Tizoc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,792
Oman
66. Tron 2.0
tumblr_ori5vudz1W1rsgjvho2_400.gif


I had put this on hold due to my rogue like deck builder addiction but finished it up the other day. Solid FPS game but could go with some QOL improvements.
Tron 2.0 is an FPS by Monolith Productions who had previously developed Blood and NOLF. The game has a really nice visual design for the inside of the computer world, and does feature the light cycle races from the film. Thankfully, with the use of a mod they can be skipped if one finds them difficult.
One major gripe I have with the game is Energy; you need energy to get attain certain key codes that you need to open doors with, and you also need them to unlock new weapons from boxes. Energy does not regenerate over time and is even consumed by some of your weapons, which makes it pretty frustrating at times when you don't have enough energy to get a certain weapon, among other things. While the weapon selection feels lacking, the game's use of the discs is well thought out overall as you can control the return trajectory of the disc in order to hit some enemies after throwing it.
These are some of the things that could go with QOL refinements, but overall the game holds up for the most part and I quite enjoyed my time with it.
 

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
35: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. End: 6/25/2021. (3.5 out of 5)

I actually think, minor technical issues aside, this is a pretty good Ys game, but it's held back by one of the worst mechanics in the series. The Grimwald Nox battles (which also tie into the story). Unlike the Beast Raids in Ys VIII, Nox battles are required to continue the story. The game grinds to a halt until you achieve 100 points on the Nox gauge every chapter. It really destroys any sense of pacing and wears out its welcome very quickly.
 

Whimsicalish

Member
Dec 30, 2019
188
Midwest
28 | Monster Camp
PC | June 21 | 50 hrs | 4.5/5
j0MYF9B.png


Second full installment of the Monster Prom universe and just as horny as the first game. Kinda strange dating sim to be playing as an ace but it's funny and has some charm.

I enjoyed this class much more than Prom. Although, one is a recurring character. They feel less high school clique one dimensional. The characters do still fall into tropes (eg: one is styled as an RPG video game character and another is a robot trying to learn about emotions) but they have more depth to them.

More importantly the devs got rid of the worst stat in the previous game: money. The store is now free and you can always pick an item that adds a special plotline without having to save up dough. It plays sooo much better.

The soundtrack is okay, kinda whatever. But the illustrations and character designs are fantastic as always. I love that they give credit to the artists in the game. You also have a guide to track every. single. event. in the game. Super helpful if you gotta have the achievement with it.

Main Post
 
Last edited:

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
36: Joe & Mac. End: 6/26/2021. (2.5 out of 5)

Sometimes it can be fun to play a clunky platformer where you fight dinosaurs with wheels you shoot out of your club.
 

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,144
Golden_Axe_Warrior.PNG

Main Post

17. Golden Axe Warrior | ★★★★

Credit to user Mama Robotnik for the excellent Sega Obscura 4 - The Eleven SEGA "Zeldas" (and the entire Sega Obscura series) without which I would not have played this game and several others.

Golden Axe Warrior is unmistakably Sega's answer to Zelda 1. The game looks, feels, and plays remarkably similarly to Zelda 1. In some ways it even improves on the formula. First, the game gives you a sword and axe. The sword provides a little more range and power, while the wide arc of the axe lets you hit enemies that aren't standing directly in front of you. Second, there is a secret on almost every screen, so stumbling across a random bush you can destroy is pretty normal in Golden Axe Warrior. Third, there are quite a few NPCs and they offer a lot of simple clues that always keep you moving in the right direction. It was nice not getting stuck, and I only needed to Google something once or twice.

However in every other way the game falls short of Zelda 1's greatness. The difficulty can be all over the place. Dungeons feel sort of chaotically put together, and the game reuses the same old tricks over and over again. Most of the items in the game are pretty bleh and serve no combat purpose. Worst of all, bosses are reused way too much. Even the boss of the game is recycled.

However, all things considered it's still a good game. If you had a SMC back in the day I think you'd be pretty happy with this game. As a retro game, it holds up incredibly well. I can excuse the shortcomings far easier than I may have done back in the day and instead focus on the postiive bottom line: It's another Zelda game, yay!
 
Last edited:

Bosh

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,235
MAIN THREAD
COMPLETED 45

Master45.png


Quick Update.

  • Backbone - Interesting game. First level leaves wrong impression what rest of game will be like, but overall I enjoyed it and story. Ending is wild. One of the few games I felt was rushed in terms of length and wished it was longer to hash parts out further
  • Nex Machina - Really fun game. Heart pumping action and audio.
  • Ys Book I - Its dated, first half of the game is really enjoyable. Last area of game (And half of game) is overly obtuse and definitely pulled experience down a little for me. Overall still enjoyed and looking forward to rest of series in future.
  • Splinter Cell - Replay - When i was younger I loved this game. Coming back to itt almost 20 years later it felt like parts where missing from the game that I overlooked when younger. Checking it out, there was a ton cut from the PS2 version which is what I was playing. Doing a replay in series and have rest of them now on PC or Xbox 1 so should have best additions (Have both Double Agents to play). Graphics definitely where dated but I think they held up well. Overall gameplay was still great.
  • D&D Dark Alliance: Bad and cant recommend (Wrote this as of 6/27/21). I did a longer write up here for why:
Played the game solo. Took 9 Hours to get through. Played typically on 2 or 3 for difficulty (Beat a few levels on middle difficulty but combat issues described below hampered that)


What I Like The game ran fine (besides one boss fight) so I can't fault it there. The levels generally had interesting art/textures to look at. The best part of the game was the OST.

What I Dislike The gameplay is very broken. Enemies for whatever reason take a long time to react you are near them. Almost everything I walked across in the game, I killed before they even attempted to attack. It got to a point in the game I started doing levels were I would only kill enemies that would attack me. I beat over a quarter of the game killing less than 10 enemies in a level (For reference before starting this I would kill 200+ enemies in a level). Bosses also unfortunately ran into this pitfall and a majority of them died before getting off an attack. The ones that did start to move would get stun locked constantly as I spammed the normal attack button. Its hard to judge how good the combat could of been when it does not actually ever turn into combat. Hard to comment on loot in the game as with above broken it never comes into play if upgrades are essential.


The camera is far to close. Its off centered with a lot of visibility on your right and tiny visibility on the left. Locking on enemies only worsens the issue. Arrow markers showing where enemies (And how close) had a very "Dumb" logic. You can have two enemies on screen, both standing next to each other in front of you, and one arrow will point forwards and the other arrow points behind you.
Screenshot-23.png

I used Drizzt through the entire campaign, below may only be related to him as I did not play as the other characters. His dodge mechanic is terrible. If you dodge anytime before getting hit, you do a short dodge. Anytime while about to be hit, its a longer dodge. With bad visibility, you never have a good understanding how far your character will travel. I got the platinum in Returnal a few weeks back and you always dodge the same distance and typically have great visibility and information provided where attacks are coming from. If combat did work in Dark Alliance the game would still need a serious patch to also fix visibility/information provided to the player
 

Tizoc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,792
Oman
67. Strikers 1945 III
ZxOki1G.png


That's another Psikyo shump I cleared off my list. Game's a lot harder than its predecessors but then again I was never the best at psikyo's bullet hell centric games. Really nice visuals though.

68. Donald Duck Goin' Qu@ckers (Playstation)
11578_front.jpg


This was a lot better than I anticipated it to be. This is a 3D platformer where you play as Donald going through 15+ levels getting a few collectables and clearing levels and then facing a boss.
The game also has time trial challenges and bonus levels for more platforming challenge. The game overall is decent difficulty, not too hard, but it has some sections that require some focus to get through. Quite enjoyed my time with it moreso than the PS1 ver. of Rayman 2 :P
World 3 has a theme that has no right being this good, and it's supposed to be the spooky world!
 

Sillen2000

Member
Oct 1, 2019
118
Main Post

May update: 18/52

Extremely belated post, but better late than never (I guess). It's extremely hot both outdoors and in my apartment at the moment, so this might not be my best post ever!

2xaFnaE.png

17. May 14th | Resident Evil 7: Biohazard | Playstation 4 | 4h 47m | Replay | ☆☆☆(/5)
I'm not really sure if Resident Evil really needed a complete overhaul, despite the failures of 6. Sure, the story ended in 5 and what 6 tried to do is best left forgotten, but gameplay wise Capcom could probably have made something similar (though a lot better paced) and I'd been happy. 7 obviously didn't go the 6 route, though, and instead did a RE4 i.e. switched up the gameplay style completely. Or, rather, "completely" since it's still very much Resident Evil, just in first person which is a big enough departure from previous games that, despite you going around in strange houses, solving puzzle and conserving ammo (plus fighting at least one boss whose weak points are big eyes), it still feels very different.

That's not to say that being different is bad. I really admire the RE series for not being afraid to shake things up, and more often than not, that change is for the better. 4 came after extremely stale 0 and reinvigorated the series, just as 7 is doing now after 6 showed that Capcom had no real idea what to do with the franchise. I'm not a huge FPS guy, but this game being much more focused on exploration than combat made it work really well for me as the immersion becomes so much better than in previous games (and I'd assume it's absolutely amazing in VR!), while the fewer enemy encounters and Ethan's pretty poor handling made every enemy feel like a dangerous obstacle when compared to previous game's hordes of fairly harmless zombies (and zombie-likes). What does disappoint me, however, is how great the main house is for exploration and how nothing that comes later can really live up to that experience. Most later areas, outside of the poorly paced ship, are a bit too linear for my taste, and while they do their own thing fairly well, they're not close to being as memorable. They do, however, contain some really good boss battles, like the super tense fight against Marguerite, or extremely Resident Evil giant Jack fight.

What I do like about the locales themselves, though, is how they reflect different eras of horror. The first house is very obviously based on grindhouse/exploitation films of the 70's, which is when Jack grew up. Later you go to the bug house where the grindhouse feel is definitely still there, though with a t touch of body horror which is a very 80's genre and a natural evolution of the exploitation films which she also grew up with. After that, you go through Lucas traps and the game takes on very much a Saw-feel, which would have been a very popular movie when Lucas was growing up. I have no idea if this is intentional, but it's fun to think about when playing the game, at least.

Ethan is - and I think everyone has already said this - about as interesting as a piece of cardboard and the soundtrack is probably the least memorable out of any Resident Evil, but when Biohazard is at its peak it's so good that it's hard to fault it too much for its flaws. Would say it's in my top 5 for the entire series, but since I've just beaten Village I might have to reconsider that a bit.

KuomCi3.png

17. May 24th | Final Fantasy Adventure | Switch | 9h 30m | ☆☆(/5)
This game should not work for me as well as it does. People like to throw around the term "jank" these days for anything that isn't super polished, but let me tell you this: Final Fantasy Adventure is jank given game form. It has an extremely poor english translation, even worse hit detection, dungeons that all look exactly the same, enemies that are arbitrarily immune to certain types of weapon, constantly making you go into the menu (which, for some reason, suffers from severe input lag???) to equip a much weaker weapon to deal with it, magic is more often than not useless outside of the healing spells, the partner AI is absolutely horrendous with them seldom attacking enemies and mostly just walking around without any rhyme or reason. It also has a criminally small inventory for how many things you're expected to carry with you, and the text in dialogue boxes moves at an excruciatingly slow pace.

But... it's all so incredibly charming to me. I love the Final Fantasy sprites that have been just slightly modified to be their own thing and fit the gameboy aesthetic. While the story isn't great and your partner spends about all of the game being constantly kidnapped with you having to rescue her again and again, it really goes into surprisingly emotional territories at the end which I found extremely ambitious and well written for a pretty early gameboy game. The overworld is basically just "Zelda, but worse", but it still works and houses different enough places that it makes the world feel fairly believable and lived in. It's also surprisingly big, and travelling all over this world and visiting all these towns, dungeons and talking to the people (sometimes involuntarily since the game, for some reason, makes you talk to them just by touching them), fight all the monsters really does make Final Fantasy Adventure feel like an, well, adventure. Not a great one by any means, but to me at least an extremely charming one. Also - amazing soundtrack.

I might also like the game because for the first time in my life I felt remotely clever when I solved the "palm trees... and 8" puzzle pretty much immediately.

Soundtrack highlight:
Legend Forever

Currently playing
Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth (3DS)
Cyber Shadow (Switch)
 

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
37: Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. End: 6/28/2021. (2.5 out of 5)

I'd been playing this game off and on for many months now, but because I played it in this manner I forgot huge portions of the game's overcomplicated plot. That... didn't make the game more enjoyable. I wasn't wild about the license system either. It just felt needlessly complicated. And that's this game in a nutshell.
 

Lord Fanny

Member
Apr 25, 2020
29,168
So May is done and gone. Main post with all months here.

Completed Games (37/52)

June
31. Mundaun - PC - 5 hours, 8 minutes
32. Luigi's Mansion 3 - Switch - 10 hours
33. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - PS5 - 14 hours
34. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade Intermission Episode - PS5 - 3 hours, 17 minutes
35. Before Your Eyes - PC - 1 hour, 47 minutes
36. Ninja Gaiden Sigma - Xbox Series X - 10 hours, 11 minutes
37. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 - Xbox Series X - 9 hours, 40 minutes

This was a strange month for me, because it feels like I didn't play a lot, but I blew through quite a lot when you look at it on paper. Next month the big game is Neo: The World Ends With You, which is said to be quite long. I am in the process of playing some older stuff, though, so I imagine I'll still have a few other completed titles unless I just drop some shit I am played. On to July.

Completed Games (42/52)

July
38. Space Jam: A New Legacy The Game - Xbox Series X - 34 minutes
39. Halo Reach - Xbox Series X - 5 hours, 5 minutes
40. Bloodroots - Xbox Series X - 5 hours, 54 minutes
41. Last Stop - Xbox Series X - 6 hours, 9 minutes
42. Omno - Xbox Series X - 2 hours, 38 minutes
 
Last edited:

LonestarZues

Member
Oct 27, 2017
18,369
Master Post

June 2021 update

33. Mass Effect - The gameplay updates push this from a high 4/5 to a 5/5 for me. Felt way better then the og game. Love everything about this universe already and now it's up there with 2 because of the improvements. Time for 2 next!

34. Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown - Beat arcade mode in like 30 minutes and I'm counting it. 3D fighters aren't really my jam so don't think I'll put that much more time into it.

35. Carto - Charming puzzle game with a charming cast. Some of the puzzles had me pulling my hair out, but there wasn't that many of them like that and it helps that the game doesn't overstay it's welcome.

36. The Medium - Probably my favorite Blooper Team game. Still wouldn't say it's GotY material or even great, but it's a solid game with decent to good characters. The game has a divide because of one of the characters in it, but I never felt that they were painted in a sympathetic light. I'll be reading/watching some of those articles/videos as I didn't want to before as I didn't want to be spoiled or pulled one way or the other before I played it for myself.

37. Coffee Talk - Nice little coffee sim visual novel. Enjoyed most of the characters and had a nice chill relaxing soundtrack.

38. Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission - Good dlc overall that added some nice backstory for Yuffie. Was great seeing some of the other characters from the main game in here as well. The after credit scene sets up the next game quite well as well.

39. Sea of Solitude - Loved it. Straightforward game with a bit of exploration if you want to get some collectibles. Game had a story to tell and I enjoyed it and the music was really good as well.

40. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart - Another great Insomniac game. I'm not sure if I'm ready to name this my favorite in the series, but it's up there. Great cast of characters that all played very well off of each other. Weapon variety was top notch as well and can't wait for the next Insomniac game.

41. Dante's Inferno - Decent GoW clone. Enjoyed the combat and loved the animated comic book like cutscenes. The road to the final boss was a slog through and drops how much I liked the game in the end though. It'll never happen, but would've loved to see how they would've continued the story after that ending. Unless it's part of the paid dlc like Asura's Wrath lol.

42. American McGee's Alice - Rough game too play thru. If it wasn't for my current enjoyment of Alice: Madness Returns (Chapter 3 atm) I would've probably dropped this game. Some parts like the varied levels were great others like the combat were rough. As a whole this is probably a game I would've loved if I played back when it came out, but I didn't so I'd say unless you are the type that has to play all the games in a series I'd say skip.
 

Memory Pak

Member
Aug 29, 2018
232
hicRgLs.png

33. Umurangi Generation Special Edition (2021, Switch) ★★★★☆
In a just world, this becomes known as the quintessential 2020 game. Umurangi exudes urgency, is unapologetically loud, and exists on the knife's edge between clamouring for a better future, and resigned to already eulogising the present.
It's a neon-drenched first person photography game (think Pokémon Snap but remove the rails), set to a banger Vaporwave-meets-Big Beat soundtrack. You move through mostly fairly static environments, tasked with lining up somewhat mundane pictures within an optional timer. This way you document a particularly fraught time in human existence. Palatable shots are worth money, but the world doesn't want to see everything, so keep evidence of the impending disaster out of frame if you want to get paid. The game cleverly tricks you into staging familiar photos we see from (foreign) disaster sites and war zones. It has also learned environmental storytelling from Jet Set Radio Future: graffiti, (propaganda) posters, billboards, and newspapers inform you about the world. Become too preoccupied with fulfilling the distracting goals the game sets, and you may miss the end of the world just outside of your frame. The game also takes the opportunity to teach players basic photography, shot composition, and not to photograph faces of protesters.
Not everything is a success: the timer is optional, but its sheer presence still stresses me out, so I wouldn't go through levels at a slower pace until it ran out and disappeared. There's also a static, almost diorama feel to the game: it's not until the last level in the (included) Macro DLC where you truly feel like an active participant, rather than an ethereal observer like in Return of the Obra Dinn. Presumably this is due to technical limitations, which also rear their head as slowdown in 2 or 3 levels, along with the usual Switch+Unity jank of getting stuck behind objects.
Overall though, a highly relevant game which doesn't shy away from wearing its Neon Genesis Evangelion influences and radical politics on its sleeve. Umurangi isn't interested in touching nerves, it wants to stomp on them. Highly recommended.

1BR28fG.png

34. Secret Files: Tunguska (2016, Wii U) ★★☆☆☆
First entry in the Secret Files point & click adventure series, released on PC in 2006 and ported to everything with a touch/pointer interface. You mostly control Nina Kalenkov, in search of her missing father, an investigator of the Tunguska event. There's heaps of (occasionally stilted) voice acting of varying audio quality, and some decent cut-scenes to slightly elevate presentation to PS2 levels, at the cost of long loading times. Mercifully there's a convenient interface: it's always clear what you can interact with, Moon logic puzzles are rare (although who duct tapes phones to cats?!), and if they occur there's a full walkthrough included if you're stuck.
The game suffers a wildly uneven script: exoticism permeates throughout, and conversations flip from sarcastic observational comedy to urgent drama on a dime. It's also a classic case of men-writing-women: male NPCs routinely creep on Nina or other women, and are easily swayed by flirting. In a genre about puzzles and story, Secret Files' puzzles can't pull their weight to balance its weak story story which struggles to hold an unremarkable pulp thriller together.

RUZancy.png

35. Firewatch (2018, Switch) ★★★☆☆
Tells the story of two fire lookouts overseeing some hiking trails during a dry 1989 Summer. Most of the job boils down to doing occasional maintenance, and reporting any observed smoke plumes. Meanwhile, characters chat about their lives over walkie-talkies, which lets the game lean heavily on its strongest aspects: the selectable dialogue and natural voice acting. There are some mystery elements which feel tense in the moment, but this is primarily a game about avoiding problems by seeking out new ones.
The actual wilderness exploration feels a bit railroaded, with (in)visible walls funneling you down routes. You'll get lost without learning to navigate using a mixture of map, compass, and memorisation. Environments are nicely stylised, and survive the somewhat rickety, frequently stuttering Switch port job. A strong ending wraps up most of its themes nicely.
 

His Majesty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,397
Belgium
3NyrZb1.png


8. Ghost of a Tale - 8/10

Ghost of a Tale is one of those games I forgot about until I saw it on GamePass. Its art design immediately grabs your attention but the game has so much more to offer than clean graphics and cute furry creatures. The characters in the game are all very well written and make it a joy to immerse yourself in the story and world of the game. While the gameplay isn't too engaging, I think the writing and story more than makes up for deficits in this area.

While the story is dominated by the search for your missing wife, Merra, the game really shines in the little moments and interactions you have with other NPCs. Some of them are humorous, others are heart-wrenching. The game covers heavy topics but never does it in a manner that feels on the nose or dismissive, instead it makes the player think about accepted norms and how they influence the world and people around you. One interaction that will stay with me is the downright sad reaction of a rat, your supposed enemy, to a supposedly jolly song about how rats are a 'plague' and should be 'disposed of'. Your initial encounters are with hostile rats who are aggressive and try to prevent you from escaping. Their red eyes and large size make them seem monster like. But later on, through the clever disguise system, you learn that they are just trying to get by, one day at a time, just like you.

1. Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing In Disguise (Switch) | 7th Jan - 20 hrs | 5
2. Bugsnax (PS5) | 10th Jan - 12 hrs | 7
3. Demon's Souls (PS5) | 17th Jan - 25 hrs | 6
4. Hitman (PS5) | 24th Jan - 50 hrs | 8
5. The Medium (PC) | 6th February - 10 hrs | 7
6. Donut County (XSX) | 23rd May - 2 hrs | 8
7. Tell Me Why (XSX) | 2nd Jun - 10 hrs | 5
8. Ghost of a Tale (PC) | 30th Jun - 15 hrs | 8
 
Last edited:

Tizoc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,792
Oman
69. Joe & Mac Returns
2285280-joe___mac_returns_flyer.jpg


A score attack arcade game starring Joe and Mac. Nice 2D visuals, although the intermissions between missions are...plain moronic and terrible.

70. Donald Duck Goin' Qu@ckers (PC ver.)
latest


Disclaimer: There is only 1 Beagle Boy in the entirety of the game.
The PC version, along with Dreamcast and N64 are all the same, with the main differences being 30 FPS for dreamcast ver., and the N64 lacking a few cutscenes, but otherwise play all the same.
Visually it is much more detailed and better looking than the PSOne ver., although they all released around the same time by late 2000.
Much like the PSOne ver., I enjoyed this one too, in which case I played the PC version which is 60 FPS and had a few fan patches that helped improve the experience. Interestingly enough, the music is different in this ver. compared to the PSOne, as World 3's music for example is more calmer and moodier. Furthermore, milkshakes both instantly recover Donald's health and give him the invincibility power up as well.
Really holds up and I recommend it for fans of Platformers of the era. Granted it can come off being easy (the credits also thank the children who played tested it!) but it is overall really well designed.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,828
Main Post

June

28. Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids (PS5) | 2nd June - 12 hours | 2.5/5 : I don't know...it didn't really feel much different from the main game. Comparing Odyssey's DLC to this probably colors my perception a bit
29. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (PS5) | 12th June - 15 hours | 4.5/5 : Looks great, plays great. One of my favorites franchises continue its run of having amazing games (ignore 2016)
30. Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade Intermission DLC (PS5) | 14th June - 4.5 hours | 3.5/5 : It was good, even though I know nothing about Deepground.
31. Paradise Lost (PC) | 19th June - 4 hours | 1.5/5 : Boring. Crashed a bunch whenever I restarted the game.

Month's Docket:
Finishing Trails of Cold Steel IV
Halo
 

Palomitero

Member
Jan 2, 2018
35
Barcelona
June update

Main post here

TXbm6ZA.jpg




12- RE8 -10h9m- 5/5


Automatically one of my favorites RE along with RE1 and CV. Many new ideas combined for bag of mixed styles each time you visit a Lord area.


Some good plotwist with interesting story, rare thing in RE games.


Also, GREAT ending, looking forward to see what they do at RE9.


GOTY contender.


Free pic of the handsome Chris.

wyE7Ea8iPBnXNNQdzUrRak-970-80.jpg


13- Xenoblade 2- 117H- 4/5

This took a while to finish


Big surprise, I am a big JRPG fan, but this game got a lot of mixed opinions.


LOVED it, from start to finish. Even the cringe funny anime moments.



Monolith again doing a top tier Open world with great gameplay mechanics. In fact, I don't usually do side-postgame content but with this game did almost everything you can do.


Also, the OST it's TOP TIER.




14- Sumire -3h- 4/5

Heart touching game about a girl living in a rural area at Japan


Beautiful game full of SOUL. One of the best indies we have this year IMO.

Sumire_09-21-20.jpg


15- Metroid Prime -13h- 3,5/5

First contact with the PRIME saga.


Happy with the game, fun and great map design with a lot of backtracking.


16- Ender Lilies -21h- 5/5


One of the underdogs of 2021 for sure. TOP3 of the year easily.



AMAZING metroidvania with incredibly good lore and storytelling.



Furthermore, this game have the whole top tier metroidvania package OST, gameplay, art, map design and epic bosses, even 3 endings. And a lot of content, took me about 21h to get the true ending.


EL_overview_gif_001.gif


Must play if you like metroidvanias


PLAY IT!




Now playing:

Scarlet Nexus
 

Illusionary

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,623
Manchester, UK
Halfway through the year, five games beaten in June takes me to a total of 43 for the year. Master post here.

header.jpg

39. Wordle (PC - Steam) | 20 June 2021
All puzzles completed. Wordle is a fairly simple word-search style puzzle game, a little more elaborate than the standard puzzle-book style in that each letter can be in any direction from the next but still a straightforward enough concept. With difficulty generally pitched fairly low, but ramping up somewhat with later puzzles, Wordle provides a satisfying set of bite-sized challenges.

header.jpg

40. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (PS4) | 21 June 2021
100% in-game completion, all trophies earned except for higher difficulties. Completing a trilogy of Tomb Raider reboots, Shadow is in large part more of the same from Rise of the Tomb Raider, but that's no bad thing. The story here is typical Tomb Raider fare, with Lara on a quest to retrieve an artifact and stop and ancient evil that she unwittingly unleashes in the game's introductory sequence and not overly memorable, but we do get a good sense of the progression of Lara's character, to a well-rounded explorer after initial lack of confidence in the first of the reboots. Aesthetically the game doesn't disappoint, with beautiful graphics, especially in the natural environment, with well-implemented sound design and characterful voice acting throughout.

Of course, gameplay is critical to a good Tomb Raider game and here this comes in two styles - exploration with puzzle-solving, and combat. The combat sequences see some increase in variety from Rise, with a good range of stealth options in particular; gunplay isn't especially satisfying, however. While the game eventually offers a large range of weapons, many of these are very similar and to my mind this would have been better focused down to a smaller set, given that I didn't find myself swapping much within each category (i.e., pistols/bows, etc.) ...and for the most part just stuck with the bow anyway, which is easily the most satisfying and versatile to use. Exploration and puzzle design is great overall, though, rarely becoming too complex but always providing that crucial sense of satisfaction upon success, and as some stunning environmental set-pieces.

There's a lot to do here, especially when approached with a completionist mindset (like myself!) - which could be a good or bad thing depending on your view - but some nice variety, from full-scale side quests to simple collectible gathering, and a particularly enjoyable set of 'challenges' that combine exploration with a simple puzzle mindset. The strongest element of the game is its set of 'challenge tombs' are arguably, each a self-contained explorative puzzle scenario - and enhanced further with score attack and time trial modes, with online leaderboards for those with a competitive leaning.

header.jpg

41. Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Challenge Tomb DLC (PS4) | 21 June 2021
All tombs beaten, 100% of trophies earned. Primarily focused on a set of seven additional challenge tombs, this DLC pack provides more of where Shadow of the Tomb Raider most excels, with an impressive variety in the environments and types of puzzle approach. Well-integrated into the game, each tomb is accessible via a bespoke side quest sequence but also individually via the main menu - ideal for attempting the score attack and time trials.

I can see an argument that these could be bulking out the game a little *too* much beyond the core story, but if you take these as individual challenges I certainly wouldn't complain. As a minor note, the additional outfit and weapon that comes attached to each tomb felt somewhat unnecessary, and the weapons in particular just get lost in an already quite extensive list.

header.jpg

42. The Last Door - Collector's Edition (PC - Steam) | 21 June 2021
Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked. A horror-themed point-and-click adventure, The Last Door plays out over four chapters, with an increasingly psychological focus. There's some decent puzzle design here and a storyline that takes an interesting path if this is a genre that you enjoy, but I found the *very* retro aesthetic to be detrimental to the overall experience - the large 'pixels' go beyond being charming, to the extent that it's often difficult to make out what certain key interactable objects are, or in some cases that they even exist. Still a worthwhile experience, but not what it could have been.

header.jpg

43. Wordle 2 (PC - Steam) | 20 June 2021
All puzzles completed. As a follow-up to the original Wordle, Wordle 2 doesn't provide any significant advances does the job as an additional set of puzzles if you enjoyed the first game. The overall difficulty here is a little higher, but still perfectly approachable on the whole, save for an overly obscure "fish" category.
 
Last edited:

chrominance

Sky Van Gogh
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,958
June's damage:

18. Final Fantasy VII Remake: INTERmission (PS5, 2021) - 7:09 - June 24
19. Florence (Android, 2018) - 0:45 - June 26

Thank goodness for a surprise four-hour stint waiting in line for a vaccine at a pop-up, or else I probably would've put off playing Florence for another few months. It's a lovely short story, though it is a little predictable and pat--surprisingly it's how the gameplay reinforces the story that amazes, rather than the story itself. INTERmission was a nice reason to jump back into the world of FF7R, and Yuffie's fun though annoying (but seemingly intentionally so, so not really a problem).

A-Train: All Aboard Tourism took up the rest of my roughly 30 hours of play this month, and while I still like the game I'm finding it harder to strike the right balance than I did with the 3DS version, where a hundred hours went by like it was nothing. The first two scenarios felt kind of braindead--makes sense, since they're tutorials, but it was really easy to do some initial setup and then hit the fast-forward button, go away for a few hours, and see that half your goals have been accomplished. Then I raised the difficulty for the third scenario, and barely managed to finish everything on time but took out a ton of very expensive loans that will almost certainly tank the company in the coming years. I'm in scenario four right now on Easy, so we'll see if this does it, but I do wish there was something more active to do between bouts of infrastructure building.

For July, I'm digging through some Steam sale goodies after several months of not really touching my computer for games very much. PowerWash Simulator has been exactly what I was hoping for so far, and for some reason I got an itch to replay some classic FPS games so I've started working through Wolfenstein 3D. I never played anything in Wolf, Doom or Quake past the first "shareware" episodes (except Q2, I think I finished that one) so plenty of new stuff to see after the nostalgia high starts to fade. I'll probably start Rift Apart as well to keep the PS5 occupied.
 

Cipher Peon

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,679
Main Post

My June update
kRT7zyk.png

Eight games, and a very interesting mix of old and new games for June.

Tackled three games from 2021, so I'm doing pretty well keeping up with new releases!

Quick thoughts

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
The first Metroidvania game I think I've ever really connected with, Bloodstained's exploration and boss fights were engaging enough for me to not hate the parts that I got completely and utterly lost. At least not that those parts too much.

8/10

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
A nostalgic revisit to one of my favorite racing games ever, Episode 1 Racer isn't quite as novel as my childhood remembers it, but its mechanics and level design create an exhilarating sense of speed. Only wish there were more unique areas and utilization of the destruction mechanic.

8/10

Pokemon Stadium
One of my favorite games of all time, combining the rental aspect of my favorite Pokemon games with a thrilling campaign. Super easy to pick up and play, and not to mention has some of the best mini games ever made. A true classic.

10/10

Towerfall
Extraordinarily fun to play in multiplayer... a bore in singleplayer, unfortunately. It's repetitive and anticlimactic on both of its campaign modes, which is a shame considering how deep and accessible playing with others is. If I was grading the singleplayer by itself, it would definitely be a 4/10 but it isn't so...
7/10

Final Fantasy VII Remake
A gorgeous and thrilling video game that had me engaged from start to finish. As much as the story goes out of control by the end, the characters were amazing enough for me to be 100% in at all times. Doesn't hurt that it has amazing combat and music. Favorite FF game ever.
9/10

Little Nightmares II
Little Nightmares II is as gorgeous as it is infuriating. With astronomically annoying puzzles that have me sitting stumped for minutes on end, I wish I vibed with this game more since it was such a visual surprise. Also kind of annoyed that the easiest puzzle in the game literally had the answer spelled out for you in the middle of the game when infinitely harder puzzles before and after got nothing.
6/10

World's End Club
A miserable experience, which breaks my heart. As a massive Zero Escape fan and a... moderate Danganronpa fan, I wanted this to be a slam dunk. But an overlong journey with one of the worst casts I've had the misfortune of dealing with match a horrendous platforming game. Just a complete disaster.
3/10

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
My first Ratchet game, and I loved it enough to want to play the rest of the series. A well paced adventure with likable characters, Rift Apart ends up with wonderful combat scenarios that remind me of my fondest memories of Bioshock Infinite. Loved it.

8/10

30. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4) | 5th June - 31hrs | 4/5
31. Star Wars Episode 1 Racer (Switch) | 8th June - 4hrs | 4/5
32. Pokemon Stadium (N64) | 10th June - 11hrs | 5/5
33. Towerfall (Switch) | 13th June - 4hrs | 3.5/5
34. Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) | 20th June - 36hrs | 4.5/5
35. Little Nightmares II (PS4) | 26th June - 8hrs | 3/5
36. World's End Club (Switch) | 26th June - 15hrs | 1.5/5
37. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (PS5) | 15th June - 15hrs | 4/5
 

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
38: Ori and the Will of the Wisps. End: 7/3/2021. (4 out of 5)

The further adventure of our cute little forest spirit. There's more of an emphasis on combat on this game, but it still has that Metroidvania searching that people love so much. Combined with its ability to tell a heartfelt story. This one's a winner. (Even though the game did crash on me after I beat the final boss so I had to use Youtube to see the ending, lol.)
 

hersheyfan

Powered by Friendship™
Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,828
Manila, Philippines
Main post

OK, I've really been slacking off on posting impressions, so I'm hopelessly behind (not on the progress thankfully). I figured I'd just comment on particular games I beat in the last three months that I found noteworthy, gotta do my part to bump the thread!
  • 4/4/2021: I Saw Dark Clouds (XSX), around 3 hours. Normally a big fan of Wales Interactive FMV games, but this was rough as hell. I like that the game trends toward different suspense/action or horror themes depending on your choices, but a lot of it just came across as random.
  • 4/9/2021: Asura's Wrath (XSX), around 5 hours. Still an absolutely fascinating game, all these years later. The base gameplay is still extremely rudimentary but the ridiculous over the top nature of it all makes Asura a game that you need to experience at least once.
  • 4/18/2021: Necrobarista (Steam), 4.5 hours (100% achievements, beat game). While it made a good first impression (amazing cinematic direction), I truly, truly disliked Necrobarista by the end. Its a pleasant enough rumination on death in visual novel form, but the hipster, isnt our game just stylish as fuck vibe is so strong you can smell it even when your PC is off.
  • 4/24/2021: Outriders (XSX), 36 hours 48 minutes (beat game, 600/1000 GS). Solid looter shooter, basically Gears X Borderlands. Its buggy as hell, with connection issues out the ass (the always online requirement was boneheaded), but the game itself is really fun, especially in co-op.
  • 5/1/2021: Root Film (NSW), around 10 hours (beat game). Surprisingly, I enjoyed this visual novel a lot more than I thought I would. The game starts off a little disjointed, but the writers did a good job of tying all these separate mysteries into a single satisfying conclusion.
  • 5/2/2021: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (NSW), around 14 hours (beat game) . I might be a poor source for an opinion regarding this game, as I have many cherished memories of playing OG Link's Awakening from my childhood. It
    does an amazing job of bringing the old experience into a new generation, the music in particular is crazy. Fair warning though: if you've never played Link's Awakening before, the game can get pretty savage in the later sections with its lack of handholding as to where to go.
  • 5/7/2021: M2 Shot Triggers: Dangun Feveron (XSX), 5 hours 8 minutes (100% achievements, multiple 1CC). I absolutely loved this game! This was my first time playing Dangun Feveron on any system ever, and it blew me away. Super customizable for players of all skill levels, with a unique, funky disco soundtrack.
  • 5/13/21: Crime Opera: The Butterfly Effect (XSX), 2 hours 13 minutes (100% achievements). A controversial visual novel that got shunted off Steam because of scenes with violence against and in the presence of children (its a game about a Mafia family, told from the perspective of its children in soap opera style vignettes). It's a little cliche, but I'm a sucker for crime family stuff so I still had fun overall.
  • 5/23/21: Mass Effect 1 Remastered (XSX), around 27 hours (finished on Insanity, 100% ME1 achievements). First time ever playing or beating Mass Effect 1, had a pretty good time! It's definitely a very different feel from Mass Effect 2 (which is where I was introduced to the series), way more open ended and packed to the gills with side quests (some more interesting than others...). The Mako stuff wasn't great, but I managed to get through it without too much trouble.
  • 6/1/21: Little Nightmares (XSX), 3 hours 27 mins (beat game, 800/1000 base game achievements). I'm LTTP on this one, Little Nightmares is fuckin rad! Lots of thoughtful puzzle platformer gameplay, with a Nightmare Before Christmas aesthetic and horror vibes all throughout. Picked up the DLC after I beat it, will get back to that before Little Nightmares 2!
  • 6/4/21: Observation (PC via XGP), 5 hours 52 minutes (100% achievements). The framerate on Xbox is extremely bad (distressing, in a space-based game where you can float in all directions); had to finish this on XGP PC to brute force the performance. A decent horror game with some nice creepy moments, but overall nothing to write home about.
  • 6/19/21: Professor Layton & The Azran Legacy (3DS), 16 hours 6 minutes (beat game). I've been playing this on and off for nearly three years and just now got it over the line. Had a decent time, but maybe Layton in general just isn't for me anymore, sadly.
  • 6/23/21: UFC 4 (XSX), 16 hours 8 minutes (Beat career mode as GOAT, 835/1000). A solid entry in the UFC franchise, with an excellent FPS boost option. They could have done more to mix things up from UFC 3, and some of their new modes could've used a bit of work (the Mortal Kombat style Kumite mode is just stupid as hell) but overall I really enjoyed this game.
101 games so far! Going for my all time record this year, I'm finally on track to beat my record on GAF!
 

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,144
2208777-genesis_beyondoasis.jpg

Main Post

Credit to user Mama Robotnik for the excellent Sega Obscura 4 - The Eleven SEGA "Zeldas" (and the entire Sega Obscura series) without which I would not have played this game and several others.

18. Beyond Oasis | ★★★☆☆

Beyond Oasis is a top down action game, somewhere on the Zelda spectrum. With a few fighting-game style combos and an inventory system that consists of breakable weapons and items to restore HP and MP, I would argue that it's more of a top-down brawler than a Zelda game, but more on that later.

The game uses its restricted inputs to great effect. The C button is for jumping, but by holding it you can crawl. Crawling gains you access to small entry points, allows you to duck under some threats, and lets you strike small enemies on the ground. B is for attacking, and as mentioned before can be paired with other inputs to perform more powerful attacks (e.g. holding B gives you a powerful attack, 360 dpad + B gives you a circle slash). A is for magic, and is one of the game's more interesting ideas.

Magic in Beyond Oasis is fairly straight forward. There are several elemental spirits which you can summon to help you fight and solve puzzles. To summon, you press A to throw a magic orb. When the orb hits an elemental item in the world (e.g a river or a burning torch), you will summon that elemental spirit if you have unlocked them. Once you have an elemental friend, A can be pressed, double pressed, or held to perform various commands. And finally, A + B + C can be pressed to dismissed the elemental.

While an elemental is summoned, it will steadily drain your mp. Any commands you issue also cost mp, so it can be tempting to dismiss familiars as soon as possible to manage resources. However since MP-restoring food is a fairly common drop from defeated enemies, and because the elemental familiars are very powerful, it quickly becomes obvious that you want to have them out as often as possible. When you add in the fact that you can't always summon them due to a lack of elemental sources, farming a few minutes for oranges so you can keep your friend around starts to make a lot of sense.

It's also worth mentioning that Beyond Oasis is a beautiful game. I've always been more of a fan of the SNES asthetic/palette, but Beyond Oasis is gorgeous. Bosses are large and well designed. There are even a few proto-cutscenes that are simple but very effect and very pretty.

But its not all positive for me. I found the game to be somewhat unresponsive (especially compared to ALttP, which is very smooth). C as jump/crouch is great since the controller only has 3 buttons, but having jump be tied to the moment C is released fucked me up a number of times and made jumping attacks a little more stiff than I would have liked. There were more than a few times where I got stuck in a loop of getting knocked down over and over again, unable to escape the swarm of enemies on top of me. Weapon durability is very much a thing in this game for all weapons except for your very weak dagger. I ended up saving weapons for bosses and rarely using them otherwise. Every time I opened a chest and got another throwaway weapon... well, I didn't like it in BotW and I don't like it here.

And then there's the comparisons to Zelda. Again, on it's own I think this is a pretty good game, maybe even a very good game if brawlers are your thing. However, comparing this to one of the best games of all time is not doing this game any favors. Because Beyond Oasis and A Link to the Past are more different than they are the same, I don't even think this is really worth discussing. However, because the comparison is there I will briefly discuss two points as to why Beyond Oasis should avoid ALttP comparisons.


First, exploration. A good chunk of ALttP is exploration. There are a lot of secrets to discover, and even the entrances to some of the dungeons require the player to do a little digging. Beyond Oasis has nearly zero exploration. As far as I can tell, the only secrets to find are hidden stat boosts. Furthermore, the game always marks your next objective with a waypoint. There is never any question as to where you should be headed next. The game presents you with a decent-sized island, but it's little more than a hub that connects all the dungeons together.

The second point of comparison are the dungeons themselves. ALttP's dungeons are huge and excellently designed. They unfold before you as you work your way through them. There are a range of puzzles and challenges to trip the player up, some of which are as simple as a hidden door while others are far more involved. Beyond Oasis has far simpler dungeons. Some of them are just a few rooms. Across the game there are only a handful of puzzle types. Most often you only need to clear the enemies from the room or light the torches. I do want to give the game credit for using the elemental companions for some puzzles, but even those types of puzzles become obvious before too long. Towards the end of the game the puzzles get quite a bit harder, and I thought the game was really coming into its own, but then its over.

Beyond Oasis is a beautiful game. I liked it and enjoyed my time with it. As a top-down brawler, it stands apart from most other 16-bit games I've played and that is to be commended. But I also found it pretty frustrating at times. And regardless of whether the game wants to be compared to Zelda, it's an obvious comparison anyone would make. And because the game swims in those waters, I honestly find it hard to see it as anything other than a game that never reached its full potential.
 
Last edited:

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
16,562
Main Post

header.jpg

18. Ys VIII: The Lacrimosa of DANA
My first party-based Ys game and I had an absolute blast with this. The high energy combat and boss battles remain the same if a little easier now that you can swap between 3 characters. The music was fantastic, as always with Ys, and the characters grew on me quite a bit. Character design, however, was terrible and as soon as I could I put some actual clothes on Dana. The story takes a while to get moving but I found myself caught up in the tale of species extinction. The performance on the Switch is atrocious hahaha. Don't play this on the Switch unless you need that portable feature. 100% the game minus one fish!
 

Griffin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
115
Osaka
MAIN POST

Halfway through the year and just over halfway to 52 games completed. I didn't expect to actually play this much, so thank you continued state of emergency announcements!

26 Psychonauts (Xbox) - ★★★★☆

There are better 3D platformers out there, but few are as funny and creative as Psychonauts. Since each stage takes place in a different character's mind there's a great deal of variety as you unravel conspiracies in a twisted take on suburbia or lead lungfish revolutionaries to victory by stomping through a city like Godzilla.

Yeah, there are some frustrating sections like the infamous final stage, the Meat Circus. The developers' inexperience at designing platformers shows and the levels are often over-reliant on collecting and using items like in an adventure game. But the team's knack for funny dialogue and strange scenarios helps Psychonauts a lot, with a story that's both humorous and surprisingly dark in places. Overall, I really enjoyed revisiting this game and my expectations for the sequel are sky high.

27 Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis (Xbox Series S) ★★★☆☆

I expected New Genesis to put a complete stop to my chances of playing through 52 games in a year, but at the moment there's surprisingly little to do. The sci-fi setting is vast and beautiful, but there's not much in the way of quests or "cocoon" challenges to seek out. The few story missions are brief and padded out with a lot of grinding as players need to get their gear up to a certain level.

The lack of content is disappointing, but the action is a massive improvement over the original PSO2. It's all faster and flows better, no matter what type of weapon you're playing with. There's a great sense of speed that makes it a lot of fun to dash and glide around the world, even if there's little there to actually discover. I wrote up some more thoughts here and I'll definitely come back to New Genesis once there's more story content to cover.

28 Raging Blasters (Switch) -
★★★★☆

I was looking for a shmup to play on the Switch and saw a bit of buzz behind this recently-released indie title. I'm glad I checked it out since Raging Blasters is pretty dang good. There's a big focus on getting a big chain going by shooting down enemies or parts of the environment in quick succession, rewarding players with explosions of gems and score multipliers. With two shot types and different subweapons to switch between, the game encourages quickly adapting to clear each wave of enemies as efficiently (and safely) as possible. This might be one of the few shmups where blasting through basic "popcorn" enemies is the best part - the actual boss fights are quite underwhelming by comparison.

Where the game really shines is in "caravan mode", which gives players three minutes to get a high score. It's a format that works great with the chaining system and randomised enemy formations, making it addictive to climb higher on the leaderboards. It looks like the game's visuals were updated when it moved from the PC to Switch, but the presentation is quite plain. That said, the music is so intense that I kept asking myself "this has to be the final stage, right?" Apparently the game is modelled on PC Engine shooters, which isn't a console I have much affinity for, but I still had a lot of fun with Raging Blasters.
 

Estizzle

Member
Jan 14, 2019
1,408
Reserved!

2020 Total: 52

Let's see if I can get to 53 this year!

New: 17 | Replay: 1
  1. Marvel's Avengers (PS5 BC) | 4th Jan - 17h | 3.5/5
  2. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) | 6th Jan - 6h | 3.5/5
  3. Outer Wilds (PC) | 9th Jan - 19.75h | 4/5
  4. Donut County (Switch) | 14th Jan - 2h | 4/5
  5. Final Fantasy X HD Remaster (Switch) | 26th Jan - 44h | 4.5/5
  6. Friday Night Funkin' (PC) | 7th Feb - 2h | 3.5/5
  7. Resident Evil 7 (PC) | 9th Feb - 10h | 4/5
  8. Resident Evil 7: Not a Hero (PC) | 13th Feb - 1h12m | 3/5
  9. Resident Evil 7: End of Zoe (PC) | 14th Feb - 1h22m | 4/5
  10. Grand Theft Auto V (PC) | 8th Mar - 54h | 4.5/5
  11. Superhot VR (Quest 2) | 20th Apr - 2h | 4/5
  12. Resident Evil Village (PC) | 13th May - 9h12m | 4.5/5
  13. Ratchet & Clank 2016 (PS5) | 23rd May - 10h | 3/5
  14. Monster Hunter Rise (Switch) | 30th May - 47h35m | 4.5/5
  15. Alan Wake (PC) | 2nd June - 15h37m | 3/5
  16. Persona 5 Royal (PS5) | 23rd June - 131h22m | 5/5
  17. Carto (PC) | 27th June - 5h37m | 3.5/5
  18. Huntdown (Switch) | 27th June - 6h | 4/5
Been a very long time since I posted an update. Updated the main post with listings, going to put write ups in a spoiler tag here.
  • #6 - Friday Night Funkin' (PC) - 2h - 3.5/5
    Music is great, felt like I was replaying a piece of my childhood. Good game.

  • #7 - Resident Evil 7 (PC) - 10h - 4/5
    Damned good game. Was terrified to start with this as my first horror game since the main protagonist has the same first name as me, and I was completely right about how scary it'd be to hear the characters say my name... repeatedly...

    For the first hour or so I barely able to play the damned game I was so scared, but after I got a weapon it got a lot more manageable. Still scared me a lot throughout my playthrough. I found myself invested in the Bakers' situation, even if not to a great extent. Gameplay felt intense, and it was satisfying to see results from keeping my aim relatively stable (and terrifying when I'd flinch and miss). I got completely lost in the wrecked ship and spent a full hour just looking around to find stuff, which was a bit annoying but I think it was more due to my own inability to notice two extremely obvious items.

    The enemy designs were very cool as well. The Molded might be some of my favorite enemy designs from... Anything, really. They felt like a constant threat until the very end section when I felt like I could kind of just blast through them. Still, great enemies.

    Really, I think my only complaint regarding the game is the boss fights. The combat is pretty simple, which is nice for the generic encounters, but boss fights started to feel a bit like health sponges. Still pretty interesting visually, but not the most engaging fights. The final boss was also kind of a letdown, it was over before I even realized it. Still, though, I think the game does most things really well and I'm very excited for other installments. I got both endings just to cover all the bases. Will definitely be buying the DLC.

  • #8 - Resident Evil 7: Not a Hero (PC) - 1h12m - 3/5
    RE7: Not a Hero was... a surprise in many ways. I enjoyed it, but it felt kind of bland. It felt a lot more like the end of RE7, where I felt strong enough that I didn't have to worry about the enemies at all, but stretched over an hour of gameplay. And I don't think that works especially well, though I did still enjoy the DLC especially at its fantastic price of free. Did bump it up a full .5 for being able to punch staggered Molded though, that's rad as heck.

  • #9 - Resident Evil 7: End of Zoe (PC) - 1h22m - 4/5
    Yesterday I was planning on counting Not a Hero and End of Zoe together. After playing End of Zoe, I think the quality is so much better than Not a Hero that I'd hate to put them together. End of Zoe feels like a very unique experience with the fistfighting and actual combos. Joe Baker feels super strong in End of Zoe, but far from infallible - it's very easy to get hit when you're in the enemy's face. It really has that balance between strength and vulnerability that I felt Not a Hero lacked. I think my only complaint is the length, I wish it was a tad bit longer because I was having so much fun playing through it. That being said, I totally plan to replay this DLC in the future because who doesn't love punching zombies?

  • #10 - Grand Theft Auto V (PC) - 54h - 4.5/5
    Last time I played this was back in mid-2017 and it has honestly held up even better than I expected. The missions were fun the vast majority of the time and the world was as fun to explore as I remembered. The ending I went with was saving both of them, I can't bring myself to do any other! I don't really have too much more to say about it besides praise. Excellent game and I'm glad it was the Quarterly so I could get around to replaying it!

  • #11 - Superhot VR (Quest 2) - 2h - 4/5
    My first VR game! I've played Superhot and I'm currently playing Superhot: Mind Control Delete, so it seemed natural to start with Superhot VR. And man this is fun. Devs did a great job with transitioning the gameplay to VR by teleporting you through different scenarios instead of having you move around more open levels. Campaign was honestly just a ton of fun and I'm excited to get into the Endless modes and working on some of the challenges.

  • #12 - Resident Evil Village (PC) - 9h12m - 4.5/5
    Damned good game. I don't think there was a single section of the game that I disliked, although House Beneviento was completely terrifying for me and I think I was paused for more than half of the time I was in there. Still pretty solid. I felt like it did the ending sequence much better than RE7 and had ultimately better pacing throughout. I ended up enjoying my time with this a lot more.

    I guess my main complaint is that I wish the actual village had been more present? The rest of my stuff is mostly nitpicks, like one of the puzzles the fire ones being a bit annoying physics-wise. Was also a bit on the easy side, I think I only died 4 times, and 3 of those were to Moreau, fuck you you dumb fish. But that's fine, I'll probably do a harder NG+ at some point. Very excited for future RE games and also playing some of the older titles for the first time this summer!
  • #13 - Ratchet & Clank 2016 (PS5 BC) - 10h - 3/5
    This was fine. I'd read a few opinions that it was mediocre, and when I first tried playing it on PS4 a year or two ago I only made it through the first two planets or so before dropping it. Finally decided to give it another shot with the 60fps patch and Rift Apart coming soon, and I enjoyed it. If you asked me to name any of the levels, I could probably only name two or three outside of the final level that I just beat. Definitely enjoyable, if forgettable. Definitely don't regret waiting for it to drop in price, and probably won't be doing Challenge Mode or looking for all the hidden stuff.

  • #14 - Monster Hunter Rise (Switch) - 47h35m - 4.5/5
    Marking this as done since I finished the pre-update story missions. Still going to do the update stuff but it's a ways off. That being said, this game really boiled down to just my favorite parts of Monster Hunter and added fun new ideas with the wirebugs. I enjoyed World but never got around to finishing it (which I totally will go back and do at some point), but the mobility in Rise made every hunt feel like an absolute blast. Magnamalo is also probably my favorite fight in the series now, or at least really high up there.

    I think as far as criticisms go, it's really just the Rampage quests. I actually enjoy them outside of the Apex Monster Rampages, but I don't know if I just couldn't get used to them or what, but the Apex Rampages were just brutally unfun. It was especially disappointing when Wind Serpent Ibushi's fight was in a Rampage. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure the updates are adding Apex monsters to regular quests which is extremely nice. Other than that, though, I pretty much only have praises for the game. Capcom's really killing it this year for me!

  • #15 - Alan Wake (PC | EGS) - 15h37m - 3/5
    After absolutely adoring Control and getting this game for free on EGS, I decided I'd play it before getting into Control's DLC. And ultimately, I think it's... fine? I definitely enjoyed most of my time with it. I liked the writing a lot and I'm excited to see how it ties into the Control DLC, but I ended up being pretty disappointed with the light-based combat system. It just ended up feeling kind of clunky. The game was solid otherwise though, and I definitely don't regret playing it. But I'm glad I got it for free.


  • #16 - Persona 5 Royal (PS5 BC) - 131h22m - 5/5
    Persona 5 was (and still is) one of my favorite games of all time, so I thought playing what was essentially Persona 5 but better would give me a pretty solid basis for what to expect. Instead, my expectations were absolutely surpassed. So many QOL additions and adjustments to bosses, guns reloading after each fight, dungeon layouts... Everything together really blew me away. It is, in every way I can think of, an absolute upgrade to Persona 5 and the definitive way to experience the game. It feels like a crime that I got it for only $20. The brand new content is some of the best in the game, and probably my favorite part of the entire experience.

    Heavy spoiler warning for the endings of Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal: I always felt that the final boss of Persona 5 being Yaldabaoth, a being that felt largely removed from the personal story of the cast, was a bit underwhelming and probably my biggest flaw with the game. So when the third semester rolled around with Maruki as a villain, I was positively thrilled. It was essentially the answer to my biggest complaint with the base game and presented in a fantastic way. Maruki, a man whose research you help build up, utilizes it to rewrite reality. He is an antagonist of the protagonist's own creation. More than that, he's not directly evil like the other antagonists we see - he's taking people's freedom away when he rewrites reality, but he's doing so specifically to make the world an easier place to live in for all. It was nice, in a game that typically had a solidly black vs white mentality, to have such a morally gray antagonist. One whose ideals you could agree with, but whose methods you maybe couldn't. I don't think I could've asked for a better solution to my issue with Persona 5's final boss.

    I feel like I could write an entire paper about everything I loved about the game, but after 131h I think it's time to move on. Probably to some shorter games.

  • #17 - Carto (PC | Game Pass) - 5h37m - 3.5/5
    This game was super cute and charming. I was a bit skeptical, but the whole map-building aspect actually worked surprisingly well. There were some low points (the desert chapter was particularly a slog to get through) but I think the rest of the game made up for it well enough. I do think the puzzles were a bit more vague than they had to be at times, and I found myself a bit frustrated with certain clues early on. I think this became less of an issue later on as I got more adjusted to the way the game's mechanics worked, but early on it was definitely a bit of an annoyance. Not a huge issue, though. Overall, pretty cute and fun game. Doesn't really overstay its welcome, either.

  • #18 - Huntdown (Switch) - ~6h - 4/5
    Can't remember who recommended this, but it was a damn good recommendation! This isn't a genre I've played a lot, but I had a lot of fun. Played as Mow Man. The beginning was a bit simple, but as more interesting weapons began dropping in later levels I had more and more fun. The aesthetic of the last set of levels was easily my favorite and the weapons for that set were just so cool. Seems like it'll be a fun game to revisit and go for more of the objectives. I think my favorite boss was probably Grandmaster Yuudai, just a very fun fight. Hardest boss for me was definitely Cyra Rhodes, but eventually I realized I could save the Cluster Bombs I brought in and just 2-shot the second phase.

    I think my only gripe is that some of the boss fights felt just a bit unfair, specifically fights where it was really easy to get knocked off. Those were a pain and felt more annoying than challenging, but there really weren't very many like that. Overall really great game and I think I'll be revisiting it, either for more objectives or for 2P.
 

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
39: Joe & Mac 2: Lost in the Tropics. End: 7/5/2021. (2.5 out of 5)

The controls are better than the first one. It's also an easier game overall, even if some of the mechanics aren't as straightforward as the previous game.
 

Blindy

Member
Nov 16, 2017
3,929
tenor.gif


32) River City Girls(XB1) 6/16, 6/21-6/23

River City Girls was a pretty fun couple day play. With the announcement of the sequel and with the original being free to play via XBOX Game Pass, I wanted to go and tackle the game. Looks sorta like Scott Pilgrim, it's a solid game even if it doesn't revolutionize or do anything drastically different among beat em ups. Like Streets of Rage 4 from last year was a more deeper combat game, this tries well but it feels like most of the items you pick up have little if any differences among themselves. Feels like some of the enemies are sponges for damage and not knowing their HP has you just hitting them until you can do it no more practically. The story is cute and the presentation is good in itself with your two main protagonist being high school over the top females who are looking for their seemingly kidnapped boyfriends among the city and come into fights with various characters of past River City games and Double Dragon games(Two antagonists are from that series). The music is great, a lot of recognizable Youtubers produces music here including NateWantsToBattle who does anime & V&G covers and Christina Vee who does the same. The comic book cutscenes are pretty funny too, game has a real Saturday morning anime cartoon feel to it that I deeply miss.

Sprites are cool for what they look like, has a real retro look to it and it isn't too hard of a game, especially if you have a 2nd player with you. I will say the HP pickups are pretty scarce though and the vendors and different stores open aren't too different from one another where most of them offer up HP pickups or items for combat or both Billy and Jimmy of Double Dragon fame are your Dojo mentors who teach you valuable new moves that are clutch vs hoards of enemies. In this game, you don't want to get ganged up on so you find yourself doing the same couple of combos which admittedly can be a tad bit repetitive but such is the nature of a beat em up. Checkpoints are very forgiving and you get right back to where you died which is fantastic. Unless you fully complete the game with all the characters, game runs you a good 8-10 hours which is superb for a beat em up.

A lot to improve upon with River City Girls but given I played it for free, very curious how the sequel fares, especially if they build off the first. Some good fundamentals here within the game.

tumblr_odm32egfk71u6ju7sg4.gif


33) Double Dragon Neon(XB1) 6/23, 6/25

Finished Double Dragon Neon, it did feel like a stepback from RCG but then again River City Girls came out 7 years after this game so it was natural. The final boss having a 1 hit ko move that he tries to do multiple times in the fight is obnoxious and soured me on the game by the end but it was a fun couple of hours game in itself. The music is good(Particularly the 2nd stage which is still a banger to me) and it is still a fun enough beatem up but with this game, it does feel like your at a hinderance not playing this with a 2nd player and the game puts pieces in the game where it acts as if your playing with this a 2nd player, case in point throwing a gigantic freak clone of Billy and Jimmy at you as a boss fight except if you play this with 1 player, it's a 2 on 1 fight which isn't impossible but they can combo you which can be cheap. Never understood beat em ups that do this, they should double the enemies if your trying this with 2 players but keep it normal for 1 player. River City Girls did this well, Streets of Rage 4 does this well too.

The item vendor is a good concept in theory, getting to buy different mixtapes/movesets which are neat and make the combat more interesting with what to pick in certain situations(The game is much easier with health drain, outside of the final boss, the tutorial gave me the toughest time).....I just sort of wish the game tells you about any of this. I found this out by accidentally hitting a button Changes everything. Biggest flaw with the item vendor is you can buy lives which in theory is great, more cracks at tough bosses with more lives because after the final life, you start back at the beginning of the level which is no good.....................however. However, the lives do not carry over at fully finishing a level, I found this out the hard way by thinking "Gee I can buy 9 lives and max out and not have to worry about shopping again in a level)" only to see my lives get reversed back to the starting 2 lives which sucked massively. Waste of money and time, not a big fan of that. I only had a couple of game overs, mostly to the obnoxious final boss so it didn't end up mattering but a lot of the game is "Trial & Error" which does play up to the old school beatem up feel it was going for. The graphics are weirdly rendered for me but that's a personal preference.

Just a solid game for me, the final boss was the lone time I can say I got aggravated on but I got the patterns in due time and beat him pretty good on my winning run vs him. The theme of the game is very 80's and very "BRO" and "DUDE" so know that going in....some very cringey stuff within Double Dragon Neon but it doesn't take itself too seriously as a whole which I can appreciate.

Normal playthrough runs you a good 3+ hours so you can beat this in one sitting in all honesty, thank god for XBOX Game Pass.

HALFWAY POINT: 33/52, I think we got this in the bag this year.


th


34) Sackboy: A Big Adventure(PS5) 6/26-7/2

Sackboy: A Big Adventure(PS5 version)
which I got for 29.99, 30 dollars off the regular full price! Good to wait months, was waiting for such a price to get into this one. Very Super Mario 3D World like, which I played in January(Or was it February?) so the comparisons are rather fresh to me. Game is easy without doing all collectables but boy the game is pretty tough when trying to 100% it. Doing that you have to:

Get all of the 3-5 collectable orbs which aren't all easy to get
3 prizes which are side items which are on the same level of difficulty
and you have to beat the level deathless, which is easier said than done.

Game's levels aren't too long and the beauty is you can exit immediately the minute you get the one collectable missing which is a massive upgrade to SM3DWorld's big thing where you had to finish the level for it to count. Some of the licensed music includes Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars & Jungle Boogie by Kool & The Gang which plays extremely well within the levels theme with figures in the backgrounds playing exact to the tunes, it reminds me sorta of Rayman Legends in this regard although unlike with that, the game's controls aren't synched to the music.

Game has these really cool gold-silver-bronze trophy race runs that are quick yet really make you rely on the roll running which is common in the likes of Crash Bandicoot which makes you go slide dashing which is risky but rewarding for time trial runs. Have had a lot of fun with them. The costumes and ability to change the color are awesome. You can change your emotes to whatever you want(Which is cool since every level finish, you get a pose for the cameras in 3-2-1!) and I have played with free DLC costumes from other PS5 games like Selene of Returnal and Ratchet, Clank & Rivet(Where's KAT?) of the new Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart series. Really cool stuff.

Story is typical but well cutesy and well done in the typical Sackboy/LittleBigPlanet fashion as you'd expect. Game looks really nice and the minor haptic motion controls are really well done like tilting your controller to get around in this one level which was challenging.

Some minigames(If you call them that) you only get 1 shot so if you mess up, you have to restart or kill yourself to retry, the latter is less than ideal to fully finish a level. Little unforgiving in that regard. The game isn't hard if you aren't trying to go for all collectibles but my goodness, especially for the deathless run segments, the game pulls no punches. Particularly, the endgame stages as you'd imagine were brutal. Especially the bonus levels(Cloud levels, why is it the cloud levels are the most difficult in today's platformers, both Donkey Kong Country Returns game had these as secret levels). Particularly, the final knight trial which are separate mini obstacle courses that are optional was so rough I didn't even finish it, it consists of 18 straight parts where you only have 2 health and there are so many instances of fall deaths waiting for you. Absolutely brutal, this is worse than the Victory Road level of Super Mario 3D World, you mess up once, you start all the way back from the beginning. And on top of this, the trophy tied behind completing this is for you to get gold, which is no joke(10 minutes for 15 levels) and your forced to play it unsafe to get faster time.

Closest thing I can compare this to is Yooka Laylee & The Impossible Lair very last stage. Absolute nightmare. That was mandatory to finish at least, this is entirely optional. You can at least take your time on The Impossible Lair, this if you want the gold, you have to be on the run. You can also take as many hits as the collectibles you found in Impossible Lair, this is 2 hits and that's it.

A lot of the game stood true towards the end, the one gaming mechanic that is flawed was the grabbing mechanic where you spin on a mini wheel in a couple of stages and you have to time it right to launch off to safety. The problem is the launching portion off of it was so awkward and I felt like I didn't have it down to pat for what the game was trying to do. There was no doubt there are segments where I semi-raged in large part because I get hit once or twice in a great run and it costs you the deathless medal which you really want to 100% everything solo.

I would say most mechanics work, that is the one very exception to it. Some places are also brutal with overload of enemies, some enemies I found were very cheap and wonky hitbox wise. Particularly, the intro guys when they are consisted of 3 or sometimes 4 in a totem pole formation are brutal because we often exchanged hits and I would sometimes die to these guys if I only had 1 health despite fully knowing either I land on them or hit them while in the air, both ways to damage them.

But the major gripe is the multiplayer. Not that the multiplayer is bad, they incorporated online co-op play a few months ago which is great! The problem? Trophies and game content are tied to having co-op so you cannot 100% the game without a partner, whether it's couch co-op or online co-op. I did a random co-op online game which is very fun but I wish I can experience the game solo. You can do the main story from what I read solo but to fully get the trophies and collectables, you must do 2-4 player runs. The one stage I played was very fun with a bunch of teamwork involved to get around. I played with clear veterans of the game as they basically carried me but it was the 5th or 6th overall level so cut me some slack! This isn't a problem if you have a partner to play with though but it sucks trying to do this game solo and the game telling you, you must find 2-4 players to play these levels.

But really, really top notch game, had a lot of fun with it. Easy recommend for players into this genre.

LightningGun.0.gif


35) Axiom Verge(PS4) 7/3-7/5

Finished up Axiom Verge, very solid 9 hour or so Metroid styled game. I felt the game was OK, was expecting this to be better but by no means is this a bad game. The good is the pixel animation in the game, and the true homage to Metroid series is evident. It even has enemies that are inspired by the Metroid series like the stationary bug hives! Getting all the guns and getting to use them throughout your journey felt really cool even if I sorta wish it was spread out a bit more evenly throughout the story, as opposed to throwing all of these guns late game in very obscure & optional parts of the area AKA the infamous Metroidvania backtracking to new areas you could not access before. Would give you so many more options to run through the game IMO. But I get why they did it this way, so you aren't overpowered. Tons of abilities you learn along the way such as the grapple or teleport or drone control, feels like Samus learning all of her different gadgets in all of the 2D Metroid games. The mechanics make the game from a maneuverability standpoint very fresh but the way they were done, at least on console, leaves a bit to be desired. More in a second on that.

The music was OK, but I can't say there is a true banger of a track that I would go out of my way to listen for. The story sort of went over my head, might be one of those where you definitely want to look up online what exactly the lore is as a lot of the lore is trapped in side content you really, really have to go out of your way for and even then, you have to enter codes late game to even encrypted what looks like alien language. I get some of what was going on but there were certain parts that just went over my head honestly again, maybe that's more so on me than the game itself but the story didn't click at all with me. The 2D sprites were really well done(Insane this was a 1 man show, Thomas Happ) and the cutscenes feel right up the alley from the Ninja Gaiden created NES days.

I finished the game with 96% map, and over 80% on items discovered and got all the weapons possible so I really did go out of my way to get as much as I could with this game and with features such as hard mode & speedrun mode, this game does offer a little bit of replayability. In addition to those stats, I died a whopping 10 times so the game does have some degree of difficulty but nothing that will turn you off from playing, if you are familiar with the Metroid series, again that's the point of reference as this game pays so much homage to the series, you will be at home with Axiom Verge.

The glitch idea is neat. You pick up an item early in the game, you use it on enemies and you can mutate them to either actually leave it to get hurt by your normal weapons or see it in a different phase such as flying enemies fall down and lose their wings and are all de-conformed. Can't say I remember a lot of games that did this the way it was incorporated.

That's the good, now the bad.

Feels like this game wasn't fully made for console/controller. Why I say that is the suspect decision to not allow your protagonist to stay in one spot and shoot diagonally, which is a big problem vs one particular boss that has a small hitbox that requires you to hit it diagonally while it's mouth opens up. Your basically throwing yourself in the way of it's attacks, such as two downward shot fireballs that may catch you simply because your trying to get in and aim at him diagonally. In addition to this, some of the grappling motion was a real chore first until you got the hang of it. This game really, really needed a double jump, the teleport is nice but another problem is it's a double tap motion so accidentally when trying to move around in a combat sequence, you may accidently teleport into an enemy and hurt yourself or run into a fireball which happened to me quite a bit.

Couple of the bosses hitboxes like the aforementioned are obnoxious where a part of the bosses body is blocking it from being hit sometimes so it's 50/50 if you are catching it or not. Particularly, one boss I basically ducked below and was praying one of my long range sound weapons would hit it's miniature opening while improvising and jumping off fireballs that the AI is doing to stop the ducking cheese strat. While the boss' tell was nice when it began to change colors and go into red as far as it's HP bar, the boss strategies aren't too overwhelming difficult, just think the hitboxes could have been a bit bigger shall I put it?

For a couple of the health/weapon pickups, the game wants you to do a teleport up in the air which gives you a little bit of maneuverability, then shoot your minidrone that you control that takes you places you can't go to and then quickly swap out and go back to your main character and then teleport again to go inside the spot with the said pickups. Easier. Said. Than. Done. Would spend 10+ minutes trying this before giving up and seeing how to do it on Youtube, crazy precision. Happened on about 3-4 of these, and it was 3-4 of these too many IMO.

Curious how they do on the recently announced Axiom Verge 2 because 1 has a lot of great ideas that could have been done even better and despite being a solid game for me, could have been a little bit better with some of the negatives I mentioned. Overall though, a very solid Metroid homage and the game does accomplish it's mission on that for sure. They captured the real feel of helplessness of being low on HP, hoping to find a save point which in turn heals you up all the way. The game is very nice with saves, just because you die, does not mean progress is lost, you just go back to the last place you died but the game does auto-save after a death so they hold that in your face for the ending by showing total # of deaths LOL.
 
Last edited:

BPHusker

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,193
Nebraska
30. Resident Evil Village(PC) | 7/1/2021 | 13 hrs | 3.5/5
I was really looking forward to playing this after playing VII a few years ago. Overall I enjoyed the game, the characters and the story. I'm hoping they were making Ethan act like a complete idiot, because some of the lines he said throughout the game were so cringeworthy, it was hard not to laugh "STOP RUINING MY FAMILY!". While I enjoyed all of that, it was a struggle to get through because I kept getting really motion sick if I played more than an hour.

31. Collection of Mana: Final Fantasy Adventure (Switch) | 7/2/2021 | 10 hrs | 3.5/5
I finally got around to playing Collection of Mana after it sat on my backlog for years. Overall I enjoyed the game. It was impressive being a 1991 Gameboy game. While the story was fairly basic and the translation wasn't great, I thought it was a great clone of Zelda. On the collection, they added save states, which helped me get through some of the bosses near the end.

Main Post
 

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
16,562
Main Post
header.jpg

19. Partitas
A classical music puzzle game. Whilst the music is exceptionally good and performed by multiple different pianists for this game, the puzzles are terrible. I only learnt a little piano when I was like 12 so my musical knowledge is almost non-existent. This game stated that it was accessible to everyone and it really isn't. You have to fill the blanks on music sheets and you're not told what any of the remaining notes on the sheet are and you can't listen to any of the options. So what you do is brute force reach puzzle, waving notes across the sheet until one clicks into place and then rinse and repeat. After completing a sheet you can stop and listen to the performance and that was nice. There's nothing to educate you on any of the music, composers or even how to read music. You can buy little trinkets to decorate the screen but that's really all there is to this game. And you can't just pick a track from the list to listen to; you have to complete the puzzle every time. Not worth the $1.50.

header.jpg

20. Gorogoa
A puzzle game that made me feel both incredibly stupid and a genius at the same time. The first couple of sliding puzzles you can sort of fumble your way through. But eventually you'll need to use your brain and boy this tested me something fierce. I loved it, I love the feeling of wracking my brain and finding the solution. Very, very good.
 

Tiny Hawk

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
962
Canada
Main Post!!

It feels like it's been forever since I last completed anything game-related. Work came and hit me like a truck, but I've found time to play stuff in-between the crunching lmao

#34 - WATCH_DOGS LEGION: BLOODLINE (PC) - 5hrs - 3/5

Legion was already kind of an OK game for me, so more of the same is fine. The DLC's big selling point was bringing back Aiden Pearce and Wrench, way older but still not as wise. I always liked Wrench, but never was a fan of Aiden. Bloodline makes him slightly more tolerable and gives him a bit more personality, probably just due to the location change. The missions are alright, with a few standouts here and there, but nothing spectacular. A nice fan-service filled bit of content that I may re-visit in the future.

#IN-PROGRESS - SCARLET NEXUS (PC) - Kasane Playthrough - ~12hrs in / Phase 6
It looks/runs great, the combat is absolutely fantastic, the writing is... kind of dumb, but I'm having a lot of fun!
 

Weiss

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
64,265
17. Metroid Prime - 08/07/2021

It's Metroid Prime, you already know the score.
 

Bosh

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,235
MAIN THREAD
COMPLETED 50

Master50.png


Quick update

  • Carto - June monthly game, really enjoyable unique game with great art and puzzles. Few times game lacked overall direction but it was a fun experience
  • Injustice - Decent fighter, felt a tad sluggish at times and the PS4 "Definitive Edition" still struggled on some cutscenes and looked closer to a PS3 game than PS4. Could also be hard to see who was who when fighting the same character.
  • Injustice 2 - Lot faster gameplay and looked fantastic. I don't play a ton of fighters but I could see how they can get addicting while playing this game. Story made a little more overall sense than the first game and extra mode was fun.
  • Ghostrunner - Really fun game that kept you on your toes from start to finish. Graphics and audio really added to the world. Had a few issues when my character would clip through the thing they were running on, but besides that was fantastic.
  • Splinter Cell Pandora's Tomorrow- Played PS2 version back in the day, this time around played the Xbox version which cleaned the game up a bit and was a smooth and great experience.
 

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,144
OIP.jgKJ_f0xP04F5rZ8f2lDmAHaG6


Main Post

19. Parasite Eve | ★★★★★

During a stage show on Christmas Eve, as a mysterious woman sings her song, the audience and performers on stage suddenly begin to spontaneous combust. The only two people unaffected are the woman on stage and your player character, an NYPD officer named Aya Brea. The singer flees and as you pursue her you witness the sudden, monsterous transformation of both the woman and several animals. As seemingly the only person in the city unaffected by the singer's strange powers, you set out to chase her down and put an end to whatever inhuman plot she is toiling towards.

Aside from having a interesting and original story, Parasite Eve stands out for being one of the few games to use the mix of real time and turn based combat that it employs. Players and enemies move about in real time while an ATB bar charges. When the player is ready to act, they pause the action to select a command. If attacking, the player must account for range. For weapons with longer attack animations, the player must also concern themselves with the possibility that the enemy may move out of range during the attack, since the action resumes once the attack command is input. Finally, the player can dodge enemy attacks by moving out of range, as you would expect. All of this comes together to create a wonderfully tactical and tense combat experience. When facing multiple enemies, there's an element of area control as you try to carve out a safe area for yourself. Likewise, if you are using a short range weapon, you have to carefully time it so you run in, attack, and run out without getting hit. And then there are your powers, some of which are offensive and some of which are defensive and most of which are incredibly important. MP recharges steadily, so you are encouraged to not simply hoard MP like in many RPGs. But since abilities can really make a huge difference (especially when it comes to managing heals), you have to be very mindful of what you are doing with MP.

The last big thing I have to bring up is the pacing. I'm not a person who really notices or thinks about pacing usually, but PE is a game that nails it so perfectly I think it's impossible to not notice. The game take place over a period of a week. Each day can be broken down into story moments and action moments (although it's.nothing as rigid as this). For most of the game there is one big task to tackle per day, so the game flies by. At the end it starts to slow down a bit and there is exactly one location I simply cannot stand and I will probably use a map next time I play that area, but the rest of the game is such sheer perfection that it's hard to complain.

Parasite Eve is simply one of the best RPGs I have ever played. Running it through a PS1 emulator with a little upscaling, the game still looks pretty damn beautiful over all. It's unique and interesting two decades later. It's really amazing what Square was able to achieve, especially when you consider how far the fell over the preceding years.
 
Last edited:

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,144
OIP.NWJS092LgMj9lb9ygKHxswHaHa


Main Post

20. Macbat 64 | ★★★★☆

There's not much to be said about this one. Macbat 64 is a loveletter to N64 games like Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, but they also manage to pay tribute to Kirby 64, Mario Kart 64, and probably some others. It's a simple l0ittle 3D platformer/collect-a-thon, only it's so short that I don't think you can really call it that.

Seriously though, it's short. The game only takes about an hour to beat. For that reason it feels more like a tech demo or piece of promo material. And the game does end with them pushing their social media, so maybe that's kinda the point? I'm not sure, but it's a lot of fun and only a few bucks, so I feel like it's a great way to kill an hour or two for anyone who grew up playing N64.
 
Last edited:

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
40: Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster. End: 7/13/2021. (4 out of 5)

(I only got the Freedom ending. I will not be playing through the game multiple times to get the different endings.)

So here it is. The game that really put SMT on the map in the West. And it's pretty good.
 

bushmonkey

Member
Oct 29, 2017
5,823
Main post Here


10 - Yakuza: Like A Dragon - PS5 - 80hrs / 27th June - 10/10
I absolutely loved the gameplay and Ichiban is the best Yakuza protagonist ever. The story is also really compelling and gets really emotional in places. My favourite Yakuza game now, taking Judgement's top spot.

11 - Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - PS5 - 10hrs / 6th July -8/10
Beautiful game but despite its short length does get repetitive after a while. Everyone with a PS5 should play it to really see what the machine is capable of, such a technical masterpiece. I just wish they had been more inventive with some of the level and enemy designs.

12 - Doki Doki Literature Club - PS5 - 4hrs / 13th July - 10/10
I knew this was going to be a special game. I just didn't realise how much it would get into my head. I can't stop thinking about it. Amazing game.

currently playing: FF7R, Sackboy, It Takes Two.
 

Sillen2000

Member
Oct 1, 2019
118
Main Post

June update: 24/52

Don't have much to say about this month. Watched a lot of football (of the european sort). Played a lot of video games. Pretty nice month to be honest. Unbearably hot at times, but still nice.

4lO6vxR.png

19. June 3rd | Resident Evil 2 | Playstation 4 | 5h 10m | Replay | ☆☆☆½(/5)
Claire A - 3h 6m
Leon B - 2h 4m


I think I played the RE2 remake in July of last year. Loved it upon that first playthrough, but during this replay I found myself liking it even more.
Being a pretty big fan of the original RE2, I feel like this is almost the perfect remake. Not in the way that it's just a 1-1 game with updated graphics, but in the way it really complements the original without making ot obsolete. It's an interpretation of the original text which makes you curious about the original, and vice versa.

I love the survival horror gameplay of the original, but I think I just slightly might prefer the Remakes slower take on a third person shooter really. It's methodical like a classic survival horror, but fluid like, well, a modern game. This combined with the classic Resident Evil puzzle solving and finding keys makes for a really fun gameplay loop I didn't really think Capcom had the restraint to be able to achieve for a whole game (looking at you, final third of Resident Evil 7), but they somehow did! Upon replays it doesn't feel stale at all despite knowing what to do most of the time. Rather, it's like a dance where you've finally learned all the steps to and getting that satisfying feeling of pulling off a more advanced routine. What enemies can I avoid? Which items should I skip? Which puzzle should be done in what order? There's so much freedom to it all, even when going for an S+ rank, and the police station is just small enough that this relative freedom never gets overwhelming or anything close to it. Also - the tension from having to stand still in order to focus your aim is one of the smartest things Capcom has ever done to make the action that much more tense.

I think what also makes this game better on a replay (and a reason as to why all remakes should be replayed) is how most of the expectations from the original can be thrown out the window. I know what to expect and can just enjoy the game on its own merits. Because, yeah, the first time I was disappointed in how similar the scenarios were, the tedium of the sewers and how the final area was changed. I don't really feel any of that now, though. The scenarios being so similar is still my main disappointment (especially the fact that both Leon and Claire fight the same bosses outside of their final ones) with the game and what keeps me from giving it a perfect score along with the often pretty forgettable soundtrack, but the sewers and NEST lab aren't really an issue to me anymore. I know they're there now, and playing through them without expecting the same areas from OG 2 (which has a much worse sewer section, imo), I just experience them on their own merits, and they're really not bad! They fit the tone of the game great, and while they're obviously not as good as the absolutely incredible police station, I can't really fault them for anything major. They both have a great horror atmosphere, and both end with surprisingly fun boss fights. I complained about the chess puzzle on my first playthrough, but it really isn't that bad on this replay. Maybe because I played both Code: Veronica and 0 earlier this year and now have become completely desensitized to all sorts of backtracking and padding puzzles.

Also really enjoyed the writing, surprisingly enough. The story's not great or anything, but this being a dark, serious remake of a fairly goofy (though I guess it took itself seriously at the time) PS1 I thought it would take itself too seriously and lose much of the original's charm. Turns out I was super wrong as the character interactions might be the best of the entire series. Particularly enjoyed Leon and Ada's banter, but it was all good. Not really a fan of how Claire looks like a baby with a woman's body, but the writing for her was great, as was her relationship with Sherry.

Mr. X is Mr. X. I enjoy him, but on replays the tension of having him around lessens a bit when you know which rooms he can't enter. I realize why that is the case for something like the clocktower where he basically can't be avoided because of the cramped spaces, but he should have been able to enter the S.T.A.R.S. office which is more open. He's still a great addition and just hearing his footsteps can at times be the scariest thing in the entire game, but he should have been given even more freedom. I've seen some people complain about how you're often forced to run around the entire station to avoid him sometimes, but I actually like that aspect of having to re-route on the spot like that. Usually it's not to bad either since there are a lot of shortcuts to most parts of the map.

RE2 remake is still not my GOTY 2019, but on this replay it got even closer than it was before. I just... I love it. One of Capcom's finest achievements and one that I, even after getting the platinum trophy, look forward to playing once again sometime in the future. It's so good that I even beat all the tofu challenges, which might be some of the hardest things I've ever done in this entire series.

Soundtrack highlight:
Mournful Pursuit

5oT8rzP.png

20 June 4th | Yakuza 4 Remastered | Playstation 4 | 103h 3m | ☆☆
(I played most of this back in May)

I've written about three Yakuza games + Judgment in previous posts, and considering how similar all these games are there's not that much new for me to say by this point. This is just more of Yakuza, though with better gameplay than 3. You fight, you play mini games, do side stories and sometimes extremely manly men feel a lot of strong emotions.

Sadly, though, this is probably my least favourite Yakuza game. It plays well and has some of my favourite substories that are a real treat to people who've played the previous games to completion. I also absolutely love how Yakuza 4 acknowledges how extremely powerful Kiryu is, but the story as a whole just never clicks for me. It's extremely ambitious with how it revolves around four protagonist with wildly different stories and play styles, but it never comes together into anything remotely satisfying. Even the game seems to be aware of this when the final chapter is just "let's put a lot of money on the roof and see which bad guy comes to try and claim it". This lack of any real urgency or emotional core also, sadly leads to the least interesting final chapter in a series that usually sticks the landing better than most other games could ever wish to. The final of the four final bosses is also probably the worst boss fight in any single Yakuza game that I've played as of yet (still haven't touched 5 or 7). The music is obviously fantastic even during this bit, but I want to be at least a bit emotionally satisfied and here I'm just left extremely cold. Too bad since the story had a lot of potential if it had just been slightly rewritten. I'd also complain about how uneven the difficulty is, but considering how easy it is to just stack up on health items in these games, it's not really an issue.

Most of 4 is still fun and very Yakuza, but the flaws are too great for me to really enjoy it as much as previous games in the series. If you're insane like me and has to 100% all of these games, it also might be the worst with all the hostess mini-games you have to do. I also never want to play pool again.

Soundtrack highlight:
Four Face

Zo8tFJJ.png

21. June 7th | Resident Evil 3 | Playstation 4 | 4h 23m | ☆☆½
I'm not a huge fan of the original RE3. I've played through it several times, gotten the A rank and feel like I gotten enough out of it to be able to say that. It's a fun little diversion, but it's not a gread survival horror/action hybrid and I always saw Nemesis as more of an annoying obstacle than something to be scared of.

Just like 3, the remake feels very much like a lesser game than its predecessor. I do think, even though it cuts areas from the original that maybe should have been here, that it succeeds far better as an action game than 3, while also still retaining the same feel of 2. It's an extremely linear game, very short, and the script certainly isn't anything that'll win any awards, but I had a lot of fun with it for the short time we shared. Thinking back to the game's pacing, it never really feels rushed or as if something was missing so I'm not even sure if I can complain about it being too short. It's at a pretty perfect length for what it is, which just so happens to be quite short.

Playing RE3 feels great. The modified RE2 gameplay fits the more fast placed gameplay so good while still retaining some of the "stand still to aim better" aspects for heightened tension here and there. The dodge mechanic, while I'm not especially great at it, feels about a million times better than it did in the PS1 original, and even though it is a bit disappointing how extremely linear the game is, maybe that linearity also led to every area feeling more distinct and being given a lot of small but charming details. I'd say the enemy variety is really good as well, with zombies, hunters, dogs and other classic RE enemies coupled with a few new ones (this might not sound like much, but remember that this is a very short game). Nemesis is implemented in a pretty fun way too and fighting him this time feels like a much better use of your time than it did in the original, even though he doesn't really hold a candle to Mr. X's more unpredictable nature. The boss fights against him are also, like, a million times better than they were in the OG. Except for the final one, maybe. I really enjoyed that one in RE3PS1 for some reason. The final boss in the remake is okay, but more of a spectacle and showcase of the game's great graphics than a fun fight.

Not as good as Remake 2, but better than original 3 in my mind. The final area is maybe too different from the original's but it makes a lot more sense story-wise and connects 2 and 3 together in a much more satisfying way than ever before. I do, however, think it says something about how this game's level designs might be a bit lacking when the short section inside the police department feels so much better to play than basically every other area in the game. They are all distinct, yes, but not as much fun to actually play.

And yes, this is the greatest version of Jill the series has ever had.

Soundtrack highlight:
Credits Theme

2vYHgsu.png

22. June 14th | Super Mario Sunshine | Switch | 20h | ☆☆☆½
I don't know how far back me and Super Mario Sunshine go. It's a very nostalgic game at least, and while I do remember playing it at a friend's house when it was fairly new, my strongest memories from it are from 2008 when me and two other friends just played Nintendo games for an entire night. DoubleDash, Melee, Mario Party 6 and Sunshine (probably something else too) made for a great time, and specifically Sunshine, when played during winter, really made an impact on all of us and we would later have more of these nights and always have Sunshine be part of it. We did eventually beat it, even though I wasn't the one to actually beat the bizarre final boss (which is why I can't really say this is a replay). Don't think I've really had the same experience playing games with friends since then, but then again - I was 12-13 back then and am an old man now. It would be impossible to replicate the same feelings today, but at least I have the memories of it all.

Anyway - Super Mario Sunshine gets a lot more criticism than it deserves. Yeah, if I were to rank all missions in 3D Mario games, all of the bottom ones would be from Sunshine, but outside of the sporadic garbage (which also includes every single thing related to Yoshi), it's a lot of fun. Mario controls like a dream, the stages are so imaginative and makes me nostalgic about Nintendo's more experimental Gamecube era, and the summer atmosphere has yet to be topped by other games. I also really enjoy how several of the stages has some sort of ongoing story from mission to mission, making it feel more like a journey to get all the shines than the checklist feel of Mario 64 (which is a game I still prefer over this one, but not in every single way). The fact that I always try to go for 100% in Mario games might also make the fact that you need to get seven sprites in every stage less of an issue to me as getting all of them before moving on is what I always do. I'm also not an idiot, by which I mean I just used a guide to get all the blue coins, also not really making them that big of an issue.

Delfino Plaza might also be the bet hub out of any 3D Mario (though I guess there really are only two good ones, so the competition isn't exactly steep). I spent a lot of time just running around here and finding secret shines instead of actually playing the normal stages. I really enjoy most of those actual stages by the way. They all encourage using the super smooth controls and FLUDD (one of Nintendo's best ever gimmicks in my mind) to their fullest and offer a good variety of missions of a very varying degree of difficulty. The experimentation with different gameplay styles doesn't always work, i.e. the entirety of Isle Delfino, but they're still appreciated and I wouldn't say the game ever made me bored. Also love the music on each and every stage.

I do realize why people dislike Sunshine, but I just can't do it. There's a lot of nostalgia and childhood memories that I just can't shake off when talking about it, but I also simply find it to be a very fun game. The controls does take time to get used to and the camera can be your worst enemy at times, but after getting used to it there's a flawed but good game here. It doesn't land every idea it has in a particularly great way, but it dares to dream and be different, and that ambition does come through in a positive way for most of the experience. It's not a game at the levels of 64 or Odyssey, but then again most games aren't. I would understand anyone who turns the game off when they hear the voice acting though.

Soundtrack highlight
Noki Depths

tPvyp0j.png

23. June 25th | Resident Evil Village | Playstation 4 | 9h 51m | ☆☆☆☆
At last, after playing through the Resident Evil series since November of last year I've finally reached the final game. Not that I'm bored of the series or anything, but it does feel good to be done with it for the time being. There're obviously going to be more Resident Evil games and I'll most likely play most of them, but those are adventures for another day.

This was a really fun way to end my marathon! It's not my favourite game in the series and I'm not even sure if I prefer it over 7, but it's a lot of fun either way. The gameply itself is actually really good, and if we're just talking about actually playing the game this is close to the top for me. I love the metroidvania feel of the village, the much improved gunplay over 7, the big weapon variety and how the inventory from 4 has been brought back with a vengeance. Again, just talking gameplay I can't really fault the game at all. All of the locales you go through are designed really well and outside of a later factory are a lot of fun to go through with some freedom in exploration without there ever being a risk of the player getting lost. Bosses are nice and varied too, with the final boss being one of my new favourites in the series. It's not really grand or anything like that, just a solid, fun fight which really puts you to the test.

I do, however take issue with a lot of the storytelling and characterisations. First of all: everyone in this romanian village is an american, which really ruins all semblance if immersion the setting could have had, and the human villagers are all killed off way too soon. Would have been fun to at least meet some friendly characters along the way, but that sadly isn't the case. Also wasn't a fan of how the story so clearly sets up these four lords as video game bosses to take down in a certain order. Resident Evil games are always like this, but they at least don't say from the start "here are these characters, and you will kill them in this exact order". I usually don't have an issue with games feeling like games, but this was a bit too much for me. No matter how much Capcom tries to make Ethan into interesting character, he remains their most boring protagonist to date- He does do more than swear this time around, but not much. Chris, who barely shows up in the game, is such a joy of a character to meet every time Ethan happens to meet up with him. All of the villains are pretty fun too, but their limited screentime can't compensate for Ethan's incredibly bland personality.

So yeah. I absolutely love playing Village, but the story and script are poor. I enjoyed the game quite a lot and look forward to playing it again, but I can't shake the feeling that it could have been a lot better script wise. I do have to say, though, that it's incredible how good this game both looks and runs on a base PS4.

Soundtrack Highlight:
Final Boss Fight

h0dQdSA.png

24. June 30th | Super Mario Galaxy | Switch | 13h 30m | Replay | ☆☆☆
Here's the thing: Super Mario Galaxy looks great, Rosalina's storybook is absolutely amazing, the music is incredible and the ending is, while almost too grand when compared to the rest of the game, super memorable. It's also incredibly boring to actually play. That's all I have to say about it for now :).

Soundtrack Highlight:
Luma

Currently playing:
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch)
Super Mario 3D World (switch)
Persona Q2 (3DS)
 
Last edited:

Neil98

Member
May 2, 2018
2,186
Madrid, Spain
25. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Remastered PS4
26. Abzu PS4
27. Her Story PC
28. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Remastered PS4
 
Last edited:

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
16,562
Main Post

header.jpg

21. Chinatris
A fairly enjoyable take on Tetris. You combine Chinese characters to form new ones and aim to create the words indicated atop the puzzle. 24 puzzles are included plus an endless mode. I bought this mostly for the educational value and there was some to be had. I definitely picked up a bit more understanding of stroke order and character combination. Unfortunately the words you make and their definitions only flash to the right of the screen as you play the game. There's no dictionary feature you can stop and look at to better appreciate what you're learning. I'd like to see that added at some point.
 
May 10, 2019
677
MAIN POST!

36) Mass Effect (PC/original release) - July 15th - Disorganized thoughts about my first Mass Effect playthrough in 10 years:
  • This is my first playthrough as Paragon-focused, even though at some points I couldn't resist making choices that would push me into the red, choices like being as much of a jerk to Ashley as possible and shooting the ExoGeni guy in the head, I was at least nice to the tabloid news channel interviewer and Conrad Verner this time though.
  • I'm always gonna roll with FemShep in these games, but this time I went through rejecting both Kaidan and Liara's advances, partially because this is my first time playing the original trilogy with mods (including my first time ever going through 3), and I've already committed to a certain romance via my mod choices. *cough*
  • Speaking of which Mass Effect mods, the game looked great 10 years ago but I was amazed just how beautiful the texture mods are for this game. Can't recommend them enough for anybody playing the original games.
  • MAKO BAD, even with mods to "fix" bounciness and controls. I'm so glad it's in-canon destroyed and never to return.
  • Mass Effect 1 is overall still an absolutely satisfying game on so many levels. The best thing this century to have an Electronic Arts badge on it, even more than the Skate games, SSX 3, Mirror's Edge, or Burnout Paradise - and all of these are all time favorites for me.
(37 hours 10 minutes) (5 out of 5 stars)

37) Barn Finders (PC) - August 1st - I really enjoy low key lighthearted career sims, and most of the time I've come to trust most of them that show up through the collection of developers working with PlayWay. Barn Finders is pretty much on the level with Car Mechanic Simulator and House Flipper as far as solid mechanics brought to something comfortable, and here it's Storage Wars/American Pickers greatest hits AU. Just a nice loop of going somewhere abandoned, picking up some valuables, and flipping them for a profit. There's a goofy subplot of aliens looking for moonshine that also runs through day to day life, the weird version of America (here called Ameryka) quotes Metallica for it's national slogan, most everybody (except for the radio DJ) speaks in a weird Simlish-by-way-of-Polish - yes, Barn Finders was made in Poland by a small team (as in there's not really a lot of human resource to fix bugs as fast as you might want them to, but they do work on it), but they get the surreal nuances of weird rural America that not even a lot of American developers get, or bother to pay attention to. Now, if they can follow this up with a high-culture skewering of Antiques Roadshow, that'll be even better. (Main Game+Bonus Bid Wars Levels+Amerykan Dream DLC, around 20 Hours) (4 out of 5 Stars)

38) OneShot (PC) - August 2nd - On my first run I did not play this game correctly. I missed aspects of when I was allowed to stop playing, I missed an optional but important item, and I didn't understand the thing with the overlay until about 4 times attempting to load. There's a lot mechanically that tries very hard to get in the way of the story being told, but somehow, in spite of everything it's still probably the best narrative adventure I've played in an RPGMaker engine. After I hit #52 I'm gonna go back and run through this again, with the other choice in mind, because it's a lot to think about. (roughly 4 and half hours) (4.5 out of 5 stars)
 
Last edited:

Tizoc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,792
Oman
71. Warframe

After 100 of hours, I've managed to clear all the mainline quests before the annual new quests. Had my fun but it is a grindy experience to get the good stuff. Still can be enjoyable if you have a group and co-op through it.

72. Hellpoint

If there was ever an 'accessible' Souls-like game, Hellpoint is as close as it gets. Being at the end game and having armor/equipment that ACTUALLY gives you proper defense where enemy attacks don't waste 1/3 of your health was a relief.
The overall game however leaves much to be desired. There are some good concepts such as weapons leveling up as you use them and unlocking passive abilities as well as using offensive abilities they bestow on you. However navigating through the game was curbsome as my co-op partner and I got lost a few times and the locations themselves don't have much to make them distinct from each other. This i blame on the theme/setting of the game and the art direction, as in Dark Souls for example, each area you explore through stands out and can be easily identifiable.

This can be a decent experience in co-op if one is looking for a Souls-like style game that is more lenient.
 

Weiss

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
64,265
Haha, I am really not gonna clear it this year. Ah well.

18. Yakuza: Like A Dragon - 16/07/2021

The greatest JRPG of the last decade, an absolute perfect transition into JRPG territory from a series that, really, already had one foot in the door.

RGG Studio seriously just rolled their cult beat 'em up game to the JRPG table and then clowned everyone in the vicinity, including that RPG making company that Sega bought. Absolute madmen.
 
Last edited:

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,144
R.247cbf0f2d2a8f36e9f842e43784d0cc

Main Post

21.Parasite Eve 2 | ★★★★☆
Parasite Eve 2 picks up a few years after the events of the first game. Heroine Aya Brea has left the New York for California and she has left the police force to work for MIST, the arm of the FBI responsible for hunting down Neo-Mitochondrial Creatures. Along with the new job and the new setting, Parasite Eve 2 also brings a slew of new changes. Parasite Eve 2 is almost enough to be considered a soft reboot for the series, although most would probably agree that these changes were not for the best.

The first and most obvious change is the genre. Parasite Eve 1 is an RPG with turn-based/real-time hybrid combat. Parasite Eve 2 is a survival horror game with real-time combat. Parasite Eve 2 has more in common with Resident Evil 1 and 2 than it does with Parasite Eve 1: survival horror, tank controls, inventory management, tight cinematic camera angles (both PE use pre-rendered backgrounds, but PE1 uses a zoomed out perspective for most shots while PE2 very frequently does the RE thing where enemies are off screen because the camera is tight on the character at an odd angle).

The next big change is combat. As mentioned, PE1 uses a fusion of turn-based and real-time combat. PE2's combat is entirely real-time (although it does freeze the action when you are choosing a spell or item to use). There is a much greater focus on dodging charging enemies and projectile attacks (PE1 has you dodging attacks as well, but it tends to be more about positioning and staying out of range rather than physical dexterity and precision controls). PE1's ATB bar is gone in PE2, and instead the player can attack whenever they like by pressing square to acquire a target, and R1 to shoot their gun. I like the combat in both games, but because PE2 uses tank controls, the move to a more demanding combat system really ratchets up the stress level.

The final big change I would discuss is pacing. As I mentioned in my PE1 write up, pacing isn't something I ever really think about, except that PE1 did such a great job that I actually noticed. PE2 is the complete opposite. PE2 is a game that drags. Over the course of the game you visit a handful of environments. Each environment requires a lot of exploration and backtracking. It is very common to find a locked door and then later find the key to that door on the opposite end of the area. You may retread the same area half a dozen times as you backtrack through it in different directions again and again. I won't necessarily say this system is worse than PE1's far more linear layout, but I will say it can get pretty tiring traveling through the same environment again and again while you try to figure out where to go next.

Even though PE2 falls short of PE1 in pretty much every way, I still like the game a lot. The story is less dramatic and over the top and feels more up close and personal this time around. Combat works well and is fun if you can get used to tank controls. Exploring the areas can be pretty tedious, but I also thoroughly enjoyed working my way through each of them and slowly progressing while trying to figure out where to go next. One of my favorite things is that you regenerate some MP after each encounter, so you start thinking about how to save healing items by carefully spending MP.

PE1 is definitely better than PE2, but both of these games are treasures to me. The only truly bad thing I can say about Parasite Eve 2 is that we never got a proper followup that we deserved. This should have been a long running franchise and not just two drops in the bucket.
 

Tizoc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,792
Oman
73. Broken Sword 3
13371_front.jpg


I cannot remember if I had beaten it before in a previous 52 games, but this is a game I've been putting off for near 15 years.
Going through it fully now, I sadly was not satisfied with it. The movement and the outdated graphics stick out like a sore thumb, and the overall pace is pretty slow, with the game offering puzzles by the 2nd half of the game.
Much of the early half has you exploring barren empty areas with a handful of NPCs and finding a few items to pick up in order to use them with other NPCs or objects in order to progress. The humor is 50-50 as some jokes were nice others fell flat, but George remained the most entertaining character throughout.

As is BS 1 and 5 remain my fav. games in the series with the 2nd game being a close 3rd but only due to nostalgia.
 

Azriell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,144
Switch_FightNRage_1200x675.jpg

Main Post

22. Fight'N Rage | ★★★☆☆

Fight'N Rage is a loveletter to Streets of Rage and other beat'em ups of that era. I've never been the biggest fan of beat'em ups, but my buddy is and over the years he's slowly worn me down to the point where I seriously loved Streets of Rage 4. Fight'N Rage isn't on that level, but it does a pretty good job and I can honestly say I had a ton of fun with it. The reason I can't give it a higher rating is because it only takes about an hour to beat and there isn't much there that makes me want to come back for more. There are eight endings, but after unlocking two I was pretty satisified (it's not like I'm playing these games for the story anyways). You earn coins as you play and can use them to unlock Score Attack Mode, Time Attack Mode, and some others, but it's not enough to get me to care. You can unlock new skins and even play as some enemies (although this is limited to the additional modes, as far as I can tell) but again it's just not enough to get me to continue.

It took us two hours to run through two times with three players. It was a lot of fun, but that's just not enough game for me. Especially not for $20. The game deserves a ton of praise, especially as it was developed by a single person. The graphics are great, the music is great, the action is great. But an hour or two for $20 is simply not something I can feel good about buying or recommending.
 

Deleted member 85465

User-requested account closure
Banned
Nov 12, 2020
976
Lets gooooo.

Main Post.

28) Metroid: Zero Mission: Seeing as the mythic Dread is coming out, I decided to play the 2D Metroid games I was missing (not touching og Metroid though), freaking love how tight Samus controls in this game, the level design is great, though some might not like the "linearity" of this game, its optional at the end of the day, ended up sequence breaking the game once by complete accident lol, really fun. 9/10 (first time.)

29) Guilty Gear: Strive: If I am not able to complete this challenge it will be because of this game lol, it completely consumed me, and I am loving it, watched Woolie VS videos to caught up with the lore, its pretty crazy hahaha, I like the melodramaticness of this franchise, its like a WWE soap opera mixed with the craziest anime you can think of, though the female character designs are getting better, they still have some awkward sexualization for my tastes, what its more awkward though its the idle battle poses of some of then, it has some "We have to show both the ass and boobs" syndrome. The gameplay its simple (relatively compared to other fighting games) and fun, the online is the real mvp of this game, ROLL BACK is amazing. 9/10 (first time.)

30) Persona 3: Dancing on Moonlight: This game made my cry with nostalgia at like the second song, it felt so wholesome to give this characters a breather, because of the og game "remember you will die" oppressing theme. Its the wholesome media reunion I didn't knew I wanted. Though this is also a problem in the original game, some of the female outfits are really bad, to the point where even the character tells you that the outfit is bad, it feels creepy. The soundtrack is amazing, but the gameplay is really unforgiving, I have never played a rhythm game were you can complete the song, but also fail it lmao, you can maybe have like 7 mistakes in some 800 hundred notes soundtracks to have the minimum rate to pass, its insane lmao, I was able to technically 100% since I thought female MC would be unlockable if I unlocked everything but nope, it was a fan mod what I saw on the internet lol. 8/10 (first time.)
 
Last edited:

Valkerion

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,800
I think I forgot to add this one!

Rift-Apart-Box-Art.jpg

28. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart - PS5 (8.5/10) 7/3/2021 Video Review!
Really enjoyed it and was nice to play a PS5 exclusive after so long with mixed gen titles. Love the adventure and action and plan to go back to it for another run at some point. As a new fan to the series I was happy it didn't disappoint me.

capsule_616x353.jpg

29. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin - (8/10) 7/21/2021 Video Review!
Who knew Capcom could still make JRPGs!? Very good monster catching/party building JRPG in the vein of Pokemon but does enough of its own thing to be awesome. Loved being able to get my favorite monsters as team mates to go on an adventure with. Especially enjoyed the cutesy versions of them. Despite being a more toned down version of the MH universe with its colorful graphics and art style it definitely has some neat twists. Fun combat that is rewarding to do correctly as well as a truck load of side quests and collectables to get really tops off a great game.
 
Last edited:

KtotheRoc

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
58,320
41: New Super Lucky's Tale. End: 7/21/2021. (3.5 out of 5)

It's basically Super Lucky's Tale all over again with some modifications. It felt easier than I remembered SLT being (and that game was already pretty easy), but it's still an enjoyable enough platformer. Just probably not worth playing if you already played SLT recently.
 

djinn

Member
Nov 16, 2017
16,562
Main Post

header.jpg


22. The Night of the Rabbit
Another foray into the Daedalic catalogue and another fairly meh experience. tNotR has you play as Jerry Hazelnut as he's picked by the the Marquis de Hoto (the titular rabbit of the game) to become his magician's apprentice. The Marquis is more like The Doctor from Doctor Who and and is a fairly enigmatic creature and the most interesting character in the game. The game revolves around Jerry helping out the locals and doing various trials to complete his training. Shame that all that's really boring and the real plot of the story - The Marquis and the Great Illusionist Zaroff - are relegated to the last hour of a 10 hour playthrough. Jerry's a fine protagonist but his story, his surrounding characters and his puzzles just aren't that interesting. There's some audio stories you can pick up and a card game you can play but it feels like padding in a pretty boring game. When we get the infamous Daedalic infodump at the end I realised that the story of the Marquis and Zaroff is the one I wanted to play. There's setup for a sequel but that's pretty unlikely as Daedalic are this close 🤏 to folding up unfortunately.