VideoGame_Discussion

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I did a playthrough with three other peeps last weekend and I thought I just didn't get any achievements. Friends all said they were popping all the time. Looked later, I had credit. It's weird.

@PizzaTheHutt I agree that TMNT is good as I beat it with Don and only have the final level remaining to beat with Leo - am thinking I'll try it with most if not all characters.
But if you want a better GotY candidate, play Tunic. It's my favorite of the year, so many nice touches in that title.

I want to play Tunic at some point, but I can’t imagine anything beating Elden Ring this year for GOTY for me.

Slickriven wrote:

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

I'm sure they're in vastly different realms. Tunic reminded me a lot of the 2 Zelda games I played as a kid (first 8-bit and LttP). So it had nostalgia for me, but also it's got a lot going for it overall, but it's not technically impressive like Elden Ring, but I haven't play ER and am generally not into those Souls-like titles

That’s cool. For what it’s worth, Elden Ring is the first soulsish game I’ve ever beaten (and I even went on to platinum it and put like 150 hours into it). Before that, I played maybe a third of Dark Souls 2 before putting it aside and never really going back to it, and that was it. Even as someone who doesn’t usually play games like that Elden Ring blew me away. I even put Horizon: Forbidden West down for awhile to focus on it, and that was one of the games I was most looking forward to this year.

Slickriven wrote:

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

I saw credits and "unlocked" all the characters, so I consider this beaten. Back when it came out it was a good kart racer for the DS. That said, 'Mario Kart DS' is better when it comes to DS kart racers. Expanding to the 3DS, both 'Mario Kart 7' and 'Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed' are vastly superior. Even the iOS and Android version, if the means to play them is still available, was better based on graphics and resolution alone.

That puts this game in a pickle. It controls well, if a little dodgy, but drifting is easy. There's a good roster of characters, but only six in a race. The tracks are mostly well-designed (the Monkey Ball tracks can still fudge off. Horrible), but scaled back from the console versions, and like the console versions, the limited amount of themes pulled from the few represented franchises hurts the variety. The graphics are pleasant, but look better on the smaller DS (DS Lite for me) top screen than the 3DSXL. Most of the music does translate well to the tiny speakers, except a few tracks including the menu. Also, finishing a track in the Grand Prix DOES NOT unlock it in single race play. They still need to be "purchased."

S&SASR is also one of the few games that uses the DS Rumble Pak, and it works really well it.

So all these years later, and the game is pretty much where it was at release. It's still a good kart racer, and definitely one of the best racers on the DS (which isn't saying much). But it's more for the novelty of SEGA characters racing on the DS when there are so many other, better kart racers out there on portables.

Slickriven wrote:


I see that's on Game Pass as well. I'll give it a shot.

Slickriven wrote:

Ill have to give it a try now

Big Fables via Game Pass

I'm not going to give my full impressions, because seemingly everyone that ever plays this game absolutely adores it. I haven't had a gaming experience this frustrating in a long time. I had to force myself to finish it. And now I have a headache.

My friend and I just finished Saints Row: Gat out of Hell. When we beat a game, even if it's a really bad one, it's rare she has anything negative to say about it afterwards, but even she admitted the boss fight in this was disappointingly easy. Once you beat him you are given multiple endings to select from but neither of us wanted to replay the boss fight enough times to see them all. She said she'll look up the others on YouTube but I don't even care enough to do that.

DCGX wrote:


You would be surprised by the number of really good racing games on the DS.

pretty much anything developed by Firebrand is worth playing. Race Driver, Grid, Dirt 2, Trackmania, Hot Wheels Track Attack and more.

I've never played it but I watched a video review of Pimp My Ride for DS which the reviewer was surprised at how good it was (especially when you consider the console versions were just utter trash)


Other than Mario Kart, what other kart racers are even competent for portable, much less better?

benstylus wrote:

The ones I already mentioned...

DCGX wrote:


Other than Mario Kart and Sonic, I don't see that you mentioned any other kart racers, let alone "so many".

Not trying to be a jerk, just genuinely want to know if there are any other good ones out there. Because my experience is most kart racers outside of those two series are straight up poo.

benstylus wrote:

Yeah, that was my point. 'Diddy Kong Racing' is ok, and then there's a bunch of licensed stuff like Cartoon Network, M&Ms, MySims, Wacky Races (which hurts because the Dreamcast versions is really good, though the Wii version isn't. They're all different). I don't know if the ones based on 'Cars' are technically car racing or kart racing.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens via saved some space and played the PS4 version, still a beauty. Was a great palate cleanser for Elden Ring hours and hours and still not done. Shantae was up-risky beats and fun BUT some back tracking and a few cheap shots kept it from being the best one. I enjoyed it and look way forward to the next one. Solid 7/10!

The Final Boss is every bit Elden Ring worthy, now working on Trek to Yomi

I consider myself to have beaten Hades

I'm not going for completionist, but I think what I've done definitely qualifies for considering this game beaten.

Definite spoilers below, so please don't click on this if you don't want spoilers

Stick it to The Man on
Just finished (still watching the credits roll). I'd really like a sequel to this at some point. I know I have this on Steam too, so maybe at some point I'll replay it on there. I have a game on Switch by these same developers called Flipping Death. It uses a very similar artstyle and is also a 2D puzzle/platformer. Bought it years ago on sale and never actually played it, but maybe that'll be the next game I start.

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge - I really looked forward to this one, but honestly it was a little disappointing. It played more like a sequel to Scott Pilgrim than Turtles in Time. Combat feels mushy and unrewarding, and a lot of the boss fights are just spamming your super attack in between their invincibility periods. Hard to explain exactly what's wrong about it, but it's just not satisfying to play. (For reference my top three beat-em-ups are SNES Turtles in Time, Guardian Heroes, and King of Dragons.)

I think its pretty neat. But it is so easy (even on hard) that it can get dull quickly.

I ran through it again as April, and it was a bit better. It still feels a tad too long for a beat em up, so probably not a lot of replays left for me.

Triangle Strategy

Great game. Good story. Addictive combat. Likeable characters. A welcome return to FFT/Tactics Ogre nostalgia. Beat in just over 55 hours, with the best ending. Be careful with upgrade materials, these items are scarce due to the game pushing you to play New Game+ as there are 6 or 7 endings.

Elden Ring! Enjoyed all 200 Hours it took me! 10/10 Never played a game and beat it and not burnt out a bit. I went right into Journey 2 wanting to finish the few items/quests I missed/messed up the first time. Shouldn't take long at all, as I am skipping as much I can. This maybe my first game to Pattinum. Maybe need a 3rd play through as I am pretty sure 3 trophies are tied to endings

First thing I did was get me some Boiled Prawn in journey 2 LMAO!

I beat Disk Room recently - fun and very addicting game, certainly worth checking out if you've got GamePass.

Disneyland Adventures

Against my own advice, I ended up playing this to (near) completion. I think it was just what I needed at this time. I didn't get 100% in each land, and therefore game, but I did get all the achievements. It didn't take too long to platinum each ride. Though a few are based too much on certain things needed appearing randomly (the parade and Small World ride). Others lean too heavy into the inconsistent controls and have not getting hit by anything for a certain period (Splash Mountain). These took some replaying.

Overall, it's just so jolly. There are some noticeable bummers, like the mini-game controls, some poor game directions, the classic rides are nearly useless, lack of licenses (Indiana Jones and Star Wars, though this was first developed before Disney bought Lucasfilm) and you can't ride the Disneyland Railroad at all. But it's jolly.

Triangle Strategy - 9/10. Do you like JRPGs of old? Are you sick of modern JRPGs trying to copy Persona with the bullcrap School/Military School setting and forcing dating simulators into it? Well, Triangle Strategy has no school. No dating simulators. Characters/NPCs who are important actually perma-die. Yeah, I know. JRPGs and characters perma dying? Whatttttttt? That doesn't happen much anymore. The game is basically a political story and stuff I read online was either, people skipped over all dialogue or loved it. I happened to love it, mostly due to the fact that it feels like a style RPG, I guess. Modern JRPGs are just doing the stupid fudging School/Dating sim bullcrap and it's nauseating. There are no class systems, each character is their own specialization and you can upgrade them with resources, etc. You can level grind to a degree, there are mental mock battles you can do but if you go over a certain level, you will only get 1 EXP per action. I did the Frederica route, most seem to do the Benedict.

Here is a pic of part of the final battle of this ending:

I wouldn't call it a real spoiler, but it's tagged anyway. It's reminiscent of a certain map from Final Fantasy Tactics.

Here is the "fin" picture for the ending:

Had no issue with the final battle, I just rushed the boss and killed him.

Some battles have special victory conditions. If you die on a map, there is no Game Over. You retain EXP and start over. Very, very enjoyable game. Anyone on the fence should try the demo. It has the first 3 or so chapters, but to warn, those first 3 chapters are super dialogue/cut scene heavy but after that, it lightens up.

My only minor gripes, character/story related:

Great game!


Edit: I played on Normal and still found it challenging/hard. Died a couple of times too.

Maybe I should play it. I started it and got tired of the dialogue- never even started a battle. I could tell I wouldn’t have the patience for the story.

@Kommie That sounds awesome! Can’t wait to finally get around to playing it. Loved the demo. Played through it 3 times which is something I never do with demos. I just haven’t found the time to get around to the full game yet. It felt so much like Tactics Ogre, but it didn’t feel derivative at all.

I never played Tactics Ogre. I think I've only ever beat FFT, Mario + Rabbids, Vandal Hearts, and Triangle Strategy as far as SRPGs go. I tend to get overwhelmed with all the characters, stats, and things you can do so I drop them. Disgaea being a real bad example of "nope, this is too much".

I haven't played much of FFT, though I did beat Onimusha Tactics. It had those grid based strategy type stages similar to FFT. Decent game. I wonder if it's similar to Triangle Strategy.

I dont think Ive ever beat a strategy rpg either. Theyre usually too tough or grindy for me. I have tried quite a bit though.

I think I beat one of the Arc the Lad games but that one was rather easy to go through.

I finished the Switch port of the iOS/Android version of Dragon Quest II today. It's the next in a string of 1980s RPGs I've been visiting or revisiting this year, following Phantasy Star (Switch), Earthbound Beginnings (Switch), Dragon Quest (Switch), and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster (Steam Deck). I'm now moving on to The Bard's Tale to try to restore some east/west balance.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

I've been wanting to play this for a long, long time. Luckily it was a Games with Gold at some point, as once through is enough. It's way more narrative driven than I thought it would be; lamenting and somber, and downright sad at times. The gameplay is simple, with puzzles here and there, no real combat. I really wish Ubisoft would go back to making smaller games like this, instead of their bloated open-world titles. (That said, I might play an AC game after this). Overall, quite an experience and I highly recommend it.

Finally am level 1000 on Starcraft 2 Coop. Onto The Quarry, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 River City Saga: Three Kingdoms and Azure Striker Gunvolt 3. Going to be an expensive Nintendo month.

ued222 wrote:

Damn, which character?

DemonAlcohol wrote:
The ascension/mastery levels are shared thankfully so all of them. Still took 2000+ hours.

Assault Android Cactus

I'm still going through Games with Gold titles I picked up during all those years I never had an Xbox One. I love a good twin-stick shooter, and this is a well-received game. It's definitely a good twin-stick shooter, but one that irked me.

You play as Cactus (initially or if you only want to) who crashes onto a ship. She's an android and she meets other androids on the ship trying to escape a rogue AI. Simple, but effective. The writing is ok, as is the voice-acting. There are five zones with about five levels each including a boss. You have an initial pick of four androids with others unlocking after each zone. Each android has a different standard weapon and different special weapon. They cannot be mixed and matched. From there it is standard twin-stick fare, though there isn't much variety in the look of each level. Some have gimmicks, of which some work better than others, and the bosses can be entertaining. The campaign is over in a few hours, but it's highly, highly encouraged to replay levels for S+ ranks.

Beyond the environments lacking much personality, the couple things that irk me sit with the gameplay itself. For starters, the dodge and special weapon/weapons select are the same button. That means if you dodge, you automatically switch between weapons whether you want to or not. Depending on the android it's not a huge problem, because you'll want to use the special weapon as much as possible, but a few have very specific specials including ones that will shoot you across the screen. I do not like that this is mapped to the same button. Likewise, the window to dodge is extremely small, and you can't dodge and quickly dodge again. My second big irk is the character speed. The player characters all move at the same speed, but it feels too slow for the amount of enemies and the fact they come from all around all at once. This is compounded by the fact that one of the random power-ups is a speed boost. With this, the player character moves much closer to a speed they should always be able to move at. But my biggest irk comes from the battery system.

Think of the battery system as a timer counting down. You can get knocked out all day long (and quickly tap to come back), but once your battery meter is empty, game over. Not the largest issue on the surface, but whatever the system the game has for dropping more battery feels too random. I could be having a great run, not even taking damage, but also not getting battery drops, and fail. There's no indicator of the enemies as to which would drop a battery (like how red ships in shmups usually drop a power-up). So it can be frustrating when the area is filled with enemies and you're taking them out, but none are dropping batteries. That and single battery only refills a portion of the meter. There seems to be theories online about the drop rate, etc. but nothing is confirmed. The only certainty is a battery drops after taking out one section of a boss' life bar. But then you have to make sure you're close enough to pick it up, which might force you to stop amongst enemies lest the battery swings around your character as it tries to catch up with your movement. In the end, it feels more unfair than strategic.

Outside of the story, there's survival mode, though that hinges entirely on the battery meter and not staying alive. There's also a boss rush mode and modifiers. Credits are earned after any play to unlock said modifiers, codex entries and galleries, but they are doled out so low it becomes a grind real fast.

Overall, 'Assault Android Cactus' is a good twin-stick shooter, but nothing more in my opinion. I knocked a bunch of random achievements, but I don't see myself revisiting this shooter like so many others I usual go back to.

Gave up on Klonoa thankfully the Switch version had slowdowns else wise I would be stuck with it.
It was not as good as I remembered did like the fast forward function for cutscenes Thank you Steam refund policy. Beat Fist had a little left to play to beat it. I would not recommend it as the backtracking and combat are bare bones to me. If it wasn't for the additional weapons and grab I would have dropped it really quick. Going to play The Quarry, then River City Three Kingdoms, Azure Striker 3 and then Xenoblade 3. After that a long wait for Saints Row 2022.

Beat Fighter's History (SNES) on Switch Online. Not the worst ending, but they could've taken another page from SFII and created a back story for each character after beating it.

Tembo the Badass Elephant

Another Xbox One GwG that always looked interesting to me, yet I never got around to. Like 'Assault Android Cactus,' it's another...good game.

You control an elephant who runs and destroys, well, basically everything while trying to save people. It feels like it should play like any classic 2D Sonic game, but most like the first entry with how much stopping and starting there is. Most of the environments are industrial and that's a bummer, because the beginning of the second zone looks like the Alps (to me anyway), and the game spends barely any time in greenery. It leads to a feel of sameness.

Control in general is tight, but the base walking speed is too slow and the charge can be unwieldy. It makes sense, Tembo is an elephant after all, but can be cumbersome. There's also one of my biggest pet peeves where every action is mapped to one button and the directions are used to augment it. Many a time I wanted to charge and would ball up and bounce instead, and vice versa, or stop quickly and do nothing of the such. It can make the chase sequences frustrating, as well as some of the later platforming. Also, Tembo has a pretty big hit box, especially when it comes to bombs and explosions, where I died many times where there was clear daylight between me and what killed me.

But 'Tembo' isn't a long game. According to my save I've played less than 6 hours and basically 100% it except for the last achievement, which is to have 99 jars of peanut butter (continues), and it's nothing but a grind. Put on a good podcast or something. Overall, it's a decent afternoon. The animation and art style is really cool, so it's worth a go for platforming fans.

Forza Horizon 5 7.5/10

You can't trigger the credits that I'm aware of, but I've finished over 90% of all of the core things:
- I won all Road and Street races and only have 4-5 total races remaining in the Dirt and Cross Country flavors
- Bought all houses besides the $5mil castle
- Earned 3 stars on all Speed Cameras/Zones, Trailblazers, Danger Signs and 85% on the Drift Zones
- Earned 3 stars on all of (I think) 5 of the side stories and only have 2-3 Vocho (VW Bug) ones and 3-4 of the Drift Club remaining
- Found/smashed north of 90% of the travel/XP boards

Personally FH3 is still my favorite, but if I'm not mistaken they had a race series that started from every race marker on the map, so that got tedious as you'd end up having to do many tracks over and over since each series was 3-5 events. But I loved the music and the overall map. Also the Hot Wheels DLC was fun and so was Blizzard Mountain.

FH4 with the seasons wasn't as great. Lego DLC was good and Fortune Island was alright, and maybe my cloud save getting corrupted didn't help (though I was basically done with all areas) but, for me, 4 was simply not as good as 3.
FH5 is better than 4 in some ways and not so much in others. The dialog and 'story' focus in both the early general game and especially in the side story parts was super lame, so that for sure doesn't help it's cause, but I'm not sure the map is better than the decent one in 4. The wheelspins weren't seemingly as generous with winnings as 3/4, so 5 felt a touch more grindy at times. Music selection was the worst (in 5) of the past 3 games as very few tunes really resonated with me. I admit that I didn't realize you had to buy the $2 million house to enable the fast travel to any road feature - something I used a lot in 3 and 4 after a while. I did purchase that recently and don't think the Mexico map is bad in any way, and really it's closer to Australia from 3, so I suppose I do like it above 4's.

I will say that the massive race events were solid. I'm talking about the Colossus, Juggernaut and such, not the goofy showcase events vs. monster trucks and such. Those showcases felt less cheesy in 4.
I haven't snagged the new Hot Wheels DLC, but plan to and expect it to be as fun as 3's iteration.

Slickriven wrote:

I counted the win as when they said I was in the hall of fame