE3make and Resident Evil 8.
3. Donut County | Feb 28th
Not really a puzzle as friend mentioned, more like "hey here's a funny story with something to do meanwhile". Few cool ideas but overall nothing special gameplay-wise. Liked the humor though :P
Playing now: Call of Cthulhu 2018. Pretty good for now but I heard it falls apart somewhere after Chapter 8.
I don't have any real criticisms of the game tbh. It does what it sets out to do perfectly. I just wish it was longer, and that Nintendo would finally give us a sequel.
Nice presentation of the image! Pokémon Snap is still on my to-play list, I think I'll fast-track it based on what you wrote about it still holding up. :)
#9. Metroid Fusion
Only the second Metroid game I've ever played, the first being Zero Mission which I played last year. This one was every bit as great, with a bit more of a horror feel to match its obvious sources of inspiration. Like ZM, my only minor quibble is that it can occasionally be unclear how to proceed.
So jealous you're playing Metroid games for a first time. With Zero Mission and Fusion you've already played some of the best ones, but I would highly recommend trying Super Metroid. It's considerably longer, the controls are less responsive than the GBA games (wall-jumping in particular, and you'll miss ledge grabbing), and it's a bit less obvious where to go still. But if you can mentally place the game in the era of its release, it's a tremendous experience. Alternatively, the first Metroid Prime also comes highly recommended.
1. Fe -
Issues aside, I did really like this one, I just didn't LOVE it like I wanted to. At the end of the day, it was satisfying so 3/5, maybe even 3.5.
I'm considering getting a Switch this or next year, and Fé is one of the titles that has my attention. Thanks for doing this write-up, I think I might have a similar experience, but the aesthetic is really pleasing.
I will start from the 1st and it will be easier to keep track.
1. COD: Advanced Warfare - Started off slow but I ended up really liking it. 9 hours
2. The Gardens Between - Played for Game quest achievements - Pretty linear but not a bad puzzle game. - 2 1/2 Hours
3. FE - This was okay. The platforming could be challenging. I would like to find all the pink crystals but seems like not that much fun. - 7 hours
4. Ori and the Blind Forest - Awesome game. I love 2d platformers. I liked it more than Hollow Knight. I look forward to the next game. 14 Hours
5. Thomas Was Alone - simple game but I really liked it. The narration was great. - 3 hours
6. ABZU - Linear pretty game. Nice change of pace. - 3 or 4 hours
7. The Swapper - Some tough puzzles in this game but I enjoyed it. Both endings are depressing.
8. Celeste - Another game I really enjoyed. A very challenging 2d platformer. I am still playing the level 4 b-side. 17 Hours - 3680 deaths.
9. Halo CE - I have been playing this game on and off for the last few years. I wanted to play it when it had the 4K update and finally beat it. Some of the levels are really repetitive ( Library, The Last Betrayal) 10 or 11 hours.
3 | High Hell | PC
4 hours | Completed January 8th
This was a fun little arcade shooter with Superhot-esque structure. Well designed short levels where you have to act fast but also think about your approach if you want to get the highest score possible. I really enjoy this game's style; the hot pink cel-shaded visuals, Doseone's banging soundtrack and the over the top enemies really make for a fun experience. It's a short game but going for the hidden collectibles and the high-scores adds a good amount of replayability to the levels. Burn the money and the drugs, free the monkeys and KILL BO$$!
In anticipation for the Resident Evil 2 remake, I started playing the original since I never actually finished it and I wanted to find out what changes they would make in the remake. I played the Leon A to Claire B route (so the non-canon one apparently) on normal difficulty and I had a lot of fun with both playthroughs. I had a bit of a rough time at the start (I must have died four to five times while making my way to the station...) but the game gets easier to manage later on. Like most Resident Evil games, I don't think the game is really that scary but some of the Mr. X moments definitely got my adrenaline pumping and the sewer section was horrifying. I think I honestly enjoyed RE1's mansion setting a bit more than the police station but the station (and the lab area) was still fun to explore. Really good soundtrack and sound effects in general and I think the goofy storytelling is honestly very endearing. Personally I don't mind the tank controls at all, of course they feel dated but I think they fit these games quite well. All in all a very enjoyable ride, even in this day and age, and definitely makes me appreciate the remake more (at the time of writing this I have already played quite a bit of it)! I also have RE3 downloaded on my Vita so when I get the RE itch again (itchy, tasty...) that's going to be next in line for sure.
8. Apex Legends | PC and PS4 | 30hrs | February 11th | 4/5★
It's okay. Gonna have to see what its like after the battlepass launches because matches feel really same-y right now.
9. Demon Gaze II | PS4 | 37hrs | February 15th | 3/5★
Worse than the first game.
10. Resident Evil 2 | PC | 12hrs | February 22nd | 5/5★
Finally managed to get into an RE game. It's great, goty so far. Mr. X is annoying and wouldn't miss him if he was removed.
11. Tetris 99 | Nintendo Switch | 3hrs | February 22nd | 3/5★
Nintendo managed to get me to try out the free trial of NSO just for this. It's competitive tetris I guess, which is fine if you've been playing tetris for years but stuff like t-spins and other weird complex strategies are a turn off for me.
12. Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion | 6hrs | February 24th | 4/5★
A pretty massive DLC for Splatoon 2. Some of the challenges are just straight up annoying and borderline impossible but most of it was fun.
13. Fortnite Battle Royale - Season 7 | PC | 60 hours | February 28th | 4/5★
The season started out pretty tame but got pretty good near the end. It's a shame epic keeps catering to streamers and removing all the fun stuff they add to the game because of complaints. Season 8 is probably my last, building is getting really out of hand and now there's Apex Legends which is straight up better.
Well this was a nice surprise, as I went in without any expectations and the game kept growing on me more and more until I ended up doing pretty much everything there was to do and spending a lot of time with it. Basically a mix of Crackdown and Saint's Row, in a 80s saturday morning cartoon wrap (it's basically bootleg GI Joe is what it is), the game has a ton more character and personality (especially via the voice acting) than the bland art would lead you to believe. Each of the 12 agents you can eventually control play pretty differently and you will have your own custom team of personal favorites, and builds to use them with that will probably vary a lot between players because they do a good job of putting in a lot of variety into the limited skill set each character has. Graphically it's not a looker, in fact I would argue it looks worse than the Saints games, and it runs shockingly poorly on the XB1 which is the version I played, but still, it gets the job done and it's very colorful. This is one of those games where even tho I ended up enjoying a lot I can't honestly contest the mediocre reviews it got, because the game itself isnt particularly amazing, but I had a lot of fun with it. If you can get it n something like a game pass (which I did) or humble monthly, it's definitely worth checking out, you might end up liking it mroe than you expect, like I did.
18. Batman: Arkham Origins (XboxOne) | 28th Feb - 12 hrs | 4/5
Finally played Arkham Origins. The best use of all the Arkham games for bosses. Combat felt a little clunky. Not sure if I just don't remember Asylum and City that well or if it's actually worse.
I'm counting it. Deltarune was the best new game of 2018 (Hollow Knight's console ports out of the running, obvs) and it was a two hour demo. A clear improvement over Undertale in every way that manages to sandwich in everything it needed to and leave us begging for more. Here's hoping Toby Fox's A Team of devs leads to quick, successive releases.
A wacky weird 'walking simulator' with fun trippy visuals and quick movement. Not much to it, but I snapped many a screenshot jumping around the varied locations.
I bought it as a joke because of its goofy name but it's actually a pretty solid 100 level platformer. It heavily apes Celeste in terms of mechanics and has random signs that display random text, sometimes memey, but it has fun hats and the developer will be really happy if you beat it so that's a thing you can expect.
Game 10: The Big Journey (PC) | 113 Minutes | 02/08/2019 | 6/10
Hello there, do you like Locoroco? Have you never owned a PS3, PSP, PSVita or PS4 in your entire life? Well you can play a 1 to 1 facsimile of Locoroco on your PC*! It looks nice and plays fine but it's creatively bankrupt in terms of mechanics and such.
*and probably mobile too idk if its on there but it sure has the UI of a mobile game
Fun beat-em-up heavily influenced by Vanillaware games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Looks and plays great, the story is there I guess and after you beat it there's a boss rush mode. Nothing terribly interesting but definitely worth a look.
Ok this is a standalone game that functions as a demo for a game called Tunche that has been funded via kickstarter but it's still a game that has an actual ending so I'm including it! Another 2D beat em up with great controls and mechanics, a DMC combo counter and upgrade trees that you can explore. Ended up backing the actual game due to how well this little standalone demo played.
Game 13: House Flipper (PC) | 24 Hours+ | 02/15/2019 | 9/10
I watched a guy play this on twitch and thought it was a fun dumb streamer meme game, but then I played it and got engrossed into doing dumb chores and making livable areas for fake people that it became gripping. Also I made the above happen. That alone was worth the asking price.
Why yes, at some point I did rebuy Valkyria Chronicles on my Nintendo Switch for no real discernable reason and ran through it without using orders for the hell of it. Almost as if it's one of my favourite games of all time or something. Weird.
I bought this game because of the steam description. This sure is a videogame. This sure is not a haiku.
Game 16: Oh...Sir! The Insult Simulator (PC) | 3 Hours | 02/18/2019 | 6/10
A versus game where you verbally berate your opponent into submission. It only features a base 'arcade' mode so to speak but it's fun and has some depth when you can chain combos as you repedately use the same phrase in multiple insults or you specifically insult the opponent based on a certain characteristic they may be vulnerable to. It's pretty alright.
Boy howdy am I shit at Tetris. It's hard to pay attention to and get invested in the whole audiovisual fun of Tetris Effect when I'm suffering due to being horrible at Tetris. Doesn't help that I found the music hit or miss while the visuals were definitely mostly hits, and there is some memorable imagery. I'd probably like it more if I actively got better at being good at Tetris.
Game 18: Override: Mech City Brawl (PC) | 3 Hours+ | 02/20/2019 | 7/10
A fun beat-em-up brawler with unique limb based mechanics and a varied cast of goofball mechs. The story mode they have is actually a fun take on the more drab arcade mode that most fighters have, but it feels too short to reach its potential and should it have been a bit longer it could have proved too repetitive so it's an odd situation this mode finds itself in. Also every mech has a pilot but they aren't featured at all outside of the story mode which feels like a missed opportunity.
The thatgamecompany game that started it all, and it's pretty great. It's has a distinct minimalist style but still communicates what it asks of you very well, and only has a 10 second tutorial that is a total of four lines of dialogue. Weird to play a game that actually wants you to turn your controller 360 degrees rather than just slight movements that don't require you to change your controller grip, and it doesn't really foster a relaxing atmosphere that it's probably aiming for because of it.
After completing flOw, I decided to do a quick run through of Flower as well and, having already played Journey, Flower stands to be my favourite of the three thatgamecompany games. The story is the story and it's fine for what it is, but what sets it apart is the movement of being this weird ass force of nature powered by flower petals. The motion controls are way better here than they are in flOw and it just feels great to play while being great to look at. I'll end up coming back to this to get all the trophies at some point.
This is a short Adventure game ala Legend of Zelda series. There are some light puzzles throughout the areas you explore and I overall found the game pretty decent. It has the issues that an indie game could suffer from namely in the combat department, but it's a good 'baby's first Adventure game' kinda deal. It has the fluffiness and cuteness for that too.
14. The King of Fighters XIV (14 hours)
I assure, that it's all fourteens is a coincidence. Game itself is really fun, mediocre art style be damned. It's also quite reasonable by the standards of SNK fighters, or so I hear, with straight forward inputs and a not-terrible final boss.
#3 - Half Life Blue Shift | PC | 3 hrs | 02.28.2019 | 6/10
Finished this game last night and with it, I have finally finished the original Half Life 1 trilogy. This is easily the weakest of the 3; it's incredibly short even compared to the other expansion Opposing Force and adds nothing new to the game at all - mechanic or lore wise. They did try to make this one a little more difficult as some of the platforming sections and puzzles are very confusing and hard to figure out. I did still enjoy the mindless shooting that makes half life great though so I can't be too hard on it. It was a nice little extra add on to the game so you can revisit Black Mesa one more time.
So jealous you're playing Metroid games for a first time. With Zero Mission and Fusion you've already played some of the best ones, but I would highly recommend trying Super Metroid. It's considerably longer, the controls are less responsive than the GBA games (wall-jumping in particular, and you'll miss ledge grabbing), and it's a bit less obvious where to go still. But if you can mentally place the game in the era of its release, it's a tremendous experience. Alternatively, the first Metroid Prime also comes highly recommended.
Yeah I'm planning on playing Super Metroid later this year, looking forward to it. And Metroid Prime someday, I love Turok 2 which has some Metroid-like design (albeit very flawed and underdeveloped)... waiting for the inevitable Switch port of the trilogy, though depending on how it's priced and how many improvements it has, I might still just get it on the Wii U eShop instead.
Also, not gonna lie... I don't think I ever used the wall jump when playing through Zero Mission and Fusion.
In the early 2000s, Frogwares got the license to make Adventure games based on Sherlock Holmes. These are your typical PnC adventure games, which they improved over time.
Among their earliest games is Secret of the Silver Earring, being the 2nd game they developed from 2004.
The game is the standard fare of PnC, involving exploring areas to find clues to help Sherlock solve the case and speaking and interacting with other characters. There isn't much in terms of puzzles which only show up in the 2nd half of the game and are only a handful. Much of it is spent finding necessary items in order to progress through a scene.
Unfortunately, the game has an annoying case of 'Pixel hunting', where a small stray item is devilishly positioned that you need to carefully position your mouse for the icon to indicate said item can be interacted with or picked up.
This crops up during the very first section of the game, where you are exploring the building in which the murder occured in to find clues. You've spoken with every character, you've found as many items as possible, but then the game prevents you from progressing and you wonder what it is you missed. Looking up a guide, I found out a few things about the first part of the game at least-
1- Holmes has a measuring tape (why does he even carry it around with him to even public places for?) that must be used to measure some footprints
2- There is shred of cloth that is attached to a chair, chances are this'd be the very last item you missed out on because the game requires you to have interacted with various characters and items so it would let you pass onto the next section of the game. Anyways this cloth is very small and you wouldn't know it is there unless you hovered your mouse over the chair that has it. This isn't the ONLY instance in which an item is so small you won't notice until the cursor changed shape.
The overall game is pretty slow due to Holmes and Watson's movement speed and moving between screens can be tricky because transition between screens require the cursor to change shape into footprints to indicate that you can go onto the next screen, and I've had a few issues where I need Holmes to back away from the screen, then clicking the footprints would have him move onto the next one.
My biggest issue with the game was the inclusion of a confusing stealth section at night, which was rather tricky for me to clear esp. since my eyesight can't see darkened images very well and I need to up the brightness of my screen. This is the worst part of the game because while Holmes could run during this section by double clicking on a location, the 2 NPCs you must avoid are harder to keep track of. I must've struggled with this part for nearly 30 minutes before I cleared it and then eventually the game. Doesn't help that I had to do that stealth section AGAIN to exit the area I was investigating =_=
I don't think I could recommend this game unless one has the patience to deal with the game's slow movement and any archaic gameplay design, but the game has good voice acting, as well as lovely pre-rendered backgrounds at least for 2004
I played the game after applying some anti aliasing via NVidia Inspector, which surprisingly worked, though not without causing a few minor glitches such as characters clipping through the screens something isn't a major issue thankfully, and the fact that it mainly affected character models causing them to be bigger than the backgrounds (perspective kind of thing). None the less, the pre rendered backgrounds still looked clean and nice and the models' cleanliness was nice on the eyes (they still looked like late Playstation models though).
7. Flower - 3 hours
10-year old indie game, previously exclusive to playstation consoles, it aged well and still worth playing it. Though, you need to temper your expectations with this one, because now there are tons of indie games like this and competition is much higher than in 2009. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that this game is bad, it's actually really good and definitely worth the price. Graphics look great in 4K, sound design and OST are marvellous and helps a lot in creating the right atmosphere, environmental storytelling is well done here too. It's short (around 2-3 hours if you aim to get all achievements), but relaxing experience, if you are looking for the game to forget about all the crap you need to deal in real life (or simply want to play something less complex than modern AAA blockbusters), then it's 100% the game you need right now.
Lol this is canon btw. Holmes does carry a measuring tape to crime scenes most times. Part of his CSI kit :)
Thorough scientific investigation is the whole point of the character originally, though most screen adaptations focus more on the 'magical deduction'.
Lol this is canon btw. Holmes does carry a measuring tape to crime scenes most times. Part of his CSI kit :)
Thorough scientific investigation is the whole point of the character originally, though most screen adaptations focus more on the 'magical deduction'.
15. Crash Bandicoot: Warped - N. Sane Trilogy (3 hours)
In terms of the game's quality, I feel more or less the same about this one as I did about Cortex Strikes Back. It's fine. The level themes are generally much more interesting in this game, which is a plus, but the vehicle levels are almost universally bad. One thing that I will say in this game, and its predecessor's, favor is that it does have some of the best cartoon-style animation I've ever seen in a polygon-based game.
Playing the Remastered ver. of this game, I notice some good improvements to the PnC style of gameplay that Frogwares would implement in their later games. Players can either play the game from an overhead perspective ala traditional PnC games, or switch to a first person view mode which allows the player to mvoe freely in the areas the duo explore. I found the first person view mode good in that it allowed me to run through areas and I liked seeing the locations in the game more freely.
While this game's visuals are from the 2000s, applying anti aliasing made them come out much cleaner and nicer on the eye.
The game itself is rather lengthy with some decent puzzles, and while exploring the areas are nice, they don't have many encessary areas to interact with and can feel rather empty. This becomes an issue as you travel through the areas in case you missed an item or must back track to solve a puzzle.
While the game is decent enough, I couldn't follow the game's plot very well, as it seems some of the story bits are in the documents you pick up along the way.
#10. Bean Dreams
Bean Dreams is an excellent mobile platformer that's up there with the likes of Mario and Sonic, absolutely deserves more love. It's essentially the Trackmania of 2D platformers... simple but devilishly tricky, It will have you ready to throw your phone in anger as you try to get the gold medal for completing its small bite-sized levels in as few jumps as possible. Unlike Trackmania however, it takes a page out of Nintendo's playbook and gives you some easier objectives to complete so you can still unlock all the levels and beat the game even if you encounter a level (or several) that you just cannot master.
As a mobile game, I should also point out: No MTX/IAP. Just one upfront purchase, I think it's only $3 iirc (bought it years ago)... totally worth it. And they've previously added new content to it free of charge, and the game still has a placeholder message at the end saying more levels are coming... so it might get even meatier in the future, although it's already very meaty for the price. 5/5 - "Great"
Always wanted to give this a try. I'm pretty sure I won't hit anywhere close to 52, but it'll be neat to try and keep track of what I've been playing. Hope I do the formatting right. Also I don't typically rate things cause they always end up a 3 outa five from me for the most part.
#1 KH Dream Drop Distance: I'll stand by the opinion that the story of KH isn't that complicated/bad until this game. Anyways my brain blew up but that last boss fight is pretty cool.
#2 KH 2.8: More work went into this than I thought. Looks pretty, and while it runs kinda meh on my first gen PS4, I enjoyed my time with it.
#3 Spiderman: So that's what all the fuss was about. Swinging felt good and the story was pretty good too. Kinda suffered from the typical open world formula but it does it well so there's that.
#4 Resident Evil 2: What a fun horror game. Mr. X is a blast, they made zombies intimidating again, and it was just a lot of fun to go through.
#5 Kingdom Hearts 3: Hot damn did this game look good. Combat could have been tighter, but I'm notoriously easy to please and really enjoyed it overall. That ending stretch was, while kinda nonsense, at least pretty cool looking.
#6: Cultist Simulator: This is a fun time sink. Lots of timers, lots of flavor text, lots of weird mysteries you kinda need to bash your head against to figure it out but when you do, you feel pretty smart. Anyways, one time I sent a zombie to kill a cop as a joke and the zombie came back with a corpse I then need to dispose of, so this game can get pretty wacky if you let it.
#7 Super Hot: Looks cool but considering all the hype there was for it when it released, I was kinda disappointed. Still, there were some neat scenarios and that game was 100% styling all over the place.
#8: Furi: Did a replay and weirdly enough, the story makes A LOT more sense the second time through. Anyways, this game is still super cool. Too bad I suck at rythym games AND bullet hells so I died a buncha times going through.
1. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
2. Kingdom Hearts 2.8
3. Spiderman
4. Resident Evil 2 Remake
5. Kingdom Hearts 3
6. Cultist Simulator
7. Super Hot
8. Furi
9. Devil May Cry 5
10. Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remaster
11. Killzone 2
12. Sekiro Shadows Die Twice
13. Resistance 3
14. Inside
15. Katan Zero
16. Ace Attorney
17. Halo Wars
18. For Honor
19. Dandara
This is an action rpg like game where you play through 20 levels. After the Hero and Witch fail to save the world from Medusa, the witch is turned into stone and so the Hero seeks a way to save the Witch and defeat Medusa once and for all.
The Hero damages enemies by bumping into them ala Ys games, however he will take damage whenever he bumps an enemy. The Hero's stats can be increased from the shop menu by spending gold to increase his attack power, defense and movement speed.
The main goal in each of the 20 stages, is to defeat the boss after taking out enemy waves. The Hero needs to protect the petrified Witch from dying by taking out any approaching enemies then the stage's boss.
The main gameplay is pretty repetitive, and I didn't like the need to grind when I got to a stage I failed in as it took a while to grind the more do-able stages before my stats were good enough for later ones.
Even with max stats however, stages could be brutal when there are dozens of enemies approaching the Witch, and the final boss is rather annoying. While I did curb my curiosity with this game, and seeing as it has sequels, I'm hoping they add more to or improved the gameplay to warrant a playthrough of them.
