VideoGame_Discussion

Age of Zombies

I've had this game, from Amazon, since, like.. when was it first released? Anyway, my work laptop slows to a grind when Windows updates, so I unintentionally beat this on my phone yesterday. I know Barry Steakfries is a parody, but damn, does his character not age well. The controls, though, for using two digital analog sticks, work very, very well. Every so often it can be tough to aim precisely, but the game rarely calls for it. There's a Horde mode too, but the stages are so simple, I'm probably done with it and will uninstall it from my phone. I still have it on my tablet, and if anyone prefers physical analog sticks, it's still available on Vita!

A friend and I beat We Were Here last night on PlayStation 4. The game costs $5 on PS4 and Xbox, but is free on Steam, so check it out on your platform of choice if you like co-op puzzle games. It's a short game, maybe 2 hours long depending on how good you are at solving puzzles and how good you and your partner are at communicating, because you absolutely will not beat this without you and your friend working together. You each are seeing different things as you play through the game, basically what your friend can see is going to help you get through your side of the game because you're on totally different paths and you don't even meet up in the game until the very end. Needless to say this is a co-op only game and can't be played in single player.

They've made a whole series out of this concept, and this entry is basically considered the "pilot episode" of the whole thing. I'll see if my friend wants to check out the rest of the games because we liked what this one offered.

I just finished up Serious Sam 2 on Steam. It really didn't need to be as long as it is, because some levels just drag on. At least two or three times I thought the game was about to end but there was still another couple of hours to go.

Chorus

8/10

This was such a nifty little open world space combat game. I really shouldn’t say little though cause it felt like a game longer than I anticipated it to be. I clocked in over 20 hours and there were just a bunch of side missions I had left by the time I wrapped up the main story. It’s really a high octane action junkie space combat arcade like shooter from start to finish and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. The story is a bit convoluted though and delves deep into some kind of ancient alien like lore with enemies called the Faceless who pretty much assimilate anything they come across. You’re also dealing with resistance and defectors of the galaxy’s republic so it really does feel like Star Wars a bit. Speaking of, we really need a modern game space combat Star Wars game that is this visceral and relentless. I played the latter portion of the game to The Battle of Yavin theme from A New Hope. It was so rad. The key weapons you get to utilize too are just as cool. Your main Gatling gun is there for rapid fire punishment. Then your laser is there to disable enemy shields. And lastly your missiles provide much needed heavy damage to big hefty foes. You can also upgrade your ships hull and shields by collecting or purchasing upgrades in hangars across the various sectors of the decent sized Star map. You can also apply ship mods to achieve more armor, damage, or special ability enhancements. Your special abilities known as rites range from electrical discharges to a phaser boost which pretty much liquidates most enemies in it’s wake. Ship maneuvering is pretty slick and sleek too allowing you to warp, boost, drift and of course do a barrel roll! My only complaints were there is a data leak bug that causes the game to crash and say that the ram of the machine you’re running it on has run out of memory and you have to restart the app. The only workaround I’ve found that works if you get this constant error message which pops up sporadically the longer sessions you play, is to uninstall and reinstall the game. Other than that, I found that the scanning ability to find your next objective and even enemies on the map leaves a bit much to be desired and could use for some tweaking since it’s very hard to spot enemies and objects even after scanning them at times. But overall I really enjoyed much of my time with this one and can safely recommend it to anyone who’s been craving a good ol’ space combat game that screams Star Wars all around.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I bought this for PS5 and so far I love it. Im taking my time with it though.

The Rusty Sword: Vanguard Island on Switch.
I'll type up a short review in the review thread later tonight or tomorrow, but I'll tell ya now: don't buy this. It's only $1 but spend that on a pack of gum or something, because at least it'll last longer than this game does.

Yeah, I saw the price for that but then saw reviews saying it’s basically a demo. Took you about 20 minutes to finish, right?

Kaze and the Wild Masks - 7/10 on
Very frustrating at times but I stuck with it and got 100% in terms of meeting all of the 30+ levels generally 3 tasks, beyond simply reaching the end.
If you like 80-90's rather challenging platformers, then you might love this, I hated it at times but have pretty strong satisfaction from besting it, finally.

BloodPuppetX wrote:


Yeah, would have been closer to 15 minutes except I died on the last boss, which shouldn't have happened because the game starts you with 16 hearts, but I would have played more carefully if I knew that was the only boss in the game.

Mega man zero 4 - 6/10 via analogue pocket.

I just thought it was meh. Never played the zero series before and thought it would be similar to mega man proper. The stage bosses are cool but when I learned you don’t get to use their powers after you beat them I was kinda bummed.

The “use recipe” power up system (if you will) was kind of let down too since I never seemed to have the right parts to upgrade zero.

It looked good though and was an above average platformer I guess.

Elden Ring - 9.8/10 - Amazing game. This is the first Souls game that I have completed, level 172 at the end. This may make it into my all time top list, certainly one of the best games I've played in years.

Trek to Yomi

Beautiful looking little game. Amazing art style, great panning shots and runs pretty good. The gameplay is good but doesnt really offer enough variety to keep it interesting throughout. The story is just ok, but I think a lot was lost in translation for me. I found 2 bugs where the cutscenes wouldnt have voice acting. Probably an easy future patch fix.

Overall i think its a unique indie game that had the potential for being awesome, but there were some pretty bad design choices that take it down to average. The main one is it has overly long stages with little gameplay variety. The second one is that I missed a lot of the dialogue because it is all in japanese. Its great for immersion, sure, but I cant read subtitles while Im timing my parries fighting 5 enemies.

Anyway, I think the visuals alone make it worth playing... in short bursts. Only because its on gamepass though. Id wait for it to be $5 otherwise.

6/10

After beating We Were Here last week, my friend and I just beat the sequel We Were Here Too.
I like this series because it will really test you and your friend's ability to communicate. If you don't have a mic or a way to at least text your friend, don't waste your time playing this. There are 4 entries in this series so far (the 4th one just released a few weeks ago on PC, so still waiting for the console port) and my friend and I plan to play through them all. If you like co-op games, puzzle games, and co-op puzzle games, then this series should be on your radar too. It's co-op only, and online only, so just know that ahead of time.
Due to a couple wi-fi disconnects on my friend's part, we were unable to get the "good" ending because I think you basically have to do it in one playthrough. Even with the bad ending, I enjoyed the game. Worth the $10 for sure (or $20 for me because I bought us each a copy since I enjoyed the first game so much). Maybe one day we'll go for the good ending.

The Ascent via Game Pass

I'll admit, I'm starting to lose interest in the cyber punk aesthetic between all the games, movies and tv shows that have leaned heavily into that design the last few years. That said, 'The Ascent' leans heavily into it and it pays off.

The wolrd is brilliantly realized. In high traffic areas, there are crowds of people everywhere, and a good variety of CPU models. In the areas that are meant to be desolate and lonely, there's hardly any and a little fear always creeps in as a result. Depth is also huge for this game, where below the floors and to the horizon they always stretch as far as possible with detail and moving objects. The music does an excellent job creating a constant foreboding. This world is lived in. This extends to the player character too, with different styles from different manufacturers. Thankfully, if there's a particular piece of gear you like, you can lock that look in and change the gear at will without changing your look.

All that is great, but unfortunately, the rest falls short.

Starting with the player character: the game opens with a few text lines talking about what amounts essentially to slaves. You're one of them. You create your character, but the models, especially the faces, are not great (thankfully most of the best headgear completely covers the head). The player character never speaks, there's no dialogue to choose from and in most cutscenes the camera is right behind the shoulder so your character isn't even seen much until towards the end. Needless to say, it's hard to get attached, and for most of the game it feels that way. Hell, it took me right out at the beginning to a point where I wasn't even sure what was going on with the story. Cutscenes are well directed and the voice work can be fantastic, but this game demands that all the blurbs and data dumps are read to fully understand the story and world. And there is a lot to read. So it's possible to take it all in, but one place that wasn't expanded on is the gameplay.

Gameplay is the (almost) typical twin-stick shooter: move with the left stick, aim with the right stick and fire with the right trigger. Additional equipment can be used by pressing in the left stick (something I accidentally did a few times) and there are two augmentation abilities set to the shoulder buttons. Modules can give permanent boosts or attributes, and there's a lot of combos to mess around with. The issue is that the game doesn't really demand it. Energy weapons work better against machines, ballistic against "flesh" and...I'm not sure what digital is. Great in theory, except the enemies never really change. Gun-wielding enemies stay a little further back, and big enemies move slower, but all enemies will try to overrun you. It's like a quick-moving zombies game...without zombies. There's a cover system, and the theory is to find good cover and move between it, but the enemies moves so fast with so little care for their own safety, that cover can be pointless most of the time.

And that's where the difficulty comes from. Lots of enemies swarming at all times. This game is about crowd-control, and it never evolves into anything else, hence the game not encouraging switching strategies up. Once you find the best combo to hold off the horde, stick with it. At multiple times in the story you're forced to "protect" a spot (it's just a filling bar at the top of the screen), and the best bet for survival is to find a corner, get behind cover and have crowd-control equipment and augments. The difficulty is artificial because of this. I ended up playing on easy with 100% aim-assist because, especially in the first third of the game, I felt like I wasn't hitting anything despite my lazer site being on enemies. The weapon I used the most was the Enforcer because it had a homing beam. Eventually, when you gain a few levels, get better guns and can allocate skill points, aim accuracy can be increased permanently both for the player-character and individual weapons, but the core is definitely off. No matter what, there can be times where the game throws so many enemies at you *cough* late game*cough*, you get surrounded immediately and have no chance to survive. Just no chance. And there's an achievement for dying 100 times, so the devs knew exactly what they were doing. The other difficulties were even added after launch after people complained, because there are some ridiculous difficulty spikes, again, mainly from so many enemies swarming at once and not from legitimate challenge.

Also, a quick note, traversal over previously areas is constant throughout the game. Yes, there's a fast-travel via the metro, but the stations aren't well placed most of the time. And yes, you can pay 1000 in-game uCreds to take a taxi, but I never figured out how to do this. Deaths can also put you back further than they should from where you died, and that typically means going through the same (yet random) amount of enemies you just killed all over again for no real reason.

So I ended up torn on 'The Ascent.' I would get pulled into a part of the world and story, just to have momentum halt. The shooting can be fun with the variety of things at the player's disposal, just to feel samey and unfairly difficult because of the enemy design. I know some people that love it and played multiple times to 100% (I never bothered with the side-quests), but to me the gameplay isn't good enough and the artificial difficulty is frustrating. Another great Game Pass game for sure, but understand what you may be getting into before trying it.

Life is Strange: True Colors

I'm not going to say much about this game for the risk of ruining anything. Just know that it's pretty fantastic. Like any 'Life is Strange' game, it deals with many heavy topics, but handles them gently with grace and heart. The writing, and music, is fantastic, and so is the voice acting. I probably haven't come across a more hipster game, but it all works.

There's still some weird cuts after choosing dialogue in certain spots, and the button prompts can be too specific on where you stand. The only other issue I came upon, which from the looks of it has been a problem for some time, is that after chapter 1 the world stats post-chapter don't show. I always enjoyed seeing where my choices fell with everyone.

This game is currently on Game Pass. Play it!

Playdead’s INSIDE - 9/10

Puzzle platformer on rails. Truly an amazing game imo. From the beginning I was engrossed in the aesthetics, questioning what this game was about and why this boy was lurking about, running from dogs and otherwise being hunted by adversaries. The set pieces are thought provoking as you try to assimilate the meaning of this experience ; which I found to be the most engaging part of the game. The ending left me scratching my head in a good way. The game is not long around 4 hours and if you’ve played LIMBO it’s has a similar feel.

Bugsnax 10/10

Little Nightmares II

Tunic via Game Pass

A decent action-adventure with extremely basic combat, unbalanced enemies at times, neat world that has too much backtracking and a fictional language that makes things like knowing what an item even is extremely frustrating. Gorgeous music and piano score specifically. I didn't go for the "true" ending.

Though there have been a glut of isometric action games like this lately, and I'm getting burned out on them. Mainly because I'm getting annoyed at not being able to see everything I need to see when I want to see it.

Open season via Analogue Pocket

Came across this game while consolidating some moving boxes. Was a fun little platformer. Super short, I couldn’t have been playing this more than a couple of hours. Maybe three max.

Wario land 4 via analogue pocket

Wacky, zany platforming action. 7/10

Freedom Fighters

We have to start with the visuals, because they are just so nice on the original Xbox. The game is presented in 720p, true widescreen, and everything is incredibly sharp and clear. The voice work is also pretty good. That said, after having heard such amazing things about this game over the years, I was disappointed.

You play a plumber that gets wrapped up in fighting the Soviet invasion of America (and the in-game propaganda is way too similar to Putin's propaganda for his war in Ukraine. Maybe he played this game) after your brother was kidnapped and you save a local resistance leader. Missions are selected in a sewer bunker that gets more decorated and populated as you progress, and the game is fairly linear. Despite this, there is a fair amount of back-and-forth traversal in the missions which, when requiring to go between areas, also means a lot of load screens. Secondary objectives are available to increase your charisma which makes more slots to recruit freedom fighters. Most of the time they're pretty competent, but be prepared to revive them with the plentiful amount of med kits.

My disappointment mainly comes with the controls. Mostly it's standard third-person shooter fare, but not really. Left trigger is used to jump, moving sight aiming to clicking and holding the left thumbstick in where the sight slides across the screen with increased momentum making precise shots harder than they should be. There's a weapons wheel that can be brought up by clicking and holding the right thumbstick but then selected with the left stick. You can quick select on the wheel with the d-pad though. Controls cannot be changed either, so they're stuck this way. There's a crouch ability, and the idea is to use cover, but you can't shoot over/around cover which means you have to be exposed to shoot. There is an automatic lock-on when not zoomed in, but the enemies, even on lower difficulties, are expert marksmen; taking many pot-shots at you. There's a lot of running from cover to cover taking hits. Again, med kits are plentiful, but it's not elegant. Also, there's a weird dead spot if too close to an enemy where your character won't fire his weapon and instead melee, but he's too far from the enemy to hit them.

Maybe these issues were fixed in the recent Steam re-release, but for the original release, while it is a sight to behold on a big screen even now, the dodgy gameplay and control choices makes this game more frustrating than it should be. It's a short game, so the quibbles don't hurt as bad, and still worth a play today, but shooters did it better even before 'Freedom Fighters' let alone after.


Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

I remember being siked for this after the first 'Unreal Championship' on Xbox, which was essentially a second console version of the 'Unreal Tournament' series (I still go back and play the original on Dreamcast), but I ended up being disappointed because it was something different.

Built for Xbox and console in mind, UC2 puts a heavy emphasis on melee combat and limited-time use abilities. Gunplay is still strong, but it's more a third-third-third concentration. Because of the emphasis on melee, which automatically switches to the third-person if in first-person, gameplay in general is slower, and that's where the disappointed hits. Everything is just slower than a typical UT game. That, and to accommodate for close-quarters combat, arenas are also smaller with less combatants. The arenas look great, and there's a lot of detail in them, but that just makes them feel more claustrophobic than immersive.

The game as a whole has a cool aesthetic. It's like futuristic ancient Egyptian. There are a few single-player modes including a story mode. It follows Anubis as he reluctantly enters a tournament put on by the Liandri Corporation, who has created tech to revive dead people. Anubis goes up against his former love. It's not specified if these are the actual Egyptian gods, because series staple Malcom is one of the commentators, or if everyone is just named after the gods. For what the story mode is, which is a glorified tutorial and game-type initiation, it's obvious a lot of effort went into it. Other single-player modes include character specific tournaments and a throng of challenges, all used to unlock new mutators, new bots and characters including 'Mortal Kombat' Raiden (this was published by Midway).

Overall, UT2 is a unique game in the U/UT history, and one that is still exclusive to the original Xbox (though fully backwards compatible). For anyone interested in playing it, just be aware it's slower than any other UT entry.

I also remember being disappointed in Unreal Championship 2 back in the day.

It definitely reviewed well, but it was a different time. Sadly, with games like 'Fortnite,' I doubt we'll ever get a proper UT game again. They just had too much content for it's singular purchase price.

Guardians of the Galaxy 8/10
Really enjoyed this one. It was way better than it should have been. Take notes Avengers game. Take. Notes.

Resident Evil Revelations on
Such a good game. I used to hate the final boss, but maybe it was just because I played on the lowest difficulty so I could breeze through it, but it wasn't that bad this time, and neither were the underwater stages.

As much as I like this game, I was only beating the campaign to unlock the co-op stages to play with a friend. Unfortunately, despite it only taking around 7.5 hours to beat, I think it is very unlikely that he will actually follow through and finish the game on his side (both players are required to beat it, it can't just be whoever is hosting the lobby).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

Thank you Game Pass for satiating my need for this game until the physical release in a couple months time. Man, did the devs do a great job balancing the feel of the original arcade games yet making it feel fresh at the same time. There's not a lot of surprise here, you know exactly what you're getting, but it is pretty fantastic. On the normal difficulty, the game is quite easy, and pizzas are strategically placed for when you absolutely need one. There's a lot of moves, and control is tight. Sure, there's still some arcade pitfalls, like unannounced enemies ramming you from off-screen, but you don't take as much damage as an arcade game either. The game is beatable in one sitting, and there's only two modes, which are essentially the same mode, but these games are meant to be played multiple times and with friends. Which is good, because I found all the secrets and completed almost all the challenges in my first playthrough. A special shout-out to the soundtrack. The songs are fantastic, both the remixes and original, vocal tracks. I was going to wait until this hits retail here, but the Japanese physical release is in English, and for the same price, comes with an acrylic action scene standee of the four Turtles and the soundtrack on CD. Worth it for the CD.


Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

The 'Obi-Wan' show has me in a 'Star Wars' mood, but I couldn't bring myself to buy the 'Obi-Wan' game for the original Xbox. I've played this game on Xbox 360 and PSP, but not yet on Wii. Damn, it is good. The story is simple, but engaging, and Sam Whitmer is excellent as always. Yes, about half the environments are reused and, yes, the level design is simple. And also, yes, there's basically one enemy with a light and heavy form per area with the exception of the end of the game. But you know what? It didn't matter all that much, because the game is just fun. The main reason for this is the game is expertly paced in how it rewards upgrades and new outfits. Again, yes, the game is also short, so it's not like it would get that boring that quickly anyway, but progression is still important and it's nailed here. Starkiller gradually gets strongly in accordance to the story, and you really feel like a badass tearing through enemies by swinging the Wiimote. The game is just fun, and dirt cheap. If the PSP version didn't have the extra legacy levels, this would be the best version of this game, because despite the waggle, the game plays great.


Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Which makes this sequel something of a conundrum. It's well documented that LucasArts did not give enough time for this sequel to be made, and it's felt. TFUII on Wii is also made by a different developer than the first game (Krome for TFU and Red Fly for TFUII), and feels different because of it.

Many changes were made to the control of both Starkiller and the camera, and while the changes do make sense, I can't tell if they're better. Camera control was moved from the D-Pad to the Plus and Minus buttons, further down the Wiimote, so the camera is a little harder to maneuver. Most Force powers were moved to the D-Pad, and it's...ok. At times, when sliding my finger, I'd accidentally activate Force Rage instead of Force Sight or Force Dash. Speaking of Force Rage, it's exclusive to the Wii version. Fill a meter, activate it, cursor over some enemies, and Rage auto-kills them, even the mechs. It makes an easy game even easier. The biggest change is that the standard lightsaber attack was moved the either A or B depending on your choice (it swaps with "jump"). Some more special attacks are still executed by swinging the Wiimote, but this change takes the most fun aspect of the combat away and makes it more a button-masher. Using Force Grip also feels neutered in the control changes. XP gained is also low compared to the amount of skills and skill levels on offer, and as such, it's impossible to have a highly upgraded Starkiller by the end. Thus, the feeling of being a badass, or "unleashed" is quite diminished in TFUII.

As for the story, I think it's the best it could be under the reported three weeks the writer had to do it all. The Wii's version, though, does have additional story elements, for the better. There's also less crystals both for color and upgrades, and less interesting costumes. One cool thing is that some releases, including the one I have, included a mini comic from Dark Horse the acts as an interlude to a popular character that makes an appearance in this game. For the inevitable Switch port, I hope they digitize this comic and include it with the game (though I'd immensely welcome another physical version if Disney allows it!). Whenever they finally announce this for Switch, and do a dual pack (take that LRG single releases!), I'll probably get it. These games do look good on the Wii, but a cleaner version would be nice. This game is even shorter than its predecessor (took me 4.5 hours with almost everything collectible found) but it is also cheap, and I recommend it for 'Star Wars' fans.

Finally beat Elden Ring. 119 hours, Level 161. Beat all the bosses. Need to go back a finish a few minor points of interest but pretty much done until they release some DLC.

Played most of the game with the Winged Scythe & Godslayer’s Seal abusing Rotten Breath until I got the Blasphemous Blade which pretty much wrecked all bosses after Rykard.

image

Careful, thanking Game Pass for access to the game might summon Feeb to flex on you with his ability to buy video games (Furrows brow, erm, you DO know that this was developed by Tribute, right?)

I personally thanked PS store.

Very rarely do I buy a game digitally, so regardless of purchasing power, the physical release just isn't available yet. And I do know it's developed by Tribute. Am I missing something?

DCGX wrote:

Yeah, that's how I felt too! Like "What the fudge, where did that come from"

Wrecked your week.

What is going on?

@DarkFact doing his usual ship posting is what's going on

Feeb wrote:

Month

My friend and I completed Think of the Children last night. If you played and enjoyed Overcooked and Moving Out, make sure to check out this game too. Because of how short it is I would recommend waiting for a sale though, because the only replay value will come only to those who care enough to really punish yourselves enough to get the highest grade on each level.

Just finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge on PC via Game Pass (as Michelangelo, if you must know). At some point I'll buy it on PS4 or Switch to play co-op with my friend (did this playthrough solo), but for now I'm satisfied with just one playthrough, so it's getting uninstalled. By default this is currently my top candidate for 2022 GotY since I haven't played much else that released this year.

This is the first game I've played on PC through Game Pass and I noticed something weird with achievement notifications sometimes taking 15-20 minutes to pop up. Yesterday for example, around 15 minutes after I had stopped playing and closed the app and was browsing GTZ I got an achievement notification. But they didn't all do that, sometimes they'd pop up right when they were supposed to. Is that normal?

That's weird. Every once in a while an achievement might take 30 seconds to a minute for me, rarely, but never that long.

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

benstylus wrote:

Heh, yeah I did that long enough ago that I sort of forgot about it, although they mentioned it a number of times on the radio stations after you earn it.

Stray 6.5/10 - - - If this were more of a puzzle game like Little Nightmares/Limbo/Inside it might be better but it's really brought down by the annoying "find these items by talking to people and finding random crap in order to progress" bullcrap. Looked up a guide once I got to Midtown or whatever cause I'm not about this obtuse item finding crap in a semi-large city. Just seems like padding to make an already short game annoying.

I said the same on another forum and got laughed out of the house because “if you press square it tells you exactly what to do.” I don’t remember that being true at all- and knocking over books or walking on boxes to find items in hard to find rooms is not much fun imho. Needs a map that has character locations marked or something too. Unless you have a photographic memory get ready to wonder into multiple buildings before you find who you’re looking for to progress.

I had the opposite reaction. I found it fun to learn the Slums and having to find my way around. I can see how the verticality of it makes it harder to find your bearings but I enjoyed not having a map or a compass with markers. I mean you are a cat at the end of the day.

Feeb wrote:

you hit one of the directional buttons, down I think. and it's just "we need to find X and X items." That's it.


Searching for stuff in that game simply isn't fun. What kind of game is it really trying to be? There's easy "platforming", chase sequences, and semi-open world exploring for items in order to progress. Good for the marketing department here, cause as a game it just isn't anything special. I won't even bother for the platinum/double platinum cause it just isn't fun.

It would be way better as a simple 3D room-to-room puzzle game.

Kommie wrote:

Fetch quests. In a game about being a cat.

The irony

I wish Stray had a mini map or something. Easy to get lost. So far it's my only real complaint. 3hrs in.

The very simple running and jumping levels were pretty cool. A couple of more hours there and leave out the slums stuff and I’d like it much better.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - 6/10

Game is kinda terrible. It plays okay, but the dungeons are boring, the plot is a mess (much like FFXV), the graphics are inconsistent, and the sound cuts in and out occasionally. Short game too. I played it on the casual difficulty setting just so I wouldn't have to die to get through the game, but that made it way too easy. I skipped all the side missions. Not that long then (a dozen hours). I borrowed this from the library so if I had bought it, I would have been very disappointed. Voice acting is fine. Lips aren't synced.

Beat The Quarry 7/10, wasn't that great. I felt the inclusion of 10 chapters only and it's length being 8 hours versus Dark Pictures 1.5-2 hours made the purchase questionable. It was $40 new at Gamestop. The Dark Pictures have more chapters but are shorter and more collectibles. I honestly dislike the nature of collectibles and the need to gather them for the better endings. The mystery was somewhat spoiled to quick and felt like near the last few chapters revealing the truth would have been better story wise. I don't like picking up collectibles over and over again on replays. The QTEs were easy enough at least. Reading the reviews of River City Three Kingdoms and given the story is about The Three Kingdoms has made me want to avoid it due to me already knowing the story. I will be replaying Quarry and waiting for Azure Striker 3. Then Xenoblade and then Saints Row.

Sun wrote:

The best part of it is online MP. It’s Nioh difficult on higher difficulty settings. It gets so hard toward the end it’s almost not possible to solo some of it.

Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 is short but enjoyable if your rushing. There is most likely a true ending but felt the time jump to be questionable like Luminous Avenger. With that being said I will probably be 100% Azure Striker like most Megaman Zero like games so this will take a while. The game has plenty of Image Pulses and extra unlockable items. I went for the XP boost so my HP went up as quickly as possible and with the extra slots unlocking it was well worth it. Would prefer sticking with Gunvolt a bit more instead of the limited time switches. Found the rush up close attacks to be something new and interesting but something I somewhat disliked. The kudos and songs still exist. It is well worth it even though the protagonist has shifted somewhat. There are 15 stages in total.

ued222 wrote:

Those games are always fun for short bursts. Im playing one of the gunvolts right now. No idea which. One of the side games.

kevolones wrote:
Lumnious Avenger with Copen they only have three side games with the same protagonist except if you count the 8-Bit Mighty Gunvolt.

Honestly the most annoying part of this experience is the Gatcha like system. Replaying the same stage after getting A-S+ not going for all S+ at least A to get all the Image Pulses is annoying. Probably played the same stage 7 times to get them all. The stages average around 8 minutes speed ran. On the 6th stage right now so should tide me over for Xenoblade 3 hopefully.

Well later stages replaying them 12-30 times. Speed ran I can do 5 minutes nearing max level. I think I might be done. I don't see me playing it on other difficulties and Gatcha to 100%.

Astro's Playroom. I'm sure this was most people's first game beaten when they got their PS5 too.
Honestly it feels very Nintendo-esque, especially the levels with the gimmicks like the jet pack and gorilla suit. The gorilla levels especially were the only thing I didn't really enjoy so much and didn't look forward to replaying those levels when I was hunting down missing collectibles. The rest of the game was fine. All I have left to do is find 3 or 4 collectibles and then do the speedrun stuff, but if those end up being too hard I'll just play something else and then come back to this.

edit: they weren't hard at all, I got the Platinum.

Horizon Zero Dawn, started this way back when the Complete Edition came out, wasn't for me. Got it again when the price dropped to $20. Saw it through to the end this time. I wanted to enjoy it but this was just not fun. If the 2nd one improves and takes the good to the next level then it could be awesome, BUT I am not going to try it anytime soon. 6/10 via

Groo wrote:
Beat Sonic Origins kind of. Never played CD but dislike it due to lack of options compared to Sonic 3. Would have been nice to play as Amy, Tails or Knuckles in it. Same I hated both Horizons. I just don't like the collectible nature and the open world nature of it. I do like open world games but found it boring. Well giving up on Xenoblade 3 those tutorials got to me. Waiting for Saints Row 2022 now unless a gem appears.

Deadpool via

I just needed to play something balls to the wall, and this mostly fits. The humor isn't really my thing, so most of that fell flat to me. The gameplay is pretty standard character-action fare, with combos and enemy juggling.

For the most part it's fun, but the camera can definitely be an issue. That and many of the enemies are damage sponges. They take no strategy to beat, rather they just take your hits without fighting back. I played on the normal difficulty. Fights can drag and bosses aren't particularly interesting (the final boss is a joke, but also intentionally, but that doesn't make it a good joke). Actually, many of the jokes, including with the gameplay, are very clearly made fun of, but it's a case where just because the devs know a section isn't great it doesn't make it better. Deadpool being Deadpool, it led to some interesting scenarios, but nothing that really changed the gameplay.

Though my largest complaint with the game design comes from the environments. The vast majority of the game takes place in a run-down and abandoned Genosha. Cool, except everything is broken, it's really empty, and much of the time is spent underground in sewers or caves. It's not very exciting and very samey.

My biggest complaint with the game overall comes from the port job from Xbox 360 to Xbox One (I'm playing on Xbox Series X). There seems to be a resolution bump, but technically the game is the same. This was the issue with the 360/PS3 to Xbox One/PS4 Activision Marvel ports before they lost the Marvel license, and it shows here. The main culprit being the framerate. It can be all over the place, and there's no excuse for it. It's just not handled well. However, the game does support Quick Resume on Xbox Series, which was a nice surprise.

In the end, this game is for Deadpool fans first, Marvel fans with Deadpool senses of humor second, and a minor recommendation for character-action fans. This particular port should have been better, but it's not a bad game by any stretch. Just OK.

Just finished up As Dusk Falls.
In Chapter 5 I made some decisions that I regretted almost immediately after watching them play out, but my own little rule for these types of games is to just roll with it and never replay sections to change anything. But now I just keep wondering how much the ending could have been different without those choices and I'll never know because I'm not gonna look up someone else's playthrough on YouTube.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Worth playing though? It's on my list and I was thinking of checking it out as I finish Stray. (Going slow due to work/babies)

sinnie wrote:


Yeah, I enjoyed the story and the voice actors did a great job. .

Chernobylite on PS5. I likely never would have played this if it wasn't for le Game Club, but I'm glad I did. It has its fair share of jankiness, but it's a solid game overall.

I just beat The Messenger on PS5/4.

Ill give it an 8/10. I wish the graphics were better, but the music and gameplay are pretty awesome. Id give it a higher score but I hated the backtracking needed to progress the story about halfway thru the game. 1rst half is a 9/10 for me.
I would go for the plat because it is fairly easy, but there are some nonesense missable trophies that would require me to restart it so no thank you.

Elden Ring. Not sure there's anything to say that hasn't already been said. It's the most accessible Souls game by far, so give it a shot if you always liked the series' art direction/lore but were put off by the difficulty.

Thymesia - 8/10

I am going to go a bit in-depth here. This is an indie souls-like that does it well. It's a mix of Bloodborne and Sekiro, parrying is a big mechanic. You can block, but the skill tree splits into two paths. You either get a block or get a wider parry window. Wider parry is better, at least I never bothered with the block path. It's mostly a level-based game, there is a hub area and from there you pick from a menu where to go, you have to beat the main boss in one area to go to the next. After you beat one boss, the next area opens. You can also do sub-quests in previous areas. There are only 3 areas though.

There are two enemy health bars, technically. A white and green. You attack with R1 to expose the green health bar and then attack with R2 to deplete the green one. In order to kill an enemy, you need to deplete the green one. Then you do a death blow like Sekiro to kill them.

You can have 2 sub-weapons. You can basically farm parts and upgrade those weapons. I just used the Scythe, fully upgraded and if you get both hits in, it can pretty much fully heal you.

Combat can be very fast-paced like Sekiro, especially once you get some Skill upgrades. Once I got past main boss 2, I did most of the bosses in 2-3 tries besides the final boss.

Some reviews call the controls "janky" but I don't see what they mean, it's fast and fluid.

If you enjoy souls-like games, definitely give this a shot. There are only 2 clones I've played and liked, this one and Mortal Shell. It's definitely better than MS, IMO.

Currently, there's a weird glitch that lets you level up faster than normal with a certain potion, I imagine it'll be patched out if the game even gets patches.

Complaints:

The first real boss is a big learning curve/brick wall. I parried to beat it, but I've seen other people beat it otherwise. Dodging this boss just seems like it'd just drag the fight out longer, and it's two phases.

Two gimmicky bosses.

One is a "run to the end part and deathblow a cyst". There is one particularly annoying enemy towards the end of this, and if you die you have to start over. I ended up running past it and still beating the boss easily.

The other boss is pretty basic, with two phases but phase 2 seems random and you can get instantly killed by boulders pretty quick if you're in the red area that indicates crap's gonna fall.

Some mini bosses are annoying.

Weird thing, there is no vibration feature at all. Saw someone complain on Steam about it and noticed it in the game. Didn't bother me though.

It's a short game if you go for everything, I got the Platinum and clocked at 12 hours. But I traded some junk into GameStop and ended up getting it for "free", technically so it was worth it. If you're one of those people obsessed with physical copies, get it ASAP as it seems to be a very small print run.

If you like Souls-like games, definitely give this one a try.

I didn't encounter any bugs or glitches, for what it's worth. At least nothing game-breaking or annoying.

I'm currently working on World of Final Fantasy Maxima on XBone. I think I have 5 more chapters to complete, but to take a break from it, I played a few indie games that I did make a 1st run through.

Coffee Talk
Citizen Sleeper

HybridCRoW wrote:
That's the second time within the past day that someone has mentioned Coffee Talk.

nonamesleft wrote:

It just released a few days on Game Pass before I posted I completed it. It's not a long game at all. It's like anime-ish storybook and your only actions are to make coffee shop drinks. You start out w/ a couple recipes and you learn some as you go along in the story. If you make the right drink as requested, your friendship level increases with that person. So far as I could tell it didn't seem to really affect the storyline regardless what you did.

My only gripe is there is a "coffee art" function and the controls make it hard to even make any kind of art... but luckily it's not a requirement in the game.

Madden 22 - 7/10 -

I haven’t played a Madden game since probably PS2/3 days; simply because it wasn’t accessible for me. I started a franchise and made it to the championship game only to lose due to some bullcrap. After all these years Madden really hasn’t changed beyond better character models. Over all, it looks really good. Some wonky animations here and there. There were some games where I simply felt like the computer was throttling my advancement. Games where I simply couldn’t connect with a receiver or having 6-8 dropped passes. Not sure if I’ll give it another go or not. Maybe I’m just sour from this last game.

HybridCRoW wrote:
The concept of the game sounds similar to a game I played called Hungry Hearts Diner 2. You make dishes of food for customers, increasing happiness levels, while gradually experiencing a story via dialogue, as well as unlocking new dishes to make.

Yurukill: The Calumniation Games. Neat game that mixes a shmup with a game like Zero Escape. You can play the shmup by itself after you complete the game.

Guardians of the Galaxy. Very funny and feels like an extension of the movies, but the gameplay is extremely shallow.

BloodPuppetX wrote:

How long did this one take you? I picked it up but haven't started on it yet

Orlandu wrote:
Is it worth playing for the humor, or does it feel like you're forcing yourself to play due to the shallow gameplay?

@nonamesleft It feels a little long in the middle chapters, but it's not a slog. Might take 10 hours to beat. If you do play it there are 15 upgrades from collectable materials. Never at any point are there anymore, so once you get the upgrades you want you can stop collecting the materials. The difficulty is extremely customizable to where you can steamroll the game without even worrying about the upgrades. I enjoyed the game well enough and beat it in a couple of weekends, but there's no reason for me to go back to it. A word of warning, though, it deals heavily with the grief associated with death. If you've lost someone recently it might be a bit difficult to play.

benstylus wrote:

Just under 15 hours for story mode.

@Orlandu Thanks for the info. Appreciate it.

No prob. It really feels like they ran out of time during development. Lots of corridors, underused elemental system, and enemies are mostly just sponges. Still fun enough for what it is, but feels like it could have been a lot more.

Saints Row 2022 was decent. I felt the AI was lacking and some missions were impossible without multiple retries due to bugs. Like the Idols driving their car into the water. The combat was terrible. Driving was okay minus ramming into some objects that should be destroyable. I felt the combat needed a major upgrade and the bugs needed to be ironed out. Going to pickup Destroy All Humans 2 Thursday then the long wait for Marios Vs Rabbids.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Well, if the 150 hours of gameplay is to be believed, I did about half the things. I had a few side-quests I was in the middle of, and only missed one of the heroes. Lots of the map to go I guess. Overall, I really enjoyed XB3 and it's stack of systems upon systems. The characters were pretty well realized and the story, though it tended to bend under its own weight at times, didn't delve into melodrama as much as other JRPGs usually do. The voice cast does a lot to help with that. I didn't enjoy the story and the game as a whole as much as the first Xenoblade, but this is still an excellent RPG.

With the first game, I battled most beasts (those poor innocent animals!) and did all the side-quests that came along, and still found myself under-leveled at the final boss. That required reloading an older save and grinding for a couple of hours until I was a few levels above them. I had a fear the same thing would happen with XB3, so I went out of my way to battle beasts and cook dishes that gave extra EXP, and I was regularly 10-20 levels higher than anything the story required. However, that lead to a huge drawback that I couldn't see coming.

Heroes are unlocked through side-story missions, where one temporarily joins your party and to complete their character-specific mission. Once completed, they can be chosen for your party at any time. There's somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 heroes, each a variation of one of the three main classes of the main party. Their initial unlock also unlocks their class for a character that doesn't normally use that class, but through battle, CP is collected which fills that hero's silhouette that is currently in the party until their class unlocks for other characters. The one, huge thing to know is that CP is really only gained when battling anything within five levels of the party. Anything outside that gives practically nothing. So, with me being so high-leveled throughout the game, I had a real hard time unlocking new classes for use with the rest of the characters. Most classes I wanted for my characters I unlocked early and wanted to stick with anyway, but every time a different class is unlocked, the main party characters can swap their master skills out for them, which creates interesting fusion attacks. Like previous XB games, there are areas of the map that likely have a beast close to the party level, but it's super frustrating going through the game and essentially being punished for doing too well. Post-game the ability to de-level characters is made available, which also increases EXP gain, and would definitely help with class unlocks.

A quick note on presentation: while the art style is excellent and there's a few moments of awe, this game really could use a current-gen makeover. That said, scale is extremely well done. You feel small in this world, and can always see where you've come from and where you can continue to go. There's still stiff, typical JRPG animations but it isn't too distracting (hold on, let me finish this sentence, slowly turn, fully stop, and then walk away from you). The music is fantastic as always, though many of the tracks gave off big vibes to other music out there. At one point you're in an area that has a melody much like The Dark Knight trilogy, and my favorite tracks, the day and night themes to Erythia Sea, straight-up sound like the opening theme to 'WestWorld' around the chorus. Lots of deja-vu in the soundtrack.

The world itself is designed fantastically. It's clear why Nintendo has MonolithSoft help with both 'Breath of the Wild' games. That said, traversal is no where near those games, and it's frustrating when a short, waist elevation change with a ledge can't be jumped upon because of the unnaturally rounded edge force slides the character back down.

That said, I still really enjoyed the game, and had a smile on my face during battles. Random battles in the Xenoblade games don't bother me like in most RPGs. There's a ton to explore, and the world really feels lived in, especially with all the beasts on the map (they did nothing to you! Stop killing them for EXP!). One day, like the first game, I'll go back and finish up the rest, or maybe attempt New Game+, but for now, it's on to:


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989 Arcade Game)

I actually haven't been without this game, since I still have it digitally on Xbox 360, but it's so awesome to have all these games on one cartridge. Yes, I'm legitimately looking forward to playing the NES and GB games. The originally TMNT Arcade game still rocks, though it's painfully obviously this is an arcade game. Holy hell there's some cheap, quarter munching design going on. My favorite is fighting the robot boss with the bird head, that will punch you as soon as your turtle tries to stand until his life bar is empty. But you can add "quarters" at any time, so it's manageable.

A special mention to the extras. Every US and Japanese box has been scanned into this game along with each manual and even a couple "strategy guides." There's a bunch of random stills from the shows, and covers from entire comic runs (but not entire comics to read). Among the new options is the ability to remove slowdown and flicker from the NES games (or leave them in) and adding playable bosses and stages to the fighting games. Just an all around, really solid package with excellent emulation.

I’m playing the third GB game and it is legitimately good. A modern remake, with more bosses and areas, would be pretty awesome.

Rise of the Tomb Raider. This game was awesome. I plan to mess around in one of the bonus modes and see if there is anyone still playing it in co-op (unlikely though after all these years).

Finished The Quarry that I borrowed from the library.

If you enjoyed Until Dawn, you will enjoy this. Not much of a game but a walking simulator with QTEs, like most of Supermassive Games games. Good voice acting and music.

Just finished Tinykin. Takes 7-8 hours to 100% clear depending on how quickly you move around. It draws a lot of Pikmin comparisons, but there's no combat or fail points, so it's more of a tour of rooms of a house while collecting a ton of stuff. Very well made, though. Draw distance is excellent and each stage gives birds-eye vantage points to help you spot unexplored areas. I wish the objectives didn't repeat so much in each stage, but otherwise it's pretty fun exploring. Seems like a great game to speed-run if that's your thing.

Infernax - beat the Ultimate Good ending, there's 3 others, plus a number of alternate styles/characters and such. I'm not sure if I want to replay it as it took my 9+ hours according to Xbox stats and I enjoyed most of that time but beat in on the 'Casual' easier mode.
7.5/10

As Dusk Falls

I started this with my girlfriend upon its release. We got through two chapters and took a month break, but she couldn't get into it so I finished the game on my own. It's good. The story is well done, though there isn't much that hasn't been done a million times before. The acting is also well done, which did help with my investment. It's weird. This is mostly like a visual novel instead of an adventure game, but it's presented like a Tell-Tale game. However, interaction is pretty minimal. I'd almost prefer if this were a mini-series, because I'd be getting into the story and then a QTE will pop up. But the QTEs but they weren't always accompanying the most logical on-screen action. Almost like the devs were thinking they needed to do something, and just picked a random scene. Of course, being a video game, this affords the story so many endings. But I'm the type of person that sticks with the decisions I make and doesn't have much interest is going back and picking different things.

I guess what I'm saying is: this is the perfect Game Pass game.

I finished up the main quests in The Frozen Wilds expansion of Horizon: Zero Dawn. I think there is one or two more optional things I missed, but I'll be going back for those tonight. I already earned the Platinum Trophy for doing everything in the default game, so I toyed with the idea of going for 100% of the Trophies added with the DLC until I saw two of them require you to beat the game on New Game+ and also on the hardest difficulty. As much as I liked this game, I am not in a hurry to play through it all over again, especially when I have the sequel already downloaded and waiting to be played. Maybe I'll return to this in a couple years or something.

Midnight Fight Express

Boy howdy. Impressions of this game are all over the map. Considering it's short and I needed a change of pace, I thought I'd try it. It's not quite successful.

You play a guy named Babyface who wronged someone or became a traitor, I don't really care because the writing isn't very good and I checked out pretty quick. Gameplay wise it's an isometric beat-em-up played through 40 short levels. Babyface is customizable, to a good extent, and there are hundreds of premade skins to unlock and use too. The atmosphere is dark and super violent, but the characters are more cartoony mostly because their models are so simple and low-poly. I don't think that's on purpose though.

There are skills to unlock in whatever way is wanted, but finishing the story gives enough skill points to unlock everything anyway. Weapons can be picked up and used, and there's a secondary gun with different ammo types. All-in-all a decent amount of stuff. Grades up to "S" are given after every level, but the only thing that really matters here is keeping the combo going. Babyface can take hits and as long as the bar under the combo hasn't drained or Babyface dies, the combo continues. Nice, except there are times where enemies are placed too far apart or your drone buddy keeps talking that it's nearly impossible to keep the combo going.

And that's my main issue with the game: it just comes up short in too many ways. Stops for stupid cutscenes get in the way of gameplay (the amount of pop culture references is ridiculous bordering on eye-rolling). There are too many enemies that can one-hit kill Babyface, including bosses, that feel cheap. There's a dodge-roll and blocking/countering, however do anything and you're stuck in an animation you can't cancel out of but you're still open to attacks. When combat does start to flow and the game gets interesting, the levels end because they're so short. It's hard to really get into the game.

I also had issues with glitches and bugs. For the first half of the game the audio was a behind its corresponding action (it makes audio ques almost pointless). When behind objects or walls, silhouettes of the characters are seen, but not weapons or anything else, and if there's multiple characters everything blobs together. Aiming weapons is frustrating, because they auto-lock on but don't seem to hit anything unless they lock on. Even on the pause menu, the words "Confirm" and "Back" under the button prompts are cutoff and only half there. The music is insanely repetitive, and while there's at least a few songs, it all sounds the same, isn't well orchestrated and repeats frequently.

After the story mode and the collectibles there's a practice area that can be tweaked like crazy. I think this is only a $15 game, but it feels more like a fan project that wasn't ready to be released. Good to play on Game Pass, but I'm never going back.


Bust-a-Move 4

I swapped out my Dreamcast's factory fan for a Noctua fan yesterday (should've done this a long time ago), but before that I wanted a reminder just how loud the stock fan is. Spoiler: very loud. I played 'Bust-a-Move 4' to death on Game Boy Color, but never put much time into the Dreamcast version, so I figured I'd start the story mode, save and come back to it after the new fan was in. Unbeknownst to me, once story mode is started, it can't be stopped. Seriously, the game can be paused, but there's no option to back out of the mode. Turning off the Dreamcast is the only way out. So have a couple of hours, because that's how long it takes to get through the 110 stages. You can continue as much as you want, but the score resets to zero every time.

That said, it's still fun. I've always enjoyed this series. Sometimes the game can be too random with the spheres, and yes, I understand that's part of the gameplay, but going multiple turns in on a tight board with no matching spheres just feels unfair sometimes. Overall, this is still a solid puzzler.

Beat Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed. It was a decent game but felt many of the missions were pretty much the same. Either destroy certain things while defending or without defense, after or without gathering intel using cortex scan. There are a few occasions you use the flying saucer to do mission objectives but they are rare. My game also bugged out on me and corrupted my save data after beating it. There is one save slot and if that gets corrupted you are out of luck. The optional objectives are a pain. I rarely use certain weapons and mostly stuck with QD, Death Ray on the saucer with some circle action for defense. On the ground I used Zap O Matic, Disintegrator, Meteor Strike and Gastro. Never unlocked Burrow Beast as I was unwilling to find 30 artifacts for it.

My plan for October, A Plague's Tale Requim, Gotham Knights, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. New Tales from the Borderlands, Star Ocean: The Divine Force, Bayonetta 3 and Resident Evil Village Gold. It will be an expensive month assuming I don't wait till Black Friday.

Finished up It Takes Two last night with a friend. This was our second time playing through it and it was still every bit as good as it was the first time last year.

I don't know how many games we've played through together since we first connected through this site in 2005 (we've started keeping track over the past several years but we both know we're forgetting some of the earlier ones) but I feel out of all the co-op games we've played through, this might be the bestest of 'em all. I actually suggested to her that maybe we could play through this once per year and she agreed.

Completed the story mode in Injustice: Gods Among Us. It was pretty good overall, though not something I'll continue playing now that I've finished the story. There are little mini-games throughout the story that use the DualShock 4's TouchPad in such a gimmicky way (usually things flying towards you and you have to swipe in different directions to dodge). Thankfully using the TouchPad is just an option and you can disable it, because it felt like when DS games would make you use the touch screen for things that could've just as easily been done with a button press.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I too hated this. Especially in games where not all the buttons were used.

Same thing with Wii and waggle-for-button.

Just finished up Defender's Quest again. Left a few of the NG+ stages on the table because it just became insane micro-management toward the end (a flaw of the tower defense genre as a whole, honestly). I'm working my way through Patrick's Parabox now. Interesting puzzles that can be kind of exhausting in long sessions. 170 solved puzzles so far, but I'm beginning to wonder how much more there is to add to the formula.

Bayonetta 2

I got this and the first 'Bayonetta' for WiiU some years ago with the intention to play them back-to-back. After finishing the first game, and getting slightly dizzy from the combination of flashing action and lower frame rate, I decided not to play the second game on WiiU. With the third game finally releasing next month, I managed to find a physical copy locally for well below market value, and ran through it.

An excellent action game for sure. There's lot of combos and ways to take down the very intricately designed foes. The story was deeper than I suspected, though border on melodrama from time to time with some less than stellar writing. I'm still a bit surprised Nintendo funds a game like this, especially with what some of the Nintendo themes costumes can do. They're fun to play around with, with Samus's being the best in my opinion, but I switched back to the default outfit about halfway through. And this is a rather short game. It's made for score chasing second, for sure, but that opening area got my hopes up for a larger and more populated game, even coming from the WiiU. Level design quickly moves back to narrow, linear hallways, and, while distinct, the game feels empty. I hope 'Bayonetta 3' addresses this.

To circle back to the combat, my only real complaint comes from the fact that things can be so flashy and moving so quickly, and with the crazy nature of some of the character designs, it can be hard to notice enemy attacks to dodge. These can come from off-camera too. It's not a huge deal, but a couple hits feel cheap when they can't really be seen in the first place, since it's not a "git gud" type of thing. Also, the water areas weren't very fun to traverse or fight in. Same with the aerial fights. I feel they don't serve the combo system well.

I'm looking forward to the third game, though it'll be about a month before I get to play it.

A friend and I played through The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan last night. We played through this twice when it first released in 2019, so this was our third playthrough but enough time had passed that there were enough parts I didn't remember and it almost felt fresh again. I had forgotten just how short it was (it can be anywhere between 3 or 4 hours, depending how many characters are alive the farther you make it) and there were less jump scares than I thought. Looking forward to the next entry in the series which will be the Season 1 finale releasing in November I think.

I was working on my GamePass quests last night and ended up finishing up a playthrough of Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition.

Interesting characters and storyline, and the trial session took a bit of figuring out even on easiest mode.

I'm working on the "What if..." scenario just for craps and giggles right now.

Super Lucky’s Tale - 6/10
Man this game was Super Frustrating’s Tale. There was some down right janky levels where I would get pushed through walls and some really poor level design. But my biggest issue and primarily why I rated it a 6 is due to the depth of field issues. I must have died a million times; due to jumping into enemies or not landing on a platform. Arrrg bugs me just thinking about it. Not sure if the “New” Super Lucky’s Tale on consoles fixed some of these issues but I wouldn’t recommend the steam version.

Olija - 6/10
Game is in the Atari style of 4-bit graphics and it was just okay. I didn't grasp the story and didn't love the look or how it played, but it was short enough to push through and beat it (took me around 5hrs).

I beat Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered last night on PS4 and it was a blast. A little disappointed in the lack of multiplayer, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much better this looks over the previous gen. More effort went into this than I had expected (since they were only charging $20), this certainly wasn't just a case of re-releasing your game with "Deluxe" added to the end of the title.

Mass effect legendary- 9/10

Ive played the first 2 games several times over the last decade but never finished the third one. I decided the start the trilogy again this past Jan and finally finished it last night.

These are some of my fav games. Easy to pick up where u left off and i love being able to save at any time. I probably would have gave it a 10 but some of the planet searching tasks throughout the trilogy got super repetitive. Also without any spoilers, the "slow walking" stuff at the end of 3 really pissed me off. It was like in skyrim and you pick up too much stuff.

Sadly it appears i only got the 2nd best ending but my war assets were so high that it still seemed to be a "good" ending.

Beat Diofield Chronicles the ending was rushed but the gameplay was good. Once you hit lvl 45, extra levels become somewhat pointless due to the game just becoming that much easier. Assassinate, Shadow Step, Cyclone, Chain Shot and Headshot are OP. Bahamut and Goldhorn are better then the rest of the summons. Fenrir is okay but the lower damage and range make Bahamut superior. Just use the two firearm users as support or mains and the three calvary units as mains alongside the main character. The partner for your main can be a healer or anyone honestly, The other two partners don't matter as the calvary with Cyclone are sufficent skill wise. Once you get late game even on hard plowing through every mission is easy. Goldhorn can usually take care of all your healing. Going to either get VALKYRIE ELYSIUM or wait for Plague Tale Requim on gamepass.

My end game build was Rias with Rickenback Partner for side. Fred with Uma. Zoruaq with Tremina and Chappelman with anyone.

You only need the final weapons for those classes and get the item for 20% skill damage as it makes thing so much faster. Spend your upgrades for Bahamut and Goldhorn and you should be able to max them out your first playthrough and just wreck.

ued222 wrote:

Diofield is/was on my radar....sounds pretty easy and unrewarding now

I wasn't too impressed with the Diofield Demo. And well another Square-Enix game with a stupid name.

I only meant to do the Game Pass quests, but I ended up playing through "INSIDE" tonight. Weird ass game, but it was worth it at the end.

Kommie wrote:

I thought the demo was poop. The bad lip-syncing was an immediate turn off and I didn't care about the characters or the story at all. I just don't have 40 hours to kill on a game with combat that "might" be good/unique. Easy pass.

incubus421 wrote:
It can be difficult starting out but it gets a lot easier overtime. Rias is just overpowered sadly. If the damage were more hidden instead of laid out when using skills gameplay would be harder.

The major issue is only three classes are worth anything late game to me.
Heavyd814life wrote:
More like 30 hours instead of 40.
Ya the story isn't great besides one character who felt somewhat wasted. Rias story was way to rushed but Wattaquinn was great but ended poorly. Like all the other characters besides 3 really get anywhere to me.

Yakuza 5

It's been two years since I've played 'Yakuza 4,' so I was a little fuzzy on the story and characters, especially since I played 'Judgement,' 'Lost Judgement' and 'Yakuza: Like a Dragon' in between. I finished with 13.5% completion, and 48 hours played. Considering I did all the side-quests, save a couple of the last ones, and didn't do much of the side-job-things, that still means there's a crap ton of collectibles. It's crazy.

Overall, another great 'Yakuza' game, but with caveats for me. I commend the devs for trying new play styles and mixing things up story wise, but, honestly, the game felt a bit unfocused because of that. Likewise, I'm not into hunting/survival games nor this type of J-pop music, so the middle of the game really dragged for me (Haruka's dancing mini-game in particular got on my nerves because about 90% of the time its the same boring song over and over). Granted, most of the story missions of those segments can actually be skipped, but it would be harder down the road. Leveling up happens so frequently because of the short amount of time with each character, but being leveled up is essential especially for the fighters of the group.

It's also cool to see so many cities, small they may be. It does change things up a bit, however it's clear the devs sacrificed detail to get all the areas in the game. There's less on the buildings, less to interact with and pedestrians pop-in much closer to the player which in a way makes the cities feel more empty. In fact, they could've dialed down the pedestrians, because it's easy to get blocked and caught up in them. Partly because movement feels stiffer for some reason. Even in fights, dodging and blocking seemed a bit slower. Sure, the characters are older, and they point that out themselves, but it weighs on the game play.

Story wise, it's solid. There's a lot, like, a lot going on. Like I said, it's been two years since I played 'Yakuza 4,' but I've only been playing the series since 2019, and I was losing track of some of the minor characters. There's also a typical late-stage twist these games almost pride themselves on. Logically, story wise, sure it made some sense, but it was more of an eye-roll moment. Also, side-quests were always utilized as a way to balance out the serious story with some zaniness, and with the exception of a few in the fourth segment, that isn't happening here. Side-quests range from bland to serious themselves, so that break and balance isn't present here and it also weighs on the game play.

I think this is the longest it took me to finish a 'Yakuza' game, including 'Like a Dragon.' And while it never felt like the game or story was being drawn too thin, I think it's too long for a brawler. I only have 'Yakuza 6' yet to play, and I hope to get to that before the spin-offs start releasing next year. I definitely recommend this for 'Yakuza' fans and those invested in these characters and their stories, but be aware this entry is not quite structured and designed like previous entries.

The Bunker - i went in knowing this was a FMV game but calling it a game is a stretch. Aside from a few QTEs it was pretty much watching a movie. First time in a few decades ive finished a game in one sitting. Took about 90 min to beat. I give it a 4/10 only because the story was interesting.

FF7R - 9/10

I know I’m late to the party but, Wow what a fantastic remake of the original (at least the first part of the original) I scored it high due to the nostalgia getting me in the feelers. I thought the remake really brought Midgard, shinra, cloud and team… alive! I wasn’t overly excited that they removed the turn based battle system, but I can appreciate the action RPG path they went down and it’s easy to acclimate too. I do prefer a turn based rpg tho. Anyway, great game and I have a lot of fun… the ending albeit different has me excited for what’s yet to come.

It's hard to go back and play the original FF7 after the new battle system. It took a while for it all to click (especially Cloud's damage boost ability), but it's pretty satisfying when it does.

Orlandu wrote:

I hadn’t finished the original. I had gotten as far as the part where you acquire cids airship to navigate the world map… however far that is. I’ve read some post game (remake) stuff and it appears (or some speculate) that maybe the next iteration will venture off the beaten path.

After playing remake I don’t know that I could go back to the original. They did such an amazing job fleshing out that whole beginning story and visually it was gorgeous. I feel like going back to the og would some how ruin that.

Orlandu wrote:

I played through FF7 Remastered on Switch recently. The 3x speed boost makes a huge difference, especially with summons. You can also disable encounters to avoid fighting low level enemies when you back track which speeds things up significantly. I didn't mind the old battle system however without the 3x speed I don't think I would have had the patience to play through the whole game. I am waiting for them to release the rest of the games so I haven't played the new FF7 yet but it does look great!

@loztdogs The OG is hard to immediately jump back into, but as sa330206 says they've found ways to make it more palatable for a modern audience. It's still fun creating fun OP builds for taking out the optional weapons, but man the early game is kind of a slog after playing Remake. I tried to give the fan retranslation patch a go, but getting the PC version running with mods was a nightmare for me. I eventually settled on a PS1 emulator with the patches, but made it to Kalm before flaming out.

@sa330206 You might be in for a long wait at the rate they're going. Should look pretty sharp on PS7, though!

I really enjoyed the FF7 remake, but I ain't lying when I say the ending took freakin' FOREVER!! I was like "Enough button mashing already, let's end this!!"

Stray - 6/10
I enjoyed it and am glad I played it, but it's honestly not a very good game. The story is touching, and the graphics were nice, but the overall gameplay of the game is what matters most. Yes, some sections, later on, pick up the pace, but I was ultimately left wanting more diversity, and hoping the developers would take some concepts a bit further.

I would recommend it to those interested in giving Stray a try, but I would wait for a price drop. I don't think it's worth the $30 asking price.

Elden Ring 9.5/10

I started Elden Ring a couple months ago I never looked back. Amazing game and easily the most accessible souls title to date. The sheer amount of wander lust alone in the vast open world with such a curious amount of intriguing entities within its dense map seriously makes this title very addictive to engage in. Especially since you get a ton of summons in single player not having to rely on coop or any NPC summon signs if you want any help in boss fights or heavily littered enemy populated regions and that alone is magical. It’s basically Dark Souls 4, 5 and 6 wrapped into a 100+ hour package and that’s just fine by me. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Very high praise for ER. Love the game, it’s fun - but it’s a 7/10 for me. If you’re new to souls it’s awesome. If you’ve played the series it’s same ole. Not a knock.

It's an accessible Souls game which is all the difference. Single-player summons are the closest thing the series has ever had to a difficulty slider. I've flamed out of a few Souls games and I honestly thought this one was pretty easy (relative to the rest of the series) when I utilized everything available to me. The end game felt a little rushed (a lot of recycled enemies that didn't seem like they belonged in the region), the upgrade system heavily discourages experimentation, and a guide is needed to have any hope of experiencing most of the NPCs, but on the whole it feels like the series is moving in the right direction.

Was a riot to still hear people screaming for "accessibility options", NOT difficulty, but if you gave me a difficulty slider I wouldn't complain! Come on you big sissy, pull your pants up and at LEAST take down Margit

Orlandu wrote:

True about the upgrades. Once you invest in something to a high level it’s hard to drop it. Maybe make an unlimited source of endgame upgrades or a downgrade system.

I mean most bosses were manageable I felt and accessible especially with the aide of summons to bring along at your will. The only boss I haven’t beat in the game is Melania yet and I can understand why some ppl give up on that fight. It’s a battle of attrition to see who can deal more DPS before she heals. I am just not a fan of bosses who constantly heal and have multiple phases. I’ll do it one day tho when I respec.

Orlandu wrote:

DarkFact wrote:

I like the way they handled it. The back third of the game especially is harder than anything outside of Sekiro if you want it to be. Like objectively just the case with the boss attack strings and such but with all the tools available it's all relatively easily dealt with. The ashes went a long way towards that.

And yeah Orlandu I'd agree with that I made that same exact point actually when I beat it shortly after launch in regards to the back end dragging and recycled enemies in weird spots. As far as the NPC questline stuff it's typical From but it is pretty annoying. I'm able to bash my head at dialogue trees and mostly figure things out but I did have to look up stuff for Ranni. I was speeding through at launch on this one which is rare for me and was actually ahead of available information on a lot of things, discovering things before they were on Fex etc so that was kinda fun.

The game would have been near perfect to me without the open world filler. Just chain the legacy dungeons together would have been chef's kiss. There are probably already mods for this but that's not the same. No way they go away from open world after how well it sold so it is what it is unfortunately.

The catacombs/hero graves were really the worst part of the filler. Tons of recycled bosses for rewards that honestly weren't ever worth it. The main map was pretty fun to get through, though. A few of the bosses also felt too gamey with input reading that you had to manipulate. Having said all of that I still haven't played a better game this generation, and I tend not to like Souls games aside from world design/art direction.

Agree on the filler and because it's From/I love these games so much I did it all. I like doing all bosses, but when the DLC comes out and I replay I'll skip a lot of the filler.

Ori and the Blind Forest

I didn't realize I was craving a Metroidvania style game until I was somewhat through this. It was pretty good.

Though, I didn't see the point in the center set of abilities. I unlocked every other ability from both other sets, and those were useful. The center set seems relevant if you're going for 100% completion.

The ending was surprising.

Ori is more of an action/platformer with minor Metroidvania elements. They're there, but it's not something I'd tag as Metroidvania as a first tag.

Like Diofield Valkyrie Elysium lacks character development overall. It isn't to say it isn't included it is just lacking. The combat is acceptable but lacking as well as the character animations. For example, facial expressions don't change for some reason. Maxing out each weapon through battle is a chore assuming you want to do that. Levels do not exist and upgrades are done via materials. The issue with the late game is getting healing items to tackle late game bosses. Replaying side quests and chapters to grab healing items is a chore. Also I find the weapon differences to be lacking. They all are very similar minus enemy weakness to some types.

Couple tips don't bother smashing boxes, it is a waste of time overall due to combat giving points towards maxing out weapons you can kill two birds with one stone. Replaying levels till the late game for anything but getting more healing items is a waste and exploring is needed to find some items.

ued222 wrote:

Again I say:
Valyrie Elysium is/was on my radar....sounds pretty easy and unrewarding now

Unmetal 9/10 loved this game to pieces. Such a great parody Metal Gear game right down to the voice acting.

incubus421 wrote:
Not trying to scare you from buying games. Just try the demo and come to your own conclusion. Yes, the post game is terrible to me and the story is lacking but it is enjoyable.

You can buy the game at Bestbuy and sell the Steelbook for $35 on Ebay. The game is just $25 then.

I finished up Outlast last night. It's a fairly short game, but it's really good if you're ever in the mood for a horror game. There's some decent jump scares in it, but it doesn't overdo it with them.

Soul Hackers 2 - 7/10

Solid enough. At 60 hours or so, you definitely get plenty of bang for your buck, but it's a largely forgettable experience, unfortunately. The party members are solid and the main character, Ringo, is actually quite awesome, but the overarching story is standard "save the world" JRPG stuff we've seen thousands of times and I stopped caring after about 5-6 hours. None of the major revelations are impactful and I just finished it an hour or so ago and I've already forgotten most of it. Never a good sign. The gameplay is solid and if you've played the Persona/SMT games you'll feel right at home, but the devs took away so many of the things that made the original Soul Hackers special. The dungeon/level design is really poor and you end up running around - really slowly - through empty hallways, empty subway corridors, more empty hallways ...it's a drag and it gets old fast. There's no real worldbuilding and it all just feels so uninspired which when matched with the shallow storytelling makes for a very forgettable experience.

There's a social element to the game that allows you to bond with characters, but even that side of the game isn't very well thought out because you get random dialogue choices that have no real impact and the choices you make don't change the flow of conversations at all. The actual combat itself is a stripped-down version of what you'll find in an SMT game. It lacks any of the things that made the original Soul Hackers special and while it's serviceable, it just doesn't do anything new and it isn't nuanced enough to make the dungeon crawling enjoyable. You have a party of 4 and every battle is the same. Again, it's mechanically solid, but it all gets pretty stale after a while.

So yeah, not really the sequel to Soul Hackers I was hoping for, but the soundtrack is quite good and I liked Ringo a lot so at least there's that. Again, plenty of bang for your buck so if you are looking for a new JRPG and can snag it for under $20, it's worth checking out.

Ikai on PS5. It was muff cabbage.

I beat Pumpkin Jack last night. I enjoyed the game overall, but some of the levels drag on by making you do fetch quests and a couple of the bosses at the end were just annoying.

I beat Pumpkin Jack last year. I thought it was a cool old school feeling Halloween platformer.

Just finished Evoland. More interesting in concept than execution. The game "evolves" as you find treasures. You start by finding treasures that allow you to move in different directions, then treasures that add color depth, a 3rd dimension, world map, etc. Some fun puzzles here and there, but leans too heavily into "hey remember that game?" referencing. Takes about 3 hours or so to get through. It has a sequel, so maybe that one will flesh out the ideas of the first.

Deliver Us The Moon - 9/10

Fantastic sci-fi puzzle-adventure game. It's a bit like Tacoma in that it's an exploration game set in space, but it's so much more than that. Imagine Dead Space as a walking simulator where you play in both 1st and 3rd person and you have Mass Effect-style Mako driving sections. It's a really cool indie game with a story that kept me hooked and an ending that made the entire journey worthwhile. Loved it and it's worth checking out if you're looking for something a little different.

Stray was an interesting experience. I felt the ending left me wondering if the doctor or the entities were causing the screen to flicker or something else entirely. Played Overwatch 2, that was a drag. Tanks are still way to overpowered and having one just makes it worse. I am Diamond-Gold rank.

Well I am downloading A Plague's Tale Requim and Scorn on game pass and my Mario Rabbids copy is coming in as well tomorrow. I am hoping to get Gotham Knights and some others this month but I think I will wait for Black Friday.

I am out screw Requim stealth is way to difficult and boring for some reason. Onto Mario Rabbids.

GTA V - 7/10

Always wanted to give GTA V a go. I liked the concept of playing multiple main characters but other than appearance and voice acting I didn’t feel like it added much to the game play. I will say, Trevor is likely the biggest douche bag in all of gaming history. This is typical GTA, I didn’t do any of the side missions and hated anything flying. There were many boring menial tasks that I thought just wanted time. Shoot out we’re fun and exploring the city was equally satisfying but in retrospect I liked IV better. Happy to get my 109gb back tho. Could have been better definitely not the worst. The ending was a bit anti climatic imo (I chose option A).

The Red Lantern - 9.25/10

A story-driven, roguelite survival game where you and your team of 5 sled dogs must survive the Alaskan wilderness as you try to find your way home. You'll hunt for food, patch up dogs if they get injured, and discover tons of unique encounters as you explore the world. Ash Burch voices the main character and she's terrific. The soundtrack is also really, really good. I wasn't expecting this. I'm not typically into these types of games, but the fact that it's narrative focused and has an actual ending (though you can keep playing afterward) drew me in. The dogs are all so adorable and the art style is also quite nice for a low-budget title like this.

So yeah, if you're an animal lover you'll definitely dig this. It's not perfect (the hunting mechanics take a little getting used to and can be wonky, for example), but none of its quirks bothered me at all. It took me about 10 runs and 3 hours to beat it. I don't feel like the story portion of the game needed to be any longer because padding out the length would have resulted in the simple gameplay loop feeling repetitive and stale. Awesome little game and definitely one for my collection. I know there's a lot I still haven't seen so I may dive back in at some point.

New Tales From The Borderlands isn't the longest game. The mini games and story aren't great either. To many random cuts to side stories that don't blend well with the main story. I was hoping for a fun mini game considering the advertisement for the preorder DLC but it wasn't. Just another spam fest. The QTEs are also painful. This is a subpar game. Just rent it since it is 9 hours.

Mario VS Rabbids Spark of Hope is proving somewhat worse and better then the previous game. You don't know enemy movement quite as well which can be for the better. The options are heavily increased and the skill trees are more impactful. There are a variety of options and not full healing after each battle means rushing to the goal isn't the best choice. I prefer the first game as I loved seeing my rankings and trying to get better. I am hoping this changes after I beat World 1 though since there seems to be five worlds and I see 100% the game taking 30 hours at this rate. Weapon upgrades do not seem to exist. Sparks have additional abilities and hopefully after I beat this I will have a better idea of this game. The puzzles are somewhat easy to.

Watched my husband play the new Mario Vs Rabbids and it feels lacking but still fun. I hate they got rid of 2 player. I might replay the original.

Ghostwire Tokyo 7.5/10
Not a bad spiritual spooky first person elemental combat game that dives into Japanese folk lore and fuses it with the city of modern day Tokyo where spirits who haven’t yet crossed over to the other side are in need of aids while you are on a quest to find your sister kidnapped by dark forces. It’s one of those check box games though like Far Cry so if you aren’t a fan of a mini open world map with a ton of misc crap to do on it then this one probably isn’t for you. I enjoyed my time with it though. Some sections were a bit eerie too. Especially the indoor corridor smaller linear missions. The controls left a bit for me to be desired though and felt like they could have been tweaked better but luckily there’s an aim assist mode. Now excuse me while I dust off my PS3 and commence my God of War marathon which I haven’t done in over 5 years to prepare for the Ragnarok!!!

TalonJedi87 wrote:

Agree with your assessment. It’s a great Japanese mythology/ folklore game- and you played it during spooky season. SPARTA!!!

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. Every time it does something new and fresh, it finds a way to curtail it, and that makes the overall experience pretty frustrating.

Years before everyone knew and loved Pokémon, a group set out to document as many Pokémon as they can. The player character literally falls from the sky, and a roundabout explanation is given towards the end of the game, but ultimately the player character's story doesn't have much of an impact. Like traditional Pokémon games, the goal is to be the best, but here it's more about research and catching than battling. The game starts promising, introducing a land more open than previous games, but quickly pulls that back.

There are five main areas plus the HUB town to explore, but the areas aren't really that big and while the game gives off the impression of a big open world in general, the areas are only connected by loading screens. What's worse, if you want to travel between areas, you're forced to go back to the town first. Everything feels very disconnected. The variety of Pokémon is pretty good, but few are introduced in each new area, which means you'll be seeing a lot of the same Pokémon throughout the game. My PokeDex was somewhere around 160, and there were not that many that I didn't catch or encounter outside of that. I also want to make note that my started was Rowlet, but I didn't know it's final evolution was different in this game, and it felt weak against most of what is faced. If I had to choose, I wouldn't have picked Rowlet.

Catching Pokémon can be lethargic; stalking and using a plethora of items to aide in catching. Except the world isn't designed very well and the character is only hidden when crouched in very specific grass that isn't very plentiful. Most items also have the same effect. Crafting is a huge part of the game. You craft everything from potions to assists to PokeBalls. There's a survivor game feeling because of this, but it isn't hard to get what's needed. What does become a problem is your inventory. There's a set number of slots for item types and an overall amount that can be carried. To increase the former, you have to talk to one of the Galaxy Team members and buy another slot. Every slot gets more expensive. It was basically the only thing I spent money on, and management became a chore. There are mounts to help with traversal, but they're cumbersome to control and the system is cumbersome to use too.

Back to the story, you're tasked with filling the first PokeDex but also solving the mystery of the portal in the sky your character fell from. The game does a good job of laying the groundwork for character groups that will come much later, and there's some interesting themes touched on, but nothing too deep. The final twist was also lazy. This game is played for the gameplay, not the story, though the writing is pretty good.

The other half of the gameplay is battles. Now, battles are engaged in real time with no transition to a different field. You can move your character around the Pokémon, but it didn't seem to affect anything. My main gripe with battles is they seem to fly in the face of stats, and can become too random or leaned towards the CPU. I've had wild Pokémon, 20 levels BELOW mine, attack first and evade my attacks with ease. I had a CPU Pokémon 7 levels below mine, with mine having much increased speed through items, attack 4 times in a row and knock my Pokémon out. If you change Pokémon mid-battle, they attack first. If they change mid-battle, they attack first. If you have two turns in a row, and miss the first, you don't get your second. If you have a turn after one of the opposing Pokémon, I've had my turn skipped without the opposing Pokémon using an Agile attack. Quick side note: when a Pokémon masters a move, they gain Strong and Agile versions of said move. Strong attacks do more damage but are slower and possibly less accurate. Agile moves are quicker, but do more damage. This is supposed to add a wrinkle, but the random elements of battles usually overrode this. Basically, I was always at a major disadvantage in battles, no matter how stronger or faster my Pokémon were, what my character star rank was, or what levels my Pokémon were. It felt like the advantage the player receives in traditional Pokémon games was flipped in favor of the CPU in 'Arceus.' What ended up happen, since strategy had little affect, was that I did everything I could to avoid battles. That essentially ruins half of 'Pokémon' and I'm extremely disappointed by it.

So that left me with a game I enjoyed at times, and can see the appeal for leisurely wanting to catch Pokémon and fill the PokeDex, but also a game I actively wanted to avoid and felt hamstrung by archaic design (an increasingly theme I've complained about before with Japanese devs). I also played entirely in handheld mode, which I haven't done with a game since I got my OLED model, but I think that helped hide the technical blemishes of the game. For Pokemon fans, it's absolutely worth it. For more casual fans, it's best to play more casually. It's good, but should've been better.

Lunar Legend via Analogue pocket - 8/10

Lunar is one of those games I’ve owned multiple times across multiple systems but never really dug my heels into beat it. In the past I’d always get as far as Meribia and either lose interest or get distracted.

By today’s standards there really isn’t much meat on the bone. It’s fairly linear, not much back tracking if at all and holds your hand throughout. Enemy encounters are frequent and dungeons are pretty straightforward. Boss battles are fairly easy, although I did have to do some minor grinding to beat the last boss. This is a traditional adventure. Protagonist sets off to save his love from a power hungry antagonist who wants to be come a god and take over the world. The ending was touching admittedly. My play though was near 18 hrs.

My rating is based on it’s retro merits and nostalgia goggles. “Back in the day” this would have been an exciting RPG adventure checking all those retro boxes. I can see why lunar is such a cult classic, It’s just good fun even after all these years.

Just finished Miles Morales. Movement through the city is a blast. Combat has some nice improvements when you aren't dodging projectiles every two seconds. The final boss was a little blah, and mission variety is a little lacking, but overall it was a fun short side game. Locking skills behind New Game + was a questionable decision since there is no incentive to replay the game.

Mario VS Rabbids Spark of Hope is okay. The issue is the side quests are straight up garbage 90% of the time. Don't get me started on the Axe one on world three. There are five worlds technically six but six is super short. I find Mario, Luigi and either Peach to be a great team. Their reaction based attacks along with Peach healing or shielding makes them a deadly force. All the heroes do well though. I really wish their spark skill tree was more special. I really wish they were different for each character. For example, with Mario I found myself not using it at all due to me using his skill each turn. Onto Bayonetta 3 (got it for cheap using the CE), Sackboy, Astroboy, Kena, Plagues Tales Requiem, Sonic Frontiers(got it for cheap) or Gotham Knights(got it for cheap locally Facebook). 100% Mario Vs Rabbids takes 30 hours max level is also 30.

God of War Ascension
8/10
My 3rd time replaying it as I prepare for Ragnarok and it’s just good old fashioned Kratos raging at his finest. Well maybe not finest since the controls and framerate on PS3 have kinda aged like milk. But it was nice to go back to the roots a bit to see Kratos starting to take out his vengeance starting here in chronological order with the Furies. The final boss I forgot had it feel reminiscent to the very first God of War fight too on the boat. Good times. Next stop Chains of Olympus!

God of War: Chains of Olympus
7/10
Another one bites the dust. Short, sweet and to the point. How I like it when I’m speed running! This one def aged though in regards to graphics but the performance is better than Ascension at 60fps at 1080p in the remaster here. And you can definitely tell it was originally a PSP game first at its simplistic design and limited number of enemies on screen at once and lack of voice acting outside of CGI cutscenes. I also enjoyed the tale about Kratos’ daughter and Persephone and showcasing just the beginning of Kratos’ descent into madness. Next stop, the OG, God of War 2005.

Inside PS4

Amazing!

TalonJedi87 wrote:
Yes, knowing what is to come in GoW 3, Persephone's rant and exchange with Kratos (right before her boss battle) is super ironic/foreshadowing.

I just finished up Along Together on PlayStation VR. A pretty decent puzzle/platformer. Probably is aimed more at kids, I don't think it should take the average adult more than 2.5-3 hours to play through. One or two puzzles stumped me, the rest were a breeze. I actually might go back and go for the platinum trophy on this one before starting up BioShock 2 for ye olde game club.

Sifu wasn't for me. Great game I suppose but it wasn't for me. The concept of death and rebirth getting less health but more attack each cycle was interesting. The possible multiple endings for a no death run which I wasn't going to do and the systems in general made me question things. It is a short game beatable in a day.

The new Valkyrie DLC came out. Now I need to get a copy again if I want to play it.

Sonic Frontiers, my god the filler was annoying it got better. I also wasn't sure how to complete some side missions but learned you had to do them at night. The icon showing a moon wasn't enough as I wasn't 100% sure. The game is okay not great so far. Played 3 hours. Apparently 100% this is 30 hours and I might just do that. Mario Vs Rabbids all over again. Really wish side quests were better in these games. Might just go to Bayonetta 3 or try Gotham Knights, Sackboy or Kena.

Bonks Adventure - 7/10 via pocket.

I got this in the mail today. Threw it in the pocket to make sure it was working ok… sucked me in. Was playing it off and on throughout the afternoon. Was a fun platformer. I had no idea it was so short. It was also a bit on the easy side. Much easier than bonks adventure on the tg16. Bosses were super easy, I had so many extra guys at the end boss that I really played recklessly. Looked great in the pocket too.

Scorn - Do not play this unless you want to give it a shot. When you complete a Puzzle your response to beating it is more so "Well, that was dumb/annoying" and not "Wow! Great puzzle!" Puzzles are "brute force" with no clue what to do other than figure it out.

The game gives you no hints about anything. There is no lore, story, or anything. "Lore" implies there are documents to read or things to interact with. Nothing here. All you do is wander from place to place, pulling levers or finding dead ends and running away from the awful enemies. Apologists could argue "Well, your character has no idea what's going on, so you shouldn't either!" Even in the From Software games there are tutorials. Nothing here. Need to figure out what a button does? Pause menu. There is a "healing" station and an "ammo" station. In order to even use Weapon 2 (which looks like a pistol) you have to hit "X" to reload it in the first place after getting ammo. I got to 3-2 before realizing this. I did beat the entire game with no guide, but it gave no real satisfaction. The combat is awful and should be avoided at all costs and the only Boss is a Two-Phase boss and you can run out of ammo for it. Honestly, the combat made me quite angry with how bad it is. Like the whole game. Even the aesthetic isn't really that interesting as it's just a stolen art style. I can't imagine how anyone could like this game unless you also consume the smell of your own farts. Maybe Kojima fanboys might like this "art" garbage but that's about it.

I think I'm the only one here who's beat this, it seems?

Sonic Frontiers, my god the collectibles are to many in the second and third island. The first, fourth and fifth are bearable but I gave up on doing it in one go. The idea of going back to find how to get to just get a character piece seems insane (spent 10 minutes finding some) plus getting so many pieces is pointless since you only need a limited amount to progress in the story. If your seeking just getting to LVL 99 on all stats just fight all the easy enemies and fish. Finding Kokos in the world is insanely tedious if your looking to max out rings or speed so fish for them easy 16 levels are easy to achieve each fishing event. I always 100% my Sonic games but beating it is bearable. I am going to 100% this eventually. Unsure what to do now. Sonic Frontiers is $39 now at Gamestop but might trade in for $30.

Bayonetta 3, Gotham Knights, Sackboy, Kena, Astroboy or buy one of the four titles I want to play.

God of War 2005 8.5/10
So many fond memories for me here. I've now beaten this game over a dozen times in it's 17 year existence and while it's become rough around the edges control wise and has a fixed camera that hinders more than it helps at times, the story and soundtrack alone with memorable characters shines on thru any muck along the way. Next stop in the Kratos chronology, Ghost of Sparta!

God of War Ghost of Sparta 7.5/10

I blew through this one so quick I forgot how short it was. Probably shorter than the OG GoW 2005 but it was sweet while it lasted. I enjoyed the whole brotherly love side of Kratos even though they kicked each others butts a few times along the way. It also makes it’s due of the secret 2005 cutscene in the 2005 GoW you get when beating the game on god mode which is nice as they revolves an entire game around Kratos’ quest to find his lost brother. The final boss Thanatos was still a chump though. He’s got nothing on Hades. Next stop, God of War II ! (Which will probably take me a bit longer since it’s about 10-12 hours from what I recall)

Midnight Fight Express X1X/SX - 9/10
I played on both systems and it played about the same on both. Game is a bit of a mess in the story, not that it's bad or confusing, but it's just all over the place with some cool pop-culture nods like the MW2 No Russian mission or the Joker and more.
The music was great, but only if you like that style I suppose. Controls were good, just a fun beat-em-up style. It's on GP so I recommend giving it a go. There are 41 levels and most take around 5-8 mins or less and they promote replaying levels to get S ranks and perform certain challenges that only pop after beating the mission once. I think I'll keep playing it as it can be a pretty quick hitter of fun for short sessions.

Beat Wolf Among Us. After playing New Tales From The Borderlands and dealing with the Skate system and then playing Wolf Among Us by Telltale games I can tell the quality difference. The story for Telltale games are superior in many aspects. Going to play Wolf Among Us 2 in 2023 seems great. Onto Bayonetta 3 or Gotham Knights. Hoping this black friday Star Ocean and Valkyrie are super cheap especially since I just want to play the Valkyrie DLC update.

Gravel - 8/10
Rally inspired racing game, solid in a number of ways, controls, graphics, 5.1 sound. Weaker in some minor things - UI, repetitive announcer with some cheesy lines.
Certainly worth the $4 I paid for it.

God of War II 8.5/10
Another one bites the dust in my God of War replay crusdade! I forgot how much fun God of War II was but it doesn’t hold a candle to what comes next in God of War III but it was a nice precursor of what was to come.

Beat Mc Pixel. Just a short game where you do random things to survive. You basically are given several choices which may let you proceed further with you living. A very short but enjoyable game depending on your tastes. It isn't to bad as I love the Stickman series as well. Sometimes the options are truly questionable as well as the outcomes that occur. Playing Bayonetta 3 now. I didn't enjoy the intro but Chapter 1 is really helping me enjoy the game more. I am not liking the summoning system right now and my reflex's are terrible.

Kommie wrote:

I have it available on Cloud Xbox GamePass, but I got so far that the Cloud started being a problem that I couldn't play it further. I was slightly annoyed by the lack of Lore, but I think the purpose of the game is to drop you into an alien world and utilize your own resourcefulness.

I might give it another try at some point when I've finished studying for and passing my Network+ exam if it's still on the Cloud as Spectrum came out to my apartment and 22 other apartments in the complex to fix issues with connection... mine had to replace the cable and wall port. It's been find since.

As for my Last game I beat - I finished RE: VIIlage. Wow, what a story. I cannot wait for the next one to come out if there will be one.

Finished Project Nimbus: Code Mirai

I love fast paced mech games so this was a hit for me.

Pros: Very fast, plenty of different weapons and mission variety and pretty decent boss fights. As long as it has multi lock missiles, Im sold.
Very fun to play once you get the hang of it.

Cons: Unfortunately the graphics are weak. The scale when in battle is so small that you can barely see what youre fighting or locking on to. There is a first person cockpit camera that looked pretty neat but I didnt use it. The story is extremely convoluted.

7/10

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me on

I would really like to say the story has been the best in the series so far, but the game itself is just bugs galore. Cutscenes are crap because characters will just disappear and reappear and disappear and reappear repeatedly. Also I've had a cutscene where a character appeared in it for a second and even said a line, but that character shouldn't have been there at all because she died in a scene around 30 minutes prior.

The audio mixing sucks too, because on more than one part I'd hear the footsteps and voice of my friend's character despite her not being anywhere near me, but it'd sound like she was right next to me.

Another thing that sucks is the flow of the game sometimes. At one point I was walking down a dark hallway to look for a collectible thingy, but my friend had triggered something that made a cutscene play and suddenly I had warped back to where she was as if I had never left her side and when the cutscene ended we were put in a different scenario where I was no longer allowed to go back downstairs.

One other issue we had was the last chapter of the game kept freezing on us. We replayed it probably 5 times and then finally made the opposite decision than we were making previously and magically it worked and we could finish the scene and view the ending.

I think overall the game is a 7 or 8, but the state that they shipped it in drags it down to more like a 6. I'd suggest waiting for the game to get patched up before purchasing. Having said that, we finished the game and immediately started over after the end credits so we can each play from the other character's perspective. We ran into a couple more glitches like it repeatedly saying "the connection to your partner is weak, it may affect gameplay experience" even though there were no connection issues throughout the entire first playthrough.

Well beat Bayonetta 3 and bought Star Ocean and Dark Pictures. Bayonetta 3 has great combat but didn't like sone of the new systems. I was so used to doing TTTKK but the combos all changed which wasn't bad but don't like the "summoning system". Getting all the Bewitchments for each chapter seems like a chore and the unlockables seem more limited in number unlike 1 and 2. I don't like the introduction of a multiverse situation into the series and the new Viola character needed a larger role in my opinion. The previous one of characters were better used granted if you know the twist for the one of character in the first game it isn't as one of as the name implies. Beatable in about 15 hours with some side content done. Might 100% if but Bewitchements might be a hurdle to high for me to bother. Going to probably 100% this game or play Dark Pictures since it is only 5-10 hours long.

'Bayonetta 3' is next up for me after 'Sonic Frontiers.' It's a series I enjoy, but always feel like I should enjoy more given its stature in the gaming sphere.

I can't believe they just announced Bayonetta 4 too. They're just milk maiding this franchise at this point and yeah, screw it, I'm about it haha love me some Bayonetta!

TalonJedi87 wrote:
Reminds me of No More Heroes and their milking of the series. Lets be honest though, any company would keep releasing sequels if they were profitable. Deus Ex died sadly, but Call of Duty gets a yearly release now.

I don't think these franchises are milked. 'Bayonetta,' not including ports, has had three games the past 13 years. 'No More Heroes,' not including releases, has had four games in 15 years.

Poor Deus Ex. Stupid Square Enix.

Beat McPixel 3 highly recommend if you find the first game humorous and it isn't that expensive and long. Thought I could find McPixel 2 for sale but the game has a moment explaining the skip to three. Seems a bit odd to me.

8 games in my backlog now. Trying to 100% Bayonetta 3, need to grind for the super expensive ticket and get all the bewitchments. You can go to chapter select if you want to grind for money quick so 4k a minute just switch to casual. Issue is doing that 200+ times is a chore. Could try to get more Bewitchments and cut that down but I think I am done possibly. Some of the bewitchments are difficult to get.

God of War III Remastered via 9.5/10
Still probably my favorite game in the OG GOW series. From the gorgeous set pieces to the voice acting and adrenaline filled action sequences the whole game feels like a non stop ride at Disney land that I don’t want to end. Next stop, God of War 2018! Almost time for the Ragnarok!

Charon's Staircase - Xbox One

I must've been the only one that preordered it in my area because they didn't get preorders on release date at Gamestop. I finally got the call to pick it up yesterday (11/23). I went ahead and played it all night... I think this is the first time I've played a game straight out of release date (or as close to anyways).

I mostly enjoyed the story, but the graphics were also likeable for me. I'm not big on FPS type games w/ controllers because I get a better handle on those reticles with a mouse. This game isn't a FPS, but more First Person point and click horror with puzzle solving and lore.

The other issue I had with the whole reticle thing besides the sensitivity did not help smooth things is that they could have made that reticle stand out more on the screen because sometimes when it's supposed to change to a different symbol as indication for an action, you don't always see it. I've died several times because of these issues.

I had a couple of harmless jump scares through the beginning. Overall, I found it to be a good game and storyline but I felt it really only is good for a single playthrough regardless you get those achievements or not.

Marvel Spider-man via remote play on steam deck - 8/10

I know I’m late to the party but this was such a well put together and super fun game. The story was top notch and looked amazing. They’re so much to love about this game. My biggest gripe, is the webslinging feels clumsy. I never really got proficient at it. Any chases or timed challenges really irked me.

You really had to get the hang of point launches for it all to come together. Without those you lose too much speed.

Orlandu wrote:

I agree. Just navigating the city, point launches weren’t so bad. Where it really broke down for me, as I mentioned, chases or timed challenges. I just couldn’t seem to “get it together” and often times I had to replay those sections. Especially in challenges where you had to follow a certain path within a certain time that caused me to abandon or avoid those challenges.

Were those the Screwball challenges? I ended up bailing on those because they just weren't fun. Pigeon hunting wasn't too bad once you learned you could just mash the catch button when close enough to hopefully get it to count even if the prompt disappears. I agree that he game is definitely at its best when you can just freestyle move without having to follow a specific path. Miles Morales is a lot nicer to control.

One of the screwball challenges - I think the last in the chain?- where you chase her- was very difficult.

There’s a screwball challenge in the DLC that’s even worse. I beat them all, but they were terrible.

Feeb wrote:

Beat Dark Pictures is enjoyable but like Bayonetta 3 the disappearing model glitches cause some issues. Still a good 6 hours which is shorter then previous titles.

ued222 wrote:


I was playing The Devil In Me with my friend last night (I assume that's the one you're talking about because I don't remember previous games in the Dark Pictures series having the disappearing models glitches like this one does) and there was a weird glitch where it gave me control over the character my friend was supposed to be playing as for a QTE, then it triggered the wrong cutscene for me and the proper cutscene for my friend, so we had two different outcomes here and I don't know which one the game actually "registered" as part of the story. What a mess this game is.

The Quarry - 7/10

I beat this in two sittings so I definitely enjoyed it. It kept me on the edge of my seat, but it doesn't hold a candle to either Until Dawn or House of Ashes. Laura is the only protagonist I cared about. The rest are either annoying or pretty one-dimensional and forgettable. Also, a lot of the dialogue choices felt kinda arbitrary and you collect all these clues and evidence but the game does a really poor job of showing how any of that impacts the ending. Speaking of which, the ending is abrupt and pretty lame. I remember the epic final scene in Until Dawn and how the epilogue does a wonderful job of tying everything together. Not the case with The Quarry. That's probably the most disappointing part of the entire experience. Still a fun ride. The folks at Supermassive are really great at creating these tension-filled moments and those are definitely the highlight of the entire experience.

@PizzaTheHutt That sucks. Guess I'll hold off on playing that one til it's patched.

Heavyd814life wrote:

Im intrigued by this but it really sounds like I should wait for it to hit PS+ Extra

@kevolones It's cheap now if you decide not to wait. My friend and I each just bought it on sale for $20 at Best Buy.

Beat Dead Space again. After playing it in the 360 and playing it on keyboard and mouse I learned I aim better with a mouse cleared the asteroid section first run compared to struggling on consoles. I still found some parts annoying and being stuck in a room while waiting for dialogue to pass is annoying since I knew what the plot was. Beat Astroboy as I almost finished the game I find the motion control sections like the sling shot and other parts annoying but the platforming is enjoyable. Got Sackboy and Star Ocean left now. Valkyrie DLC adds no story so I might avoid a rebuy and Resident Evil Gold Edition DLC might not worth rebuying for. Castilio Protocol and Front Mission remake are up next but I might cancel Front Mission. Waiting for reviews on Castilio.

Assuming I can find a cheap copy of Dead Space 2 I will get that. Disliking Star Ocean map somewhat but will see how it goes. I also hate finding Duma Points.

The Chant - 7.5/10

Solid AA horror game. The main character, Jess, goes to a seemingly peaceful island for a spiritual retreat and to reconnect with a childhood friend when things get really weird and supernatural. There is some really cool environmental storytelling as lore documents and videos help you piece together what ends up being a pretty disturbing mystery. I played on the highest difficulty so combat was challenging and intense for the most part. It's a little clunky, but you get used to it. Jess isn't a fighter or someone used to violence and the devs do a good job of making you feel a little vulnerable. It's got a very solid Resident Evil-style survival horror vibe to it where you have to be resourceful/adaptable. You create makeshift weapons, use traps, dodge attacks, distract some enemies, avoid other enemies etc. There are a lot of different ways to approach enemy encounters.

One of the only real issues I had is that the game becomes a bit too predictable towards the end. The novelty of the freaky enemies and psychic horror stuff wears off a bit and the environments become a bit samey. This isn't a high-budget game so I really didn't mind this too much, but I think it's worth bringing up. The voice acting is really good (Jess and Hannah in particular) and the writing is also really solid, but the story doesn't escalate as well as it could have. The ending I got - there are 3 endings - sets things up for a sequel, so unfortunately it doesn't feel like a complete experience and a lot of questions are left unanswered.

All that said, I enjoyed this! It's definitely a game I'd recommend to fans of the genre.

God of War 2018 9.5/10
I adored replaying this again on the PS5 at a much deserved 60fps mode! It was smooth as butter. And of course everything else along with it right down to the iconic storytelling and voice acting and orchestrated score to really make you feel the weight of the journey at all times. I forgot how much the reinvigorated gameplay made the game feel that much more whole too. Now I am finally ready to tackle Ragnarok!

Sonic Frontiers

Overall, I really enjoyed this, though it did outstay its welcome. I think I finished with around 26 hours played, which is crazy for a Sonic game. By the third world I had stopped trying to get all the collectibles (though they aren't needed to progress, but it had been fun obtaining them), and by the last world I was doing just enough to advance the story. It's also annoying that you are forced to upgrade your speed and ring capacity one level at a time no matter how many Kocos you have. And while I was intrigued by the straightforward story the whole way through, the ending was anticlimactic, at least from a gameplay perspective. Throughout, the major annoyance was the draw-distance for the platforms, pads, etc. and pop-in. It's time to fully leave last-gen behind. It's holding this gen back.

So while 'Frontiers' can be addicting and fun, it has some glaring issues. The devs already said this is a new basis for future games, so I expect the next game to be better. But go back to the previous voice actors, please!

TalonJedi87 wrote:

Does this get faster? I just started playing this but the first hour seemed slow. I'm used to the original trilogy being non-stop action (besides the occasional pace slowing for some puzzles).

Its "slow" compared to the originals. Id say these new games are more focused on telling the story and building the characters.

I do miss the old style God of War. It was fast paced while telling a decent story. But the new ones are damn nice too.

God of War III is still my #1 draft pick. That game is an entire Disney land / Islands of Adventure roller coaster ride from start to finish with some epic set pieces.

Sackboy is extremely short if your speed running levels and getting minimum dream orbs to unlock the bosses. Coop levels are sadly not playable single player. I am unwilling to buy another controller to play them nor do I have someone to play them with right now. Sackboy is a collectible fest and not really something I enjoyed. It also has some use of motion controllers such as moving platforms. I am not enjoying Star Ocean but am planning on 100% Sackboy which shouldn't be to hard.

I was sort of interested in Sackboy but if its all collectibles then I can pass.

**kevolones wrote:
It isn't all collectibles. It is sadly mostly collectibles. You can breeze through the story and get a limited number of dreamer orbs to get to unlock the bosses. The prize and ace icon don't do anything I know of yet minus prize showing you got the costume pieces plus since I lack PS+ to play online nor do I think anyone is playing this old game I can't 100% it.

Honestly worth a rent not a buy easy 8 hours for a playthrough with all collectibles unsure heard 30 hours.

Nioh 2 working on dlc

I finished up BioShock 2 last night. I always call this the weakest in the trilogy, but it's still very much worth playing.
I'll check out the Minerva's Den DLC before I hop back into Horizon: Forbidden West.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I put so many hours on the Bioshock 2 multiplayer. It was disappointing that it was so short-lived. The community left in a hurry. I absolutely loved it. It came at a time in my life where everyone around me just wanted to play military shooters, and this was such a breath of fresh air. I could never get enough of freezing another player to shatter them with a shotgun blast.

incubus421 wrote:


I had forgotten about the multiplayer. It's not even included in the remaster.

I was skeptical about multiplayer in 'Bioshock' until playing it, and it really is great; so much fun.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Minerva’s Den is fantastic! One of my favorite pieces of story-driven DLC. Enjoy!

Super Metroid

Fun game. Holds up well. I felt like I was playing a GBA game.

Maybe it's just something about how I play, but this isn't the only Metroidvania game where I've gotten really lost at times, and had to wander the map looking for where to go.

Worth playing at least once.

Part of the ending was unexpected:

Pokémon alpha sapphire - 8/10

It’s Pokémon what more is there to say. I marked it down cause I thought it lacked variety regarding Pokémon. I thought it flowed really well and I didn’t feel like much grinding was needed. I pretty much powered through with my starter, Blazekin; lvl 69 when I finished. Total time from start to finish was approximately 16 Hours. I love the 3D in the 3ds versions but I’m a sucker for the 3D in general.

God of War Ragnarok: 7.5/10

I'm going to post everything behind a spoiler. Major spoilers here

I beat it at 21.5 Hours with no side content on story mode.

On all technical levels, it's a great game. Just the bad/not-so-great story drags it down so much.

The story feels a bit rushed just to get it out for Q4

Certainly nowhere near GotY for me.

nonamesleft wrote:

Getting lost is classic Metroid stuff. Its worse for me because I normally take breaks between my sessions so I often forget where I was supposed to go. I remember when I first played thru Super Metroid I was able to get in to the final area without the charge blast unlocked and I couldnt beat the last boss due to not having enough rockets. I think I had to restart the whole playthrough cause I couldnt figure out how to go back (if possible).

Got Gamepass for a $1 and beat Dead Space 2 and tried 3. Gave up on 3 due to the human enemies making it like a shooter. It seemed terrible after 30 minutes. Dead Space 2 on the other hand had new enemies which I didn't entirely care for. For example, the swarming kids made me require a new weapon other then the plasma cutter. I also didn't care for the bio bombers the kids and the stationary ones. The horror elements seemed entirely missing for me. The idea of going slowly insane and the plot seemed questionable. Not trying to spoil but the female character trusting and protecting the crazy person despite what occurred with her earlier makes seems unlikely since when you meet she doesn't seem to trusting. Also how did the he survive without help. Also disliked the amount of button mashing needed to get through the story. What I did enjoy was the new weapons but disliked the new suit systems.

Playing Star Ocean right now, I find the game more enjoyable after learning the systems. Still hate finding chests and finding Duma Points. I really should of upgraded scan earlier to make that easier. The combat is okay but I'm not finding the attacks that enjoyable but I believe based on the skill tree it will get better.

Halo 4 - 9/10

Glad I finally got around to playing H4. My son and I were huge halo fans when he was younger. I’ve also dived into some of the halo companion books… so I’m partial to the halo universe I guess. H4 story was amazing and 343 did a great job with their first release of the series. The final show down was weak sauce but that’s really my biggest gripe. Over all it was typical halo run and gun action and I loved every min of it.

Halo 4 had such a great story. Shame 5 had to dumb it down a bit and make things a little weird.

Just beat Star Ocean First Departure finally. Not a bad game but definitely rough and shows how much more polished and refined Star Ocean 2 was.

Beat Daymare 1998. Thought it was going to be a great Resident Evil like game but it wasn't. The magazine and ammo system is questionable. You basically have a quick reload and slow one. You load bullets into magazines which is tedious. Enemies aren't fun to battle due to the lack of variety. No upgrades for weapons. Only 4 weapons the standard handgun, shotgun, revolver or magnum if your a RE fan and machine gun. Pretty much only the shotgun and revolver are worth a damn but you need to use the handgun due to lack of ammo and choices. No melee weapons like a knife. Basically buy Resident Evil 2 or 3. It is 5 hours and gets worse overtime.

Might just see if Dead Space 3 is worth playing through. Hoping it gets better then back to Star Ocean.

Current plan
Beat Star Ocean
Buy and beat Valkyrie DLC, Resident Evil Village DLC. Crisis Core and Calisto Protocol.

I just finished up the Minerva's Den DLC for BioShock 2 Remastered. This lived up to the hype. Although a bit on the short side it was still really good. I've about had my fill of BioShock 2 for now though, so I'm not going to attempt the other DLC, which I don't even know what it is but nobody seems to talk about that one the way they do with Minerva's Den so there's probably nothing important in there.

Kommie wrote:

I feel like you maybe missed a bunch of the story somewhere along the way

(DEFINITELY NOBODY READ IF YOU HAVEN'T BEAT THE GAME)

Star Ocean the Divine Force is 28 hours long. I believe it is around 25-60. I have done no post game items and avoided synthesis somewhat due to the gatcha system. The combat improves as you unlock skills and new party members have 1000s of skill points to unlock said skills. There are a ton of quality of life issues. Equipment gets removed from party members leaving the party. I didn't care for some characters somewhat. The story is okay but has some issues here and there. Most NPCs aren't talkable to which isn't a negative but a bit odd. I didn't care for Duma and the open world is a bit empty until you reach the end where things aren't as open. The positives have to be the combat requiring actual thought and dodging. Some bosses hit like a brick and need actually strategy. The story is enjoyable and the games early hours are not the best at showing their better aspects.

There are some split decisions that may change the story heavily similar to Star Ocean 3 I believe. It may be worth playing twice to see what happens. The inn mechanic and food bonuses was a choice. I also liked the removal of the trophy system. Screw beating bosses at lvl 1 or without getting hit.

BJB wrote:

Ok so,

ued222 wrote:

FYI the equipment issue with it being removed is being addressed in its upcoming patch

Beat Dead Space 3. The objective markers aren't designed well for example finding parts just has it show where you drop off the parts. The upgrade system is a lot more complex in a bad way gate keeping you with specific resources. The combat is okay but I prefer Dead Space 1 then 2 then 3. I feel that each game while increasing the weapon count also toned down any horror. It also had an increase in button mashing and I felt the story made less sense as it went on. Going to finish off Valkyrie DLC. Then consider buying Calistio Protocol, Resident Evil Village Gold Edition or replaying or 100% Star Ocean. Hopefully Crisis Core and River City Girls 2 releases by the time I finish.

Valkyrie Elysium DLC adds no story but interesting combat segments. If you like the combat like I did and like using different setups you will enjoy the DLC, You don't need to amass items in order to play them but your unable to select difficulty. Seraphic Gate at least gives you one main story reward but by then you probably already 100% the main game minus the additional difficulties and the SSS all weapons. Going to 100% Star Ocean then await Crisis Core. I might get RE Village Gold or Calistio Protocol to tide me over.

Klonoa empire of dreams via Analogue pocket - 7/10

I’ve been playing this off and on for several months. Glad to finally see the credits roll. Klonoa has an interesting take on puzzle platforming. It’s a fairly easy game in general like Kirby games. There were a few levels that were head scratchers and I had to look up sections where I apparently was missing something obvious to proceed. Bosses were mega easy and really lack any sort of challenge. I do wish they would have used the entire screen for cut scenes, rather than shrinking it down even smaller using only the upper portion of the screen. It’s a fun, colorful game using a fair amount of different methods to solve puzzles. I enjoyed it.

loztdogs wrote:
There is another championship cup or something as well. The story is obvious though but the gameplay is good. Be prepared to be timed in the races.

Beat Apeture Science super short and a special someone returns near the end. 30 minutes long. Decent experience but nothing ground breaking.

My backlog just exploded to seven games. Decided to preorder Dead Space.

Going to beat Star Ocean again and then play the Forespoken demo. After that Resident Evil Village DLC and then Capilso Protocol possibly if I buy it. Crisis Core and Dragon Quest Treasures are going to be long games. River City Girls 2 is coming out as well.

ued222 wrote:

I’ll have to check this out. I did the platinum and I also enjoyed the flow of combat and trying to keep that combo meter going. It’s a good game.

@ued222 i have dream champ tournament as well. From the back of the box it looks to be a bit more exciting.

Beat Resident Evil Village Shadows of Rose. 3 hours long and she has some extra abilities you may or may not enjoy. Spent $39.99 buying it on sale which is now a major regret. It is puzzle heavy and the added character of Chris to Mercenaries is enjoyable but more spray and pray to my liking. I prefer Ethan's more shotgun or sniper rifle approach as it usually one or two shots enemies. After playing the Dead Space series I find it hard to come back to Village. The new characters are different and assuming it goes on sale $19.99 is way to steep for 5 hours of content in my opinion unless you didn't play the base game.

Forespoken demo was interesting. Not my cup of tea though. It has a lot of shooting aspects and is open world and those side quests are fetch quests.

Back to Star Ocean or maybe buy Calisto Protocol not sure. I don't feel like diving into Crisis Core quite yet. Plus River City Girls 2 is coming out.

Getting all these Ultimate weapons, armors and accessories without save scumming will take a while. Star Ocean really needed to change the crafting system doing this one by one and having Gatcha mechanics was an odd choice.

Sonic Frontiers - I haven't played any of the recent Sonic games but thought I would give this one a try. It seemed like it was going to be very repetitive at first but spaced out a bit it was an enjoyable game.

Just finished God of War Ragnarok. Kind of ho-hum. Pretty melodramatic and not too much fun to actually play. Hard to put it into words since it's very well done, but I get the sense that I was just along for the ride. NPCs were telling me how to solve puzzles before I even got a chance to spin the camera around. I get that Kratos the reformed pacifist is the new normal, but man do I miss brutally killing bosses. It is pretty funny to see him refuse to kill named bosses only to gruesomely slaughter everything else (decapitating, cutting in half from shoulder to hip, ripping a jaw off an enemy, etc). Kind of makes me sad that the series really has nowhere to go, but it was a good run.

Beat Crisis Core. 14 hours long if you avoid most missions. I don't feel like doing all the missions and having to talk to people three times in Chapter 6 to get all the missions was a pain. I used a missable guide so I wouldn't miss anything was a chore. The big issue with this game is the fact only certain materia are good. For example, hijump is probably the better attack materia besides costly punch, gill toss and mug which are late game which I am not willing to get. Tri materia are also the better materia until you get gravity. Combat is fine, I just hate grinding to max my stats for post game content. DMV random chance to level materia is also a pain. My slot 6 materia has never leveled in 14 hours. I repeat my slot 6 materia has never leveled up once in 14 hours. That is crazy bad luck.

I question some points in the plot as well. It repeats some points in FF7 such as the church and train somewhat. How does their training rooms work? There is a cutscene in two chapters making me question things. I feel the two added 1st classes have odd character quirks. Dreams and honor and quoting a book. Not to mention it contradicts Final Fantasy 7 several times with Hojo and Aerith. Either Aerith is lying which doesn't make much sense but for Hojo I guess it does.

Is it a bad game. No, is it a great game no. The post game content seems bad. The lottery materia leveling system is terrible to me. Yet another tedious method of 100% your materia and your character. I get you unlock a shop making it easier but leveling materia is a chore. Why couldn't it be linked to SP gain so you can just do that to level. No exp is shown but mentioned it exists. There are so many questionable design choices and the story copies some beats from FF7.

Maybe since I am trying to 100% Star Ocean I will avoid 100% Crisis Core for now. I am going to 100% Resident Evil Village Mercs then 100% Star Ocean then Crisis Core assuming I don't give up. I do have River City Girls 2 but considering my next game is Dead Space Remake I have time.

I loved crisis core on the psp. Such a great game.

loztdogs wrote:
I played it on PSP and loved it but trying to 100% the game and after playing Final Fantasy 7 PS1 and understanding a bit more about Hojo and Aerith they made some changes for example, Aerith claimed she meet Zack while she was selling flowers but in this they recreate the church scene and Zack gets Aerith into selling flowers. I am sure there are more as well as those two. Not the biggest deal to me.

The issue with 100% it is you need to combine HP+s and potions at most 600 times. The grind is long and boring and all it is for is to beat Minerva and do some more difficult missions.

The issue is my backlog is five games and I don't see me buying anything until Dead Space Remake. Two of those games are a grind to 100%.

loztdogs wrote:

I think I'm gonna finally grit my way through FF7 once I'm done with Illusion of Gaia.

Gypsy wrote:

Good luck! Remake is head shoulders better than the original imo (much more engaging). But remake is only like a quarter of the original so there’s that.

My friend and I just beat Renegade Ops on Steam. A fairly short game at barely 4 or 5 hours, but it is a fun, fast paced, arcade twin-stick shooter. I recall winning this on Xbox Live Arcade from GamePro back in 2011 but I can't recall ever actually playing it before now.

Though it didn't bother me much since I'm not an achievement hunter anyway, I did find it weird that all of the achievements in the game are tied to the single player mode. I think I've had this in my Steam library for years (probably got it in a Humble Bundle) but wouldn't play it until I had the chance to do it in co-op.

Plague Tale Requiem - Great Story, game play was not as enjoyable as the first but that may have been because I had higher expectations.

mattyg00013 wrote:

I'm going through this right now. Game play does feel a bit clunky, especially in "combat."

100% Crisis Core. It takes 32 hours at least for me. If I skipped chests due to only needing the content in a few of them. It would have been faster.

Early game Jump, Heal, Fire and Thunder are the better skills. Jump spam costs 10 AP and generally lets you avoid most damage getting you the no damage bonus at the end.
Mid Game Death Jump, Mug, Gil Toss(used a few times costs you like 9-11% of you gil but does high damage depending) and whatever else you want
End Game Genji Set, Aerial Drain 100 Att Mug 100 Vit Curaga 100 Spr Giltoss 100 Mag Sp Master 999% HP and Costly Punch 999% HP.

Basically the only real hurdle after getting Costly Punch through Materia Fusion is Minerva. You can generally just tank using whatever SP gets drained with SP Master. Then Phoniex Down for raise while spamming Aerial Drain or Costly Punch. Assuming your willing to grind SP Master and spamming Gil Toss would be the easiest path and fastest path to victory.

I am planning on doing River City Girls 2 or Resident Evil Village Orders now. Star Ocean 100% is on the backburner due to the grind. Then buy Calisto Protcol and then my backlog is finally empty again.

DCGX wrote:
I couldn't stand the combat and gave up. It does get better as in you don't die in one hit but the "puzzles" generally have only one soluton.

I'm enjoying it for the story. I'm about halfway through.

I'll have to get Crisis Core at some point on sale. It's one of only two Final Fantasy games I've played/beaten.

Beat Superhot VR on my Quest 2. I needed to play something different. It is super short and given my limited space very difficult to complete. Issue was I had a difficult time dodging attacks and my movement was limited. Let me just say now I died a lot of times. Fast respawn times helped. May try Bonelab later.

I decided to buy Calisto Protocol and am now playing River City Girls 2. I find the combat to be good but getting enough money is proving tedious. Fighting respawning enemies for cash is annoying. I am thinking I should breeze through the story and hope the game rewards me with enough cash to afford most things for my first character. Switching afterwords. Mariana grapple play style sounds interesting.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

8/10

Great game. Reminded me a lot of Super Mario 3D World/Land in an isotopic style 2.5D platformer. Some pretty cool boss fights and a neat little soundtrack. I think Kirby games should stick to this format moving forward. 2D Kirby platforming is good. 2.5D Kirby platforming is great.

Horizon: Forbidden West on
I've already crowned it as my personal GotY for 2022 but now that I've seen the credits roll I'm making it official. As with the previous Horizon game, I've put nearly 70-ish hours into this and not once did I ever think to myself "when is this going to end?" like I would with any other game of this length. And I ain't even done, because again like the first game I plan to return and wrap up all side missions after taking a break to play something else.

The graphics are incredible and so is the audio. I'm glad I upgraded to a proper headset because the cheap old headphones I was using didn't do this game justice.

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island via the pocket. 7/10

Part of me wants to score this game a bit lower. It’s not a bad game by any means but by world 5, I was just feeling burnt out in the Yoshi formula. If I never have to hear baby Mario crying again it will be too soon.

Beat River City Girls 2. My god the backtracking and respawning enemies are a minor hassle. Was going to 100% the game but after fighting the same enemies so many times I am done. There is a new game+ but not dealing with that. The amount of money needed to buy all the accessories is a drag to get. It isn't the longest game spent around 11 hours.

Going to wait for my Calisto Protocol copy to come in and beat Resident Evil Village Additional Orders or 100% Star Ocean in the meantime. Dead Space is coming out on the 20th. Got 27 days.

ued222 wrote:

I want it but I still havent bought the 1rst one anyway. Hopefully it goes on sale now that there is a sequel.

kevolones wrote:
Both games are enjoyable. I prefer the first due to map size being a bit smaller and the glitches being lacking. I say I had to hard reset the game twice or thrice.

Finished Resident Evil Village Mercenaries Additional Orders. Okay my tier list has to be Chris, Burg, Lady, Ethan is dead last. Chris has better ranged weapons then the entire cast. Lady and Burg are fun to play due to melee but Lady is painfully slow but has healing aplenty. Burg has a similar issue but has more varied ranged options. Ethan on the other hand has decent powerful weapons like the Rifle, Shotgun and Magnum but limited ammo and slow fire rate make him one of the worst. Getting S with Burg and Lady are extremely easy. For Chris getting your S rank first run is possible. Having played as Ethan through the entire game I have so many regrets thinking he was better. Chris is so much better. I remember back in 2021 playing as Ethan through stages 10-15 times to get S rank.

Alright onto Protocol once it arrives in the mail then Star Ocean. Going to get Dead Space next.

I've been slowly going through Callisto Protocol in the early AM on my days off as it's rather not play it around my kid. I'm liking it a lot, once you get used to how the dodge mechanic works it's great. Also wearing headphones, Arctic 7x or something, they work on XsX, PS5. If you liked Dead Space a lot its great. I imagine a lot of the middling reviews it got were from people who don't like this genre in the first place.

Kommie wrote:

I got this for Christmas, and I'm enjoying it alright. Not my absolute favorite or anything but it's fun and when the combat flows together it's a good time. I'm at the start of the fourth chapter.

Haven't played Dead Space (definitely gonna try the remake).

Callisto Protocol is a fairly short game 9 hourish. I know I missed a bunch of collectibles based on trophiees. Two major issues is the lack of horror minus the opening scenes and some others. I believe having melee being a big focus cutdown on the horror aspect. The other major issue is stealth. Being stealthy is fine but given the ease of it in Chapter 6 it should have been done differently. It should have been a more tense moment versus it being a chore. Having to stomp enemies for items is also a chore. I know Dead Space did this but I at least could shoot them to make sure with my ammo count. Sure you see some enemies climbing into vents and other moments but the fact in Chapter 1 the prisoners say nothing or do very little seeing you strutting around is questionable. The blind enemies dying and not attracting more is odd. His stealth kills aren't stealthy at all. Weapons are bland and lacking sure you get the generic pistol, shotgun and assault rifle but I was hoping for something more. You do have the GRP or TK like in Dead Space and that thing is superior in some aspects such as being able to use it on functioning enemies but it is otherwise lacking. The button mashing is also bad. Triangle Triangle Triangle.

Going to try another playthrough possibly or move onto Star Ocean but that grind is getting to me. Plus I might buy Marvel Midnight Suns I guess.

ued222 wrote:

I just completed chapter 6, my guess is it doesn't alarm them because if it did, you'd be swarmed in no time.

Kommie wrote:
Ya, I get it from the gameplay perspective but maybe the kills should have been more silent in nature. Sorry, just a little bit iffy on this game. OSHA would fail this place so hard. They needed better gameplay. I think going from Resident Evil Village and Dead Space didn't help due to them being way better games.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

The first game surprised me, and I really liked it, so I was looking forward to 'Requiem.' I have to say though, I came away a disappointed.

'Requiem' looks great. It's very linear, but the environments and little world details are excellent. Facial animations could use work, but overall it's very pleasant. Motion blur is on by default, and is aggressive. I'm not personally a fan of motion blur, but when turned off, screen tearing is prevalent and camera movement is jerky. I opted to keep it on. The writing is very good, and the acting is great if a bit melodramatic, but that was true of the first game. One thing that still bothers me too much is that this game, like the first, takes place in France and everyone is French, but everyone has English accents and uses British vernacular. This drives me nuts. The score has gone up a notch, but there isn't much to listen to during gameplay. It makes sense with the stealth sections, but a more consistent design to tie scenes together would've been appreciated. The story, too, was good, if straightforward. Even the twist was advertised quite early, unfortunately.

That said, the game feels too long. One reason for this is much of the game is walking and talking. Movement speed is purposefully prohibited, and the further the game went on, the more it felt like an adventure game or walking sim. The rate of stealth and action sections seems much lower in 'Requiem' than the first game. The less frequency is not altogether terrible though, since both stealth and combat are very clunky. There's a handful of tools to use, but most just pause human enemies in their tracks for a little while. Ammo is very scarce even after upgrading pockets, but aiming is also slow. Most of the time, noting enemy paths and sneaking by worked best in stealth segments since they're pretty dumb anyway. You can't really fight back in combat either. I think there's a stealth knockout, I did the tutorial, but the prompt to initiate the action never came up for me throughout the whole game. If combat is engaged, it's possible to distract and fend off an enemy, but the process is too long because you're required to hold buttons rather then press them. As much as I would get bored during the walk 'n talks, I never really looked forward to the actual gameplay either.

So, here were are. A solid story with high production value that mostly improves on the first, but ultimately isn't as fun to play and which spends too much time doling out exposition during walking segments. I know this was up for Game of the Year, and I'm glad it was, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would going in. 'Requiem' is still on Game Pass, so for anyone with interest and a sub, I do recommend playing it there.

Sold my Oculus Quest 2 after beating Bonelab, Superhot and Re4. The experience with VR at least for me is subpar. Bonelab isn't great to me. Took forever trying to climb near the start and I somehow lost my pistol. Nearly had to restart the entire game but wasn't that far in. You can stash weapons on your body which I wish was explained better. I feel the lack of information nearly screwed me. I didn't know I could open the orbs at first but learned I could open them later. A lot of tutorials are a little bit to late to me. If you want a good VR experience with guns try Robo Recall or another game. I also sold my PSVR and won't be getting a PSVR 2. Bonelab is more for experienced players in my opinion.

Back to Star Ocean or High on Life forgot I got that free with Gamepass and might as well give it a shot. So High on Life 100% Star Ocean then Midnight Suns then Dead Space. Might try Fire Emblem Engage.

Giving up on High on Life, I dislike shooters sadly.

Back to Star Ocean then Midnight Suns.

The last of us via remote play -7/10

The story, voice acting, Joel, Ellie… all top notch. For me the game didn’t really start getting interesting until the university chapters. A lot of rinse and repeat going on in this game. I thought that David made a good antagonist reminiscent of the governor from the walking dead imo. The end was surprising, not like I thought it would end. Not sure if I really care enough about II to want to play it or not.

With all the hype it received back in the day I really expected to be blown away. Don’t get me wrong the presentation is the winner here hands down, but game play aspect’s we’re just meh.

100% Star Ocean max level is 255. Best gear mostly involves crafting which is random chance gatcha levels of fun or not fun at all. The post games bosses are fairly difficult and Angelic like with End of Time and might be from Valkyrie Profile but I never played it. Missing Freya though but I only paid 3 Star Ocean games 3 5 which I hated and six this one. Unsure where they came from without any proper back story. The big issues 100% this game is getting the best gear. Leveling is a breeze after you stack the right EXP boosts. I also learned that your allies do a lot more damage if you select the right combos. Apparently they won't do a random selection and do the presets you set. Make sure the entire string costs 5 or the first is 5 and your allies will do 80% more damage in battle. I have recently learned Devil May Cry 5 had DLC and my friend is coming in a week so I can play that.

So games to beat Devil May Cry 5 DLC then Midnight Suns or I will buy that before I play the DLC then Dead Space and a lull gaming wise.

Bayonetta 3

This game took a long time to come out, and in a recent episode of What Happend? by Matt McMuscles it's explained how development change. At one point the game was supposed to be open world, or at least much more open, before Nintendo had Platinum scale things down. I can see this, as much of the game is spent in larger areas. My guess is the scale back came from a lack of stuff to do in those areas...and that's still true.

It was a problem I had with 'Bayonetta 2' and it's still present here, but worse. These large areas are more like circles with collectibles, and not much else. I feel like I spent much of my 8-ish hour playtime (almost double that because the clock keeps ticking when you're in the menus or paused) not quite running fast enough around looking for collectibles and getting to the next open section. There are still corridors like the first two games too. My chief complaint among those was the game felt empty. The world is ending, again, but there's, like seven total characters. Sure, in '3' you get to see a few NPCs in a couple of areas, but they don't move and can't be interacted with. The whole game ends up feeling like these open areas, and it can be boring. Minor characters also take a big back seat. Rodin is in the opening cutscenes, but then only in his bar/shop and doesn't say anything. He plays no other role in the game, not even in cutscenes until the very, very end.

Blandness carries over to the cosmetics too. Sure, you can unlock any outfit the other Bayonettas wear, but none of them are great in my opinion. Each has a good amount of palette swaps, but there are no special outfits or Nintendo outfits this time around. There isn't even amiibo support! Maybe that should have been expected since 'Bayonetta 3' didn't get an amiibo like the first two, but it's still really disappointing.

The story is ridiculous and borderline nonsensical more so than the first two games. It "comes together" in the end, but who really cares. I always feel like the devs have all this plot and lore they make these games around, but don't bother sharing them anywhere in the game for some reason. One odd thing to note is that the sound mixing isn't great. I never use subtitles unless it's in a language I can't read/understand, but here, especially the main antagonist, their speech is almost impossible to understand. It's in English. Words can be made out. But it's softer and mumbled. I had to turn on subtitles. Jennifer Hale does a good job stepping in to voice Bayonetta. I barely noticed the difference, though there is a slight one.

Combat is mostly the same from past games, which is good, but infernal demons play a much larger role. You can "equip" three and when their meter is full, they battle as small kaiju. Throughout the game they also act as vehicle sections or to solve environmental puzzles. It's interesting, but they're all clumsy. The couple actual kaiju battles are slow as molasses. Either way, you end up leaning on the demons in battle because they can do more damage. However, without the aid of an item late in the game, Bayonetta must stand still while controlling them. Viola, the new playable character, can move around, but her demon uses her sword, so she's less powerful during this time. Viola in general is an okay addition, but you activate her Witch Time by blocking. Or maybe more like countering? Either way, it's hard to pull off the timing once again because of my other chief complaint of the series: how flashy it is. Yes, it is really, really easy to lose track of what's going on depending on the amount of enemies and what kind of enemies. Taller enemies force the camera higher, pushing Bayonetta or Viola to the bottom of the frame. Sparks and flash run amok, and trying to keep track of enemy attacks or signaled attacks can be difficult. But the bigger problem is that using the demons really slows down the flow of gameplay. It's the same, but it's different. To circle back around to enemies, overall design is excellent as usual, but the variety is lacking.

Then there's Jeanne's 'Elevator Action' inspired "stealth" missions, which aren't great. Round it out with suspect platforming, the previous irritations I had with the series and the lack of flow introduced by a greater implementation of the demons, and 'Bayonetta 3' is disappointing. It was already a series I wish I liked more than I did, but I'm really bummed.

Super Bomberman R

And now for something completely different. The story can be completed in one sitting, and while the cutscenes, art style and voice acting (yeah, in a Bomberman game) are way better than they have any right to be here, the campaign is lackluster. The maps are ok, but not great, and the odd isometric angle makes it tough to tell what lane you're in or where you are in general, especially in boss fights. The camera doesn't move up enough on larger maps and the HUD can block your view.

The amount of characters is impressive. Xbox's exclusive character is Master Chief (along with the Arbiter and a grunt), and he's voiced by the actor with many lines. There's Goeman, Castlevania, Metal Gear and various shooter franchise characters too. Plenty to keep those that play multiplayer busy. I got this free for Games with Gold years ago, but at $10-15 it's a fun time, particularly multiplayer.

A friend and I beat TMNT Shredder's Revenge on PS4 last night. I had bought it for her for Christmas so we could co-op it remotely with Share Play. I had beaten it on PC via GamePass over the Summer and this time it was even shorter than I remembered it being. As much as I like the beat-em-up genre, I really get bored of these games sometimes. It felt like I had just turned my brain off for 3 hours and just mashed the square button repeatedly until the credits rolled.

I've been slowly working towards beating Shredder's Revenge with all 7 characters and agree with @PizzaTheHutt that even though it's pretty good it starts to get tired after a while. I've only got Mike and Raph left and already started with Mike, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Tormented Souls - This was a really good survival horror game. I don't finish a lot of games in the genre. Prior to that, I beat Cuphead plus the Delicious Last Course DLC. Loved this game and one of my favorite indies now.

Slickriven wrote:

I got tired of it on my first playthru. Its cool but its just too easy. I also dont love these beat them up games as much as I used to for some reason

Well Devil May Cry 5 Verigl DLC doesn't change the story as you just play the main game as him. Unsure if he is just that much more overpowered or if my previous playthrough accelerated my completion time but it seemed super short. My previous playthroughs and without spoiling the story to much is difficult. I find Devil May Cry to be an enjoyable series and the introduction of three characters was interesting. Nero was brought into the series in 3 and new comer V has unique gameplay as he has familiars. Honestly unlike Bayonetta 3 where I hated Viola I found the three to be superior gameplay wise overall. It is a cheap game right now and well worth the price. I bought Chorus as I love Ace Combat like games and will be buying Midnight Suns after.

God of War Ragnarok

What a journey. What a harrowing tale. What an ending. I’m in a glass case of emotion!!! Seriously the writers of this game knew their stuff. Along with a fun sense of wanderlust and exciting adrenaline inducing combat, the story took unexpected turns and I respect the writing team for not just simply making a cookie cutter revenge/vengeance story. The only gripe I have is I really miss 15- 20 hour games. Even as chock full of awesome things to do God of War Rag offers, it breaches 50+ hours if you want to accomplish it all. That’s double the last title and about 4-5 times older GOW games. I guess if my backlog wasn’t so immense I wouldn’t complain, but alas, it’s a minor pet peeve at best. This game is a 9.8 to me regardless. Now onto the post game stuff before I go to Evil West and Bayonetta 3.

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