VideoGame_Discussion

I beat Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin earlier this week.

Have nearly 100%ed the main game - just missing one item drop (from the Iron Golem who only appears in the Nest of Evil section, which makes grinding for it even more obnoxious than the Dodo since you cant just go off screen and back, but you have to redo the whole section again).

It's still the best Metroidvania style game in the series by far, which makes it almost as good as Castlevania on the NES

@GOW Ragnarok: Wow. I expected around 25-30 hrs. Thats a lot of value for a single player game thats not a sandbox. Im at around 23 hours at the moment and Im loving it. There are enough sidequests but they dont feel annoying or boring so far. I actually love doing them as you dont have to go out of your way much to do them.

Yeah it’s really fun and fleshed out side quests so I do not mind them at all. I just wish my backlog wasn’t tremendous atm cause I’m probably gonna finish the post game stuff in Ragnarok which will probably take several more hours.

One of the Warriors kicked my ass like 5 times today. The one thats called The Feared. That was a tough fight

The Feared I had to circle back to until I got to level 7. He was the toughest so far. I have 1 more berserker fight left too I believe.

The one that does the high jump tracking AoE attack was cheesy. At least that’s the only one I remember spending lots of time with- the lock on made it awkward. Of course the last two optional fights were terrible.

kevolones wrote:

That thing was a nice surprise. I used it more than my others.

Pretty neat tie-in to the original mythology, too. Very clever idea to weaponize it.

My thoughts exactly. Soooo much better and useful than it was in the original games.

Super Mario World on Switch for da Game Club.
I wanted this finished weeks ago, but lost interest around halfway through and set it aside.

Beat Chorus. The big issue with the game is the dialogue. The ship combat and whisper skills are strengths. Missles, laser and chain gun are your weapons and your skills can either help you do damage, warp behind enemies or find items nearby. The biggest fault has to be most of the side quests being straight garbage then the dialogue which I heard Midnight Suns also does. Also be prepared to do a ton of timed barrel rolls. I probably did more barrel rolls in the game then use whispers. I also messed up buying this game on PSN when it was free on Gamepass. Live and learn.

Right now play Midnight Suns coming in Monday or Tuesday then Fire Emblem Engage or Dead Space.

Callisto Protocol 7/10- Took me a little over 12 hours, playing on Max Security (hardest setting). Honestly, save for one part a decent ways into the game, this was an overall fairly easy game. The way the core combat mechanics of the melee works, you just hold a direction and dodge or block, then strike back with counter/melee combos. You eventually get guns and they work about like you think, so nothing too out of the ordinary there. Had some choppiness in random sections, but runs pretty decently now with a couple of patches under its belt at mostly highest settings at 1440p - ray tracing definitely had to be turned off, but the game is gorgeous for the most part even without it, so not worth the performance hit in my opinion. Overall, I enjoyed it for what it was but Dead Space is still king of this hill. If you need something to play, pick it up in a few months when it goes on sale and maybe by then some story DLC will be out as well since the ending is a dangling carrot.

Happy Game on

This game was...something else. Nuthin' happy about it (in a good way, at least to me).

Mario and Rabbids Spark of Hope -

pretty disappointing. Way too reliant on RNG. Every enemy has some status abnormality to inflict. Enemies always respawning during battle. The first one had way more strategy to it, IIRC. Won't bother with DLC or the next game.

That’s unfortunate. I really enjoyed Kingdom Battle too. It sounds like it makes battle quite hectic and less strategic too with respawning enemies. Meh

Marvel Midnight Suns is terrible to me. Collectible fest in the abbey. RNG based card system with rerolls is fine but could be better. Honestly the multiple currency system reminds me of a F2P game and the daily training aspect to. I am truly wondering if this was meant to be a F2P game but they shifted gears. The tactics used aren't great either. Maybe if I increased the difficulty it would be better but the game boils down to attack, heal with hunter and survive. The story is fine but the dialogue is terrible. The maps are small and the combat system isn't great. Reinforcements constantly come in. I found the social network to be mostly useless and pointless to read. Circle to skip chat boxes.

I feel the biggest strength are the characters each having unique cards making them feel unique.

The weaknesses were the gameplay. I think making it more like X-Com in combat and decreasing the complexity and downright removing the abbey exploration would make it more streamlined and enjoyable. Movement only real helps you position for knockback and other cards as agro is usually fixed unless your cards change that.

My backlog is empty going to wait for Fire Emblem Engage then Dead Space or skip Fire Emblem.

Q1 is looking okay. I know I will love Dead Space, Kirby play it on Wii but will replay it since I loved it and Resident Evil 4.

Going to also possibly get the below games Q1.
Fire Emblem Engage
Risen
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake
Hogwarts Legacy
Wanted: Dead
Wild Hearts
Atomic Heart
Scars Above
Octopath Traveler II
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon
Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle

Last night I finished my run of hard mode level 1 cap on Portrait of Ruin.

Not that much different from Normal mode, though Charlotte is pretty much relegated to background use due to how much damage she takes. Jonathan can use the Ultimate Armor which makes any hit do only 10% of your max health. Because each hit only took off a fixed percent, I also avoided the Max HP Up powerups so that healing items (which restore a set amount, not a percentage) would be more effective.

I did really like the subtle changes to some of the enemies, though most of them are identical.

Bugsnax 3/10
Pretty awful, beat b/c it was on GP. Surely not aimed at a gamer in his 40s, but then again I'm not sure who this really should be aimed at.

Slickriven wrote:

I cannot fathom this slander.

Bunger!

Slickriven wrote:

I just tried playing this the other day. The total opposite of my kind of game.

Kommie wrote:

Bunger was about the only solid thing in the whole game!?!?

Just finished The Quarry on Friday the 13th. Pretty fun timing on a pretty fun game. The characters start off pretty unlikable but they really grow on you as the game goes on. Lots of nice quality of life features including auto-win QTEs. Only one of my characters died along the way, which was a lot better than my run of Until Dawn. On a technical side the game is a little janky. Facial animation looks unnatural, water just looks weird, subtitles kicked in for exactly one spoken line, and I got stuck in a walk animation. Walking is super slow, even with the speed up button pressed (L1 of all things). I know the game is designed to be replayed, but the autosave and inability to back up saves on PS5 makes testing paths unfeasible. Might be worth a replay if I ever dive into the PC version.

I finished Stray on PS5 this morning. Now started a new game just to get the one trophy for letting the cat sleep for 60 real time minutes.

The game did get slightly better the more you play, but overall I'm glad I didn't buy this (I likely wouldn't have felt like I got $30-$40 worth of enjoyment from it) and so after one week PlayStation+ Premium has already saved me some money.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

This is currently on Game Pass, and as a game I was interested in because of LEGO and good reviews, Game Pass is a good way to play it. I really like the change to a more traditional third-person perspective. It definitely makes the world feel more alive. Some lamented the lack of puzzles, and while that's true, there's a lot more simple environmental puzzles for Kyber bricks. Think of this to LEGO like 'Breath of the Wild' was to 'Zelda' with their shrines. Smaller, but way more. The Kyber bricks stand in for the red bricks of the previous games. There's 1200 of them, and they are used to level up core attributes and specific class attributes. It's a good system, and easy for kids to understand I imagine. Additional keys can be found which are used to activate special conditions like stud multipliers. These keys aren't specific to a condition, so they can be moved around depending on what is wanted/needed.

Game play is much like a third-person game, as mentioned, with light combat and shooting, vehicle sections and small puzzles. The presentation is outstanding, and while the voice work is great, there's a mumble mode like the first few LEGO games that can be turned on and off. I did come up against some glitches, like whenever camera control is taken away on Hoth, the game doesn't give it back until you maneuver your character around a lot. Speaking of, there are a lot of characters as expected (and DLC characters, of course). Unlike previous games, switching between characters is much more intuitive. "L" and "R" are used to switch among the party, the D-Pad for selecting other classes and characters from a small group in the upper left of the HUD, and all characters are in the menu.

This is a lengthy game too, and I only got about 500 Kyber bricks by the time I finished it. Yes, they skip over a few key moments from all three trilogies, but those moments were covered in past games, and others wouldn't be that fun to play. The game is easy, though, like, super easy, and I couldn't find any difficulty options.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. There's a lot to do and it's just plain fun. When the game goes on a deep enough sale, I'll probably buy it.

Steelrising - 7.5/10

Towards the end the lack of enemy variety was annoying and I kinda bum rushed to beat it. It's certainly an OK souls like Clone of sorts but not that hard. I probably won't bother with the platinum honestly.

Bayonetta 3 -7.5/10

As much as I enjoyed this 3rd installment I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t better than the last game. Although I did rather enjoy the final chapter and that one moment in the final boss fight where something cool happened that recalled the prior 2 games. The Kaiju like fights were neat at first but got repetitious towards the end and I’m not sure if it was just me but the controls felt a little too loosey goosey for my tastes this time around and not as buttoned up as the last 2 games. Some platforming sections got a little annoying when time wasn’t on your side. The music was great as always as was the high octane combat. I liked how you got to control various demons this time around too and incorporated them into the core gameplay mechanic. The story was all over the place and didn’t really hook me in until the very final chapter when I went OHHHHH so that’s what they were trying to convey! But again, who really plays Bayonetta games for its intricately woven story?

Alas it was a long wait and worth it for the most part. I look forward to future entries although I must say I wish they would change up the formula a bit or perhaps release future entries on better hardware like the successor to the Switch since it’s now a Nintendo exclusive. The frame drops in here we’re a bit too frequent for my liking.

I beat Fantasy Life (3DS) and the Origin Island DLC main quest.

The DLC adds a ton of post-game stuff, raises the level cap from 100 to 200, and is basically exactly what you would want out of a DLC pack if you enjoy the game and want more out of it.

Except it's already on the cart and the actual download is just a 2 block unlock thing. Apparently the Japanese version was released initially without DLC on the cart (the dlc was 2000 yen more), then a more expensive reprint came out later called Fantasy Life Link which includes it...

We got the compromise version. Regular price game but DLC locked on the cart. And it's $9 instead of 2000 yen.

With the eshop sunsetting in two months, try the game out and if you like it then get that dlc.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I agree with much of what you said. As far as story, a story doesn't have to be intricate as long as it's well told, but I don't feel like the story of this series has been well told the whole time. Bummer because there's something there story wise.

benstylus wrote:



I had bought this game back in 2014 specifically to play it online with some of my overseas gaming buddies. Couldn't do that though, because they region-locked the online servers. Even worse was that if you had bought the DLC you could no longer play multiplayer with people that hadn't also bought it. Both of those were two very stupid decisions that I had no idea about until after the game had already been shipped on release day. I ultimately wound up giving the game to one of my nieces without even playing it myself but she ended up enjoying it so I guess it wasn't a total waste of money.

I finished Deliver Us The Moon this morning on PS5. It was...alright, I guess. Maybe a 7 outta 10.
I had read the first sentence of the game's description before deciding to download it and "Sci-fi thriller" was all I needed to see. For the remainder of my PS+ Premium subscription I should base all my download decisions just on the first sentence of a game's description.

It is a fairly short game (5 or 6 hours), no enemies to worry about except during one stealth part, besides that the only risk of dying is during sections where you have limited oxygen. There are puzzles to solve throughout the game and they're pretty simple for the most part, except for one maybe a little over halfway through the game that stumped me and I had to resort to looking for the solution on YouTube (judging by the comments I wasn't alone because they gave no explanation for what you were supposed to do there). The story is not bad, but I admit by the 3/4 mark I stopped caring and just wanted to finish the game.
Not a game that'd be high on my list of recommendations, but I didn't hate it.

The Chant - This was not good. At all.

Omno on
I can't really say I enjoyed this a whole lot, it was pretty bland overall. It reminds me a bit of Journey in that you're just going through these worlds for seemingly no reason. There are puzzles to solve along the way, but with the exception of one puzzle in particular (like the last game I beat, I had to resort to looking up a guide because this puzzle made no sense, and the puzzle is randomized so you still have to figure it out yourself) which nearly drove me to almost quitting the game, the rest are all basic crap you shouldn't have any trouble with. As for why you're doing any of this stuff? I couldn't tell ya. There's a story (barely), but if you even care enough to want to know about it you have to go to the pause menu to read it each time you unlock more of it and I didn't figure that out until I was halfway through the game and by that point I didn't care. The game is like 4 or 5 hours long, I did what was needed to reach the end credits and won't be going back for anything I missed. If you're a platinum trophy chaser I don't think this one would be very difficult to get.

@PizzaTheHutt I beat Omno on last year or maybe in '21 (it was on GP, so I didn't pay for it) and rather enjoyed it. It wasn't going to win any awards, but I clearly liked it more than you did. I think I maybe got the full 1k GS too or nearly all of Achievements.

Wreckfest 7/10
Cars are a bit too floaty at times and AI and just the nature/theme of the game can frustrate with the crashes and missed chances to win races, but overall it was enjoyable. It's been on GP for a long while and the % of folks who beat even 40% of the campaign is pretty low, it's just over 2% for beating the full campaign (all 5 championships) which I did.
I can see some people just enjoying the destruction derby events and/or slamming into other cars as it felt like classic Burnout Crash Mode with certain things, especially the Dorito shaped track.
I tended to focus on winning events, so having a big lead wiped out by being blindsided by a crossing car did become annoying at times.

Beat Fire Emblem Engage hopefully will get my copy of Dead Space and Forspoken soon. The issue with this game is power creep. The old characters after Chapter 10 are completely outclassed. Why they let a lvl 1 healer join in chapter 5 is beyond me. The story is somewhat predictable as I saw the one mysterious person being the linked to the main bad guy. The game is interesting but the chain attack system and everything else ruined it for me. I feel games need fix leveling not random gains. The story is okay but the gameplay is where it truly shines. The new engage system is an interesting addition. I didn't really care for the game support system and will be avoiding Fire Emblem in the future. 7/10 for me.

Evil West 8.5/10
This was the best current gen throwback to the Gears of War coop style games of that era. Graphics aren’t the greatest and framerate can be a bit choppy but other than that it tells a coherent tale has some charm and humor and is action up the butt from start to finish. It’s quite refreshing to play a linear based corridor like 3rd person action shooter with a heavy emphasis on in your face satisfying melee combat that packs a punch. We really need more games like this and Focus seems to know that and keeps delivering the goods to us on more than one occasion. Flying Wild Hog is no stranger to action shooters too I just hope sales on this game warrant more like it cause this was simply awesome.

Is it playable solo? I still want to try that at some point.

Yeah I played it mostly solo.

Kommie wrote:
There is Coop but it is optional from what I remember and unlocks further into the game.

Well done with Forspoken. I was going to beat it but the gameplay just got to me. I remember Infamous and the fun I had with that versus this makes me question it. I even played First Light, Second Son, 1 and 2 and Festival of Blood three times minus Festival of Blood which I beat twice. I feel it needed more polish. I found the dialogue in Chapter 2 to be somewhat questionable as well as the choices. It does get better just not much better but I didn't get past Chapter 4 so keep that in mind.

Getting Dead Space on Monday or Tuesday. Unsure why my copies are shipping on release day instead of earlier. Then my preorder of Hogwarts should arrive.

Vader Immortal: A Star Wars Tale

To begin with a quick rant, why, when a compilation or multiple episode game is released on disc, can't publisher combine said parts? I bought 'Vader Immortal' on disc, and it lists all three episodes separate. To answer my own question, it's laziness (or likely time/money), since you can't play all three episodes from the same menu. They appear as they were released digitally. It's cumbersome and annoying, and something I want to avoid when buying a complete game on disc.

Anyway, 'Vader Immortal' isn't categorized as a game since EA held the exclusive publishing rights at the time of its release, and as such many see it as more of an experience. Sure, ok, but it's still a game, just a very short one. You play a scrapper who gets caught in Vader's tractor beam because you're the key to the old world of Mustafar. Only you can activate the device to unlock the doors to find the thing that can bring Padme back. Sounds boring, but it's actually a well told story that expands the lore of Mustafar. You meet its people, train with Vader and feel like a Jedi, however brief the time is. And it is a short game. I think it took me around two hours. It went so quick that I had to wait after episode two for episode three to finishing copying off the disc (good time for 'Star Wars Pinball VR'!). The story is written by David S. Goyer, and it's well told. It's also well voiced and looks good on the aging PSVR1 hardware. Force powers work well and the few fight sequences there are are intense! Swinging a lightsaber is responsive and fun! Most characters still feel too small if you were actually in the room with them (a constant problem with VR), but Vader is imposing and stands over you.

It's not all great, though, and it mainly comes down to technical problems. For starters, unlike the Oculus version, there's no full locomotion; click turning and teleportation only, and that is a real bummer. Your droid companion, voiced by Maya Rudolph, is more annoying than funny. I had audio glitches throughout all three episodes too. Because this isn't a "game" you're on a strict linear path. There's no collectibles and barely anything is interactable outside of your ship's interior. In fact, the only trophies are for completing each episode and surviving in the dojo. At least there is a dojo, and it's slightly different in each episode. But while lightsaber fights can be intense and using force powers engaging, without true locomotion, it feels more like a ride than game. Which is how it was marketed.

That said, I really enjoyed it, and I think any Star Wars fan will also enjoy it. It's short, and the physical extras aren't anything to write home about, but it's fun!


Ryse: Son of Rome

As I still make my way through my backlog of missed Xbox One games, 'Ryse' was one that always intrigued me because Ancient Rome has always intrigued me (almost getting runover while walking on a sidewalk in Rome, not so much). Luckily it was a Games with Gold title at some point. And I have to say, I really enjoyed it.

You play fictional general Marius of Rome at the end of Nero's rule, mostly recanting your previous exploits while barbarians sack the city. But despite some real life figures, this game is very much in the fictional fantasy side. Gods play with humans, resurrection is common and real life figures are not reflective of their real life counterparts. That said, it's an engaging tale that is well written and well voiced. At times, you really feel like you're playing a Hollywood movie too.

But for all the pomp, the game is rather shallow. With few exceptions of short dead-ends, the path forward is very linear. Combat, while having it's positive spins, is barebones. Mostly slash away or break a defense, then use an execution which can regain health, focus, give extra XP etc. while fighting the same couple of CPU models, rinse repeat. The same goes for bosses. They each have one combo to block, strike when you gain an opening, rinse repeat. What's more, nowadays, the microtransactions for gold have been made free. So it's easy to download 100,000 coin and almost immediate level Marius all the way up. Then spam focus to stun enemies, slash, execute for more focus, repeat. Combat is flashy, and gruesome, but not difficult (though I heard legendary difficulty is a major step up).

Once the short campaign is over, unless hunting the rest of the collectibles sounds fun, there is multiplayer, but I couldn't get a match going. Also, there are glitched achievements. The final couple of achievements for beating the game still haven't unlocked for me, and the achievements that were unlocking as I was going had a delay to them.

For as cheap as a copy of the game is now, or if received via Games with Gold, it's a fun game to run through. A second playthrough? Probably not, but worth a first.

Signalis - 10/10

Play Signalis. It's great. So fudging good. Like a Mashup of Resident Evil and Silent Hill with a weird as fudge story.

It's like if A24 made a video game.

I'm gonna probably play it again.

So fudging good.

Kommie wrote:

Whoa! I played it for maybe 20 mins and it didn’t really grab my attention so I put it back on the shelf. I guess I’ll have to give it another shot.

It's more Silent Hill 2 and way less Resident Evil after thinking about it. Read all the documents. They're not long and most of the story telling is through documents.

The endings are determined in a very Silent Hill 2 like manner.

Definitely not for me then.... as I usually hate A24.

But I just checked a video and it looks pretty sick tbh

At no point during the ending does the game info dump you as to what actually happened. That's what I mean with the A24 reference.

Beat Dead Space Remake and it is enjoyable. Still haven't played Impossible mode or gotten the alternative ending and am missing some text and audio files. You no longer need to carry one power node with you but backtracking for security clearance doors and lockers is now a thing. The game is less linear and enemies can pop up while backtracking. Lights can flicker and other issues can occur. I personally don't care for some of the changes made. The weapons are similar or down right the same and you find them instead of purchase them. I find the dialogue to be worse. Hammond doesn't sound quite right and characters look different for better or worse. Traversal has changed as well with the addition of a Dead Space 2 added system of flight which is good. Probably going to play a new game for the alternative ending. Play impossible mode and use PS+ save scumming if it proves difficult. I also found enemy placement to be odd. As I played the OG again in December I find they spawn close to you and sometimes pincer attack you from both sides or move faster. Enemies take like 6-12 shots depending on your difficulty. Don't play beginner as it is way to easy. Try easy normal or hard. You should be able to fully upgrade your suit, stasis and 4 weapons by the end of your first playthrough on normal. Unsure if hard might change that as I still had 5 extra nodes from purchases.

Honestly, I think I prefer the original in some aspects. Playing it on the 360 I struggled with the asteroid portion but playing it on PC it was a breeze. I prefer more linear games with less pointless backtracking. Yes, I know I don't have to backtrack for everything but my survival horror playstyle doesn't let me without feeling some anxiety.

Alright so my current plan is replay this two more times or maybe once. Then play Spongebob Cosmic Shake. Then wait for Hogwart's Legacy.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm on
I should have finished this a week ago, but the game kinda struggled to hold my interest as I felt the story wasn't as good as the original game (I mean, that was a tough act to follow) and I felt even the voice acting for some characters was no good.
The story did improve by the third and final episode, but I felt like it was too little, too late. There is a bonus episode, but I'm going to have to watch a playthrough of it on YouTube because the only way to play it myself is if I buy it for $10, which I won't do because I played the rest of the game for free via PS+ Extra/Premium's Game Catalog.

Beat Spongebob Cosmic Shake about six hours long but fun. It is more linear with a ton of collectibles in the world. I.prefer this over battle. Tons of costumes to unlock and repititive.but fun gameplay. It is worth a playthrough but not much more.

Hi-Fi Rush

What a fun surprise this was! Others have said it, but this is just what Xbox needed. Others have also said it, but 'Hi-Fi Rush' feels like a Dreamcast/early Xbox game, and that's a good thing! The game is very colorful with good level design. The controls are tight (though I'm never a fan of jumping where you fall like a rock after hitting the jump apex). The game is a good length and has a reasonable amount of collectibles, but there's also some post-game activities. The writing is clever and the voice acting great. I liked having a constant beat as you play instead of music going in and out or a larger score always in the background. There's plenty of moves for both Chai and his companions, though I stop short of saying it's all great once the parry was introduced.

I'm not alone on this. The parry has been a sticking point for many. The timing is ridiculous, but also because of the flashiness of the combat (think Bayonetta). So much so that I never bothered to parry in combat, never unlocked/upgrading any parry related moves or chips and the only time I died was during forced enemy parry sections, including the tutorial! You can avoid these during combat by dodging when enemies are in their parry initiating state, and using your regular combos. But that's saying something, because the game on its default difficulty, which is what I played on, is pretty easy. But hitting the general beat in the first place was something I never really got the hang of.

The tutorials say to hit "on the beat," but don't specify down-beat or up-beat. I had a hard time syncing with the beat based on the visual cues in the levels but also the audio, and I couldn't find the beat assist option in the menus. I know there's a slight controller delay even with my TV in Game mode, but it's something I easily adapted to and anyone else never notices, so I don't think it's that. When getting graded at the end of combat sequences, I'd regularly get A's and S's for combos and time to complete, but C's and D's for the timing. So my overall scores for Tracks (levels) were always A's and mostly B's. It's frustrating because no matter how I thought I was hitting the beat, changing when I pressed a button, it was never totally correct. This was made more frustrating because when I initiate the beat with an attack and following that pattern, I'd nail the beat constantly, hence my high grades for combos. I don't know. Eventually I stopped paying attention.

But overall, this is a fantastic game to unwind with, hear some great tunes, thrash out some cool combos and just plain have fun with. I hope Xbox does more of these types of games. Smaller games that are really polished, that can be beaten in less than a week for more casual players. I'm sure Bethesda will keep doing what they do, but I like that Microsoft has encouraged their studios to do these smaller, more Game Pass "friendly" games. Otherwise, we'd never get games like 'Pentiment' or 'Hi-Fi Rush'. Check this game out!

Horizon Forbidden West Game got better as it went along, improved on the 1st game, enjoyed the story and the gameplay seemed more refined. 9/10

Kirby and the Forgotten Land Wasn’t sure at first about the Mario 3D World Style for Kirby but it won me over. As simplistic as Kirby seems, I am a Fan as I seem to want not only play them but beat them. Best Looking one yet. This one was Extra Special, it took months of playing Stages here and there with my little one and Today we beat the game together. It was wonderful to see her get better and not only tag along but aid me in defeating Boss, especially when she got in the final hit. Proud Dad Moments

She is not a gamer but likes spending time together, usually my football buddy on Sundays. 8/10 but if you have a little you want to be able to game with and enjoy the time together 10/10. Look forward to playing Kirby Star Allies next with her.

Kirby Star Allies is a ton of fun. I think your little co-pilot will really enjoy it.

Well Dead Space remake has 12 marker collectibles for the "ending". It was enjoyable playing a new game+ and playing impossible. Impossible is easier then I expected due to having as many saves as you want unlike Dead Space 2 and apparently weapons have changed slightly after playing my new game+ run. Second platinum on PS5 the other being ratchet. If you are unsure on impossible just try it. The difficulty is pretty much hard from what I can tell and if you die you die. Hoping Hogwarts is good else wise I will be in a gaming lull till Wanted Dead comes out and I have doubts on it. Atomic Heart, Kirby, Octopath, Scars Above and that Monster Hunter like game to. Well seven games to judge and possibly buy then Resident Evil 4 and System Shock in March.

Bayonetta

Game is insane. Story was non-sensical. Gameplay was decent. QTEs we’re not good. Looks dated obviously.

2nd one is much better I hear.

Bayonetta 2 is more instanity only with better timed over the top gameplay WTF moments IMO.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I didn't really care for the action gameplay as much and really just wanted to power through for the story. I dropped the difficulty down from Normal to Easy and it made the game way too easy, but I kept dying on Normal past Chapter 3.

Blood & Truth

I beat this in one go, and it took almost exactly five hours. What's essentially a game expanded from a demo in the VR Worlds collection, the story is typically London gangster fare. Think Guy Richie. You play an army bloke who comes home to find a rival gangster is trying to take over your family's operation after your father dies (he dies off screen during the opening credits via a line of dialogue). There's a shady organization behind the bad guy, and the CIA gets involved, but it's pretty straightforward, standard stuff. That said, it's written really well and the acting is excellent! The game, too, looks great, but the characters have that all-to-common look of being too small. Like 85% normal size with shorter shins. It's plagued VR since the beginning and I don't understand it. I always feel like a giant when next to other characters in VR.

I said in my review of 'Ryse: Son of Rome' that it feels like playing through a big Hollywood movie, and that goes double for 'Blood & Truth.' Airplanes fly over your head, explosions all around and slow-mo breaches. Running through apartment buildings while dodging fire from a helicopter before buildings fall. Chase sequences from multiple vehicles. The game can be really intense, in a good way. But I have to say, I was disappointed in the movement options. There's no full locomotion, ok, but even teleportation is neutered. You look at a spot and click to move there, maybe you can move to a spot side-to-side, but there no click turning (just head turn). Basically, the game feels like a light-gun game where you control when you move forward as very rarely you can move backwards. Miss something? Oh well, no stepping back. It feels extremely limiting at times, but I kind of get it. This game is extremely narrative driven, and the game wants you to continue moving forward.

You can carry two handguns (one on each hip) and two larger weapons (one over each shoulder) at the same time. For the most part, grabbing and holstering weapons works well. Ammo is kept on your chest, which you grab and make a real life reload action to reload. Reloading also works well, though under heavy fire, rushing to reload will cause problems. And yes, you can still reload if dual-wielding. For the most part the weapons feel good and are fun to use. I forgot to mention in my 'Vader' review that you could only see your hands, and it's off-putting. Same here. Just hands and floating holsters for the guns and ammo. It's still off-putting. I'm sure it's to save resources, but it's always odd to look down and see no body/feet. Back to the guns, they can be customized in your safehouse with better accessories and paints, and there's decent variety.

For the most part, shooting feels good. However, I had a hard time aiming down the sights, even with the crosshair, lining up a shot typically went above where I thought I was aiming. The green crosshair turns red when you're hitting your target, but some enemies just take way too much. Chase sequences are awful, with motorcyclists taking multiple clips to take down even if you're getting head shots. It makes no sense, and they were by far the hardest parts of the game because of it. I quickly resorted to shooting from the hip and did much better. I also came up against some glitches that still haven't been fixed.

After beating the game there are a slew of challenges and missions can be replayed for the massive amount of collectibles. It's a great game, not just a great VR game, that has its faults but even the glitches weren't enough to sour the overall fun. During sales like Black Friday, 'Blood & Truth' goes on sale for about $10, and that is well, well worth it. Anyone looking for an original, AAA VR game, this is as close to it as you can get from a non-port point of view. The ending leaves the story open for a sequel, and I really hope we get one on PSVR2.

Sun wrote:

This was me with Bayonetta 3. The story gets incredibly obscure in the 3rd game although the end of B3 makes me wonder where they’ll go next and if I even want to be a part of it anymore.

Gotham Knights

5.5/10

This is not the Batman game you're looking for. It's so broken in a lot of areas. If you're curious about playing it def play it with a buddy to ease the woes of all of its shortcomings. The game runs in a laggy 30fps mode with no 60fps option, the side missions minus the rogues gallery ones feel like busy work and are tedious to a fault and the traversal feels much to be desired even after unlocking fast travel. The story about the Court of Owls is it’s only saving grace as I feel bad because it has potential. The acting is solid and take its trying to tell is an interesting one yet it’s hindered and held back by its plethora of issues as stated above not to mention sluggish controls and lack of lock on function without fluid counter options like the Arkham series has makes this game a hard pass for most and I can see why now. I did rather enjoy some non-combat gameplay elements though such as solving crimes and the puzzles were creative at least. But yeah overall just play or replay the Arkham games for your Batman fix. Or wait for the Suicide Squad game developed by Rocksteady the OG’s of the Arkham games.

I just finished the story mode of Eagle Flight on . No regrets playing through the story at least, it was short and can be a pretty chill game to just fly around in and some of the objectives are fun, but there isn't enough to make me wanna come back to it. Also, I noticed cheaters on some of the leaderboards with times of 00:00.00 but I guess the game is old enough that Ubisoft just doesn't care.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

Ill get it when its super cheap maybe

Shining Force Resurrection of the dark dragon - 8/10 via analogue pocket.

This old school tactical turn based RPG has eluded me for years. On many occasion I’ve fired it up only to get maybe 1-2 hours into it. This is the first time I’ve played the gba version of shining force and for some reason or another stuck with it. Maybe simply due to accessibility. I love these grid based rpgs and SF is no slouch. I found it to be a fairly easy game up until the later 2/3 of the game. Once you begin the final leg of the adventure the difficulty seems to crank up exponentially. There’s no way to grind in SF other than to loose a battle. When you die you are sent back to the church of the nearest town with full health and you retain any stat gains from the previous battle. The penalty tho, you have to pay to revive fallen team members; which can get expensive. Perseverance is key. All in all was a great game with a bunch of weapon upgrades. Several team members are added to your party throughout the adventure giving you a wide variety of team configurations. Leveling up your main and support characters is frequent, giving a sense of accomplishment as you push through battles. Glad I finally got to see the credits roll on this one.

Cuphead 7/10

Game is difficult, more so to nail the jumps & dodges and recognizing the incoming attacks although a few bosses are just brutal. Beat it for Frank's GotM selection as otherwise I seriously doubt I would've put myself through that much anguish, especially across the last 8-9 days. I was tempted to give it a higher score b/c outside of the infuriating difficulty the mechanics were solid and the music was good. I guess some bosses were BS so that's a reason to lower the score and the story and justification for really any of the enemies wasn't there. I'm sure some folks can destroy this game with little effort, but I'm not one and I think I'm in the majority vs minority.

I loved Cuphead. Having said that the ideas of replaying it isn't an interest of mine. Might though for the dlc....

Kirby and the Forgotten Land: A game built around the "mouthful" gimmick of transforming Kirby into cars, traffic cones, and other items that I won't spoil while still retaining the core Kirby copy abilities. Starts a little slow but the level design gets more interesting as you go. You have to rescue Waddle Dees to fight the boss of a region. You find them hidden in stages and are awarded more by completing hidden stage goals. I strongly recommend only playing each stage once rather than replaying them to 100% the goals. This keeps the game fresh and constantly moving forward. There's a significant post-game world that is ultimately just a reskin of the main game. I dabbled in it a bit, but honestly am satisfied tapping out after the initial credit roll. Very fun game if you aren't a completionist, but might get a bit tedious if you are incapable of playing a game without a 100% clear.

Transference on . As someone always looking for VR horror games, I don't know how this one slipped through my radar undetected. While Resident Evil 7 is still the goat of VR horror games I've played, this just might be a runner-up, though technically it's more of a "thriller" I guess. There are a few jump scares but they're done well and not cheap like most VR games. I wish it was longer, I finished this in one sitting at about 2 hours I think, but now that I know the puzzle solutions I could probably rush through this in a little under one hour. Glad I got to play this, I found it buried in the Ubisoft+ Collection while browsing through the stuff offered in PS+ Extra/Premium section.

Beat Untitled Goose Game nice and short. Some of the challenges required me to check Youtube but most of them are easy enough to figure out should be a decent 3-4 hour game if you want to try it. Basically you play as a goose and mess with people the entire game. Will be skipping Wanted Dead and disliked Hogwart's Legacy after 2 or 3 hours in. So waiting for Atomic Heart on Gamepass and Wild Hearts PS5 then Kirby and Scars Above.

Im really hoping Wanted Dead ends up being a good game. It definitely has style so I could end up buying it later if its decent. Goose game looks very fun but rather expensive for what it is. Ill wait for a sale or PS Extra.

kevolones wrote:

It's got a 59 on Metacritic.....

Kommie wrote:

Its a dud then

kevolones wrote:
Sometimes I consider trying out games that have moderate to lower ratings, just to see how they are. I typically play games I'm interested in, without bothering with the score. But I'd hate to discard a potentially decent game solely based on non solid reviews.

nonamesleft wrote:

Maybe for cheap at some point. not at MSRP.

Kommie wrote:
I hear that. Definitely a fair point.

nonamesleft wrote:
You could rent Wanted Dead on steam like I did just to try it. Just refund the game within an hour. I am having it shipped to me for me to return it. Probably will arrive Thursday-Saturday. I think the issue was the dialogue, story and gameplay. The first cutscene can easily be skipped where they go over history but the guns do little damage forcing you to go up close. You die quickly at least on normal mode which is one of the two only options besides a more harder mode. Maybe the game gets better but from reviews it gets worse.

Lego: The Lord of the Rings

Crysis Remastered

Haven’t played this one since the 360 days. They remastered this well. The graphical and performance boosts really enhance the experience for a 15+ yr old title. It looked great in performance +RT 60fps mode too. I loved how it blended games like Far Cry and COD into a nice little package to do its own thing here. I also enjoyed the little military tale now with more aliens. I bought the trilogy so I’ll do 2 and 3 next.

Cysis 2 Remastered
7.5/10
The sequel , while more COD than Far Cry from the previous installment, it was pretty and polished enough and sounds pretty robust on a surround system. It's a little more linear than the previous game and that may be an issue for some, but I think it's just fine. And with all the flooded open world games nowadays, sometimes all that's needed is a straight path to victory in a focused shooter, even one that's dated as this with it's almost fresh coat of paint. Some technical issues I've encountered though such as action prompts appearing out of context as well as some frame drops here and there and inconsistencies within the audio mixing, sometimes the sound effect are too loud, while the dialogue and music is too soft. I'm also not a fan of a return to a silent protagonist here after having the main character Nomad speak in the previous game, but I think in Crysis 3 they have the main protagonist speak again, which I'm looking forward to.

Finished Bayonetta 2 .

Better than the original, but gameplay is still a bit boring. I’ll be curious to see if anything changes in #3 but doubt it.

Pinkman+ on
Since I stopped playing Animal Crossing a couple months ago I feel like I've been ignoring my Switch in favor of PS5, so I browsed my game library and there are so many games in there that I don't remember buying, and this was one of them.

What I thought I was getting out of this: one of those types of ridiculously hard 2D platformers like VVVVV with graphics that look like it belongs on Atari. The game's eShop description says "A minimalist platformer with maximum challenge."
What I got out of it: A 2D platformer with graphics that look like it belongs on Atari, with barely any of the challenge I was expecting and hoping for. Within the first 15 minutes I had played through the first 30 levels. I thought to myself "Alright, maybe these are the warmup levels", but the remaining 70 levels weren't too much harder.

I don't think I spent more than two or three minutes on any one level (and a lot were under one minute). This reminded me of when an average-skilled player tries making a level in Super Mario Maker and names it "99% impossible" just because it pushed their abilities to the limit when they had to beat it in order to upload it, when a more skilled player can beat it without breaking a sweat.

Fun fact: One thing that made the game a little too easy is how many checkpoints there are, and apparently they were added just for the console versions. I guess if you want the big boy challenge you have to buy it on Steam. That's ridiculous, just give the option to toggle them off in the console version. Also added for the console version is your character's jetpack that allows him to hover for a short distance, while in the PC version your character would fart to hover.

So what we learned from this is console gamers don't fart. Just those pc loving slobs.

Fire Emblem Engage

I've only dabbled in turn-based strategy RPGs. I played a lot of 'Zone of the Enders: Fist of Mars' on GBA when I was young, got about half-way through 'Front Mission' on SwanCrystal before getting stuck, and messed around in 'Faselei!' on the NGPC a bit. I have 'FE: Echoes' and 'Awakening' on the 3DS, and 'FE Three Houses' on Switch, but have never played them. They always intimidated me. Considering so many were proclaiming 'Engage' to be a good place for beginners to start (and the Devine Edition is really nice!), I thought I'd dip my toes in here.

On the one hand, yes, it's a good place. The different systems get introduced at a good clip, but they only give an explanation for each in 1 to 5 short text boxes. Honestly, I forgot about most of the systems. The Class system was an afterthought to me until about 2/3rds the way through the game. I didn't even look at inherited abilities and much else with the rings until before the final battle. I feel like the "beginner" tag is more from other people than the devs. I think the devs still assume people are familiar with the series at least a little bit. So I spent most of the game working things out myself, lots of trial and error, and it's rough at the beginning. Once I settled on my group, had/matched the Emblems with their best characters, and started to tweak each character, the game became, all the pun intended, more engaging. Battles were more fun, mixing weapons and classes became more fun, and I found myself having...fun. Once I got around the menus system. The menus, are not great. Bonds, etc. are behind the "reference" tab, and doing anything with a character (rings, weapons, items, classes, abilities) is behind the "inventory" tab. For all the systems in place, there isn't one to compare weapons. You can see the stats for each weapon on their own, but knowing which one is better than another isn't very clear. So many games have done this for so long, so it's frustrating.

But the most frustrating thing? The story.

I've complained about Japanese developed narratives before, but holy hell is it bad here. The story is nothing but sub-standard anime tropes and mundane, cliché stories. The writing is even worse. Just some of the worse writing I've seen. The voice actors try so hard, but they have nothing good to work with. Honestly, I almost put the game down because of it. Instead, I started skipping cutscenes. Even as I type this the ending cutscenes are playing, and I know they're inconsequential. I also skipped the conversations between characters outside of battle. They really don't say or add anything and became a waste of time. In fact, I'd forget about most characters until I was running around the post-battle areas (which are also not very useful outside of some resources).

FE veterans have complained about the step-back in 'Engage' both with the story and characters, and even having not played an FE game before, I totally get it. There's not much of real substance with the characters. On their own, they're simple anime stereotypes, and together they have nothing interesting to say to each other. There's talk of bonds all over the game, but those amount to nothing more than stats to increase. And I think the game knows it, because the screen constantly dims during longer cutscenes, docked and undocked. The presentation as a whole isn't anything special either. The playfields have simple geometry and texturing. It looks like a Wii game in a bad way. The rest of the art design is anime standard again. Fine, I suppose, but nothing is really sticking to me. The fully animated cutscenes, though, are really nice, and there's some good music in here. Even if the main theme is too close to the main 'Westworld' theme.

'Engage' can be a good game for beginners both of the 'Fire Emblem' series and turn-based strategy RPGs in general, I can see that. But in my opinion, skip the story, mess with combat related systems early on your own, and enjoy the otherwise deep strategy gameplay. I'll check out the other games at some point, but not any time soon.

Beat CHOO CHOO CHARLES. It is a horror game where you are chased by a spider that uses a train as body armor. I think the game took me two or three hours. It has an interesting narrative but wasn't worth the price. I tried Wild Hearts but found Monster Hunter to be a way better experience. I just dislike open world games to much. Atomic Heart got better but wasn't for me plus Russian elements didn't help. Hopefully the upcoming Kirby and Scar's Above prove to be more enjoyable to me. Bayonetta and Resident Evil 4 is coming out in March hopefully they prove to be superior.

8 Doors Arum’s Afterlife Adventure 6/10

This one's heavily influenced by Hollow Knight, though not nearly as long nor rich with lore and atmosphere. It was rather challenging at times and required some very strong precision and quick timing with some of the platforming. Lots of bosses/mini-bosses to fight but a limited color pallet of white, grey, black and red only. Not the worst Metroidvania I've ever played but not one I'd strongly recommend either. If you like the genre and are good at platforming and dodge-rolling to avoid boss fight damage, it was a 12+ hour run for me. The controls could've been better and the key-binding was a mess with the UI seemingly mislabeling the buttons in the assignment page to the X1 controller in my hands. Got this for free on Amazon (Twitch) Games when it was available a few months back.

Dead Space Remake - 9/10 still great.

Beat Kirby Return To Dreamland Deluxe, It is a short but enjoyable game. There are 120 challenges in Magoland the 20 hidden ones are really difficult and I am not doing them all. Ex Mode, True Arena and Mago Mode are increasingly more difficult. If you played it on the Wii it can be worth renting for Mago Mode. The mini games from Magoland not so much. Pretty much played Kirby and took days off work thinking it would last a while. I was wrong.

Waiting for Scars Above and then the long wait for Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon on the 17th. Might try that Poppy Playtime game in the meantime.

My friend and I beat KeyWe last night. It's a really fun co-op game, but occasional glitches made some levels more frustrating than they needed to be. We got gold rank on all but a handful of levels.

100% Kirby Deluxe. You don't need to do the extra 20 challenges thank god. The challenges room need to played to 100% story mode though which is easy. Onto Scars Above shipped today so I will get it Wednesday-Friday hopefully. After that March 17th for Bayonetta. Hopefully System Shock releases early March and isn't delayed again. Kickstarter really did a number on me.

After 30+ hours, finally finished Cathedral on . Hard game. Died 217 times. Finished with 96% item completion. I missed 13 out of 100 books which unlocks the last bottle.

Game scales terribly in terms of enemy damage you take. Bosses are also sponges.

Beat Circle of the Moon in 12h 40min on the DS lite given as a freebie from @bill

It’s a great game but was really a dog towards the end and I just wanted it to be over. I wanted to beat the battle arena but could only make it to room 15/17. I don’t have the rare drop armor items ideally needed to put me over the top and not willing to grind for them.

I did get all of the DSS cards except the ones that are rare drops in the battle arena.

Great game, but glad it’s over. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl again in a few years lol.

Anyone else beat it?

Next Up: Rebelstar: Tactical Command from the maker of X-com

I'm glad you're enjoying the DS. That thing had been sitting in my closet for a very long time.

Snappy wrote:

I beat the entire series Circle to Order on the DS. I don't mind the grind as I like feeling more powerful in those types of games. I even 100% the glossary for items and drops. Just equip the high luck items to boost drop rates.

Scars Above isn't to bad so far.

I recently got the platinum for the Castlevania advanced collection. I enjoyed most of them- I think CoM was my fave because of the old school feel.

Feeb wrote:

Nice! I think if I had played on a TV and with a controller it would have been an even better experience -- pulling off tight maneuvers/attacks in the more challenging areas can get pretty darn taxing on the hands and eyes on a handheld. (stating the obvious)

I played it on ps5. Definitely more enjoyable that way imo.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
9.5/10
I really enjoyed this title once I learned the combat better and settled in. It looked and ran great on my system and actually in performance mode its locked 60 helped me with the combat and I only noticed a few graphical things here and there. After Titanfall 1, 2 and this, Respawn has some top notch games under them, looking forward to Jedi: Survivor.
Only real cons for me were:
- The sliding sections got annoying and were a touch over used
- Why aren't there fast travel points? 2 planets in particular were pretty big and FT would've been great, they did shortcuts but there was still a lot of ground to cover and at times backtrack over
- Cal ran like a donkey - his animation when running just looked goofy, also Cere's model was a little odd looking

Fallen order map, level design and backtracking made me dock it to around a 7.5 or so. It’s great when it’s lightsaber battles and discovery but becomes very tedious with retreads and some pretty bad level design at points. That 3D map was usually a nightmare to use for navigation. I may have burned myself out on it though having platinum on ps4 and 5 mostly full / no auto pops.

I've never seen a good 3D map.

Worst map ever. I beat the game but still haven’t gotten the platinum, because I got lost finding a collectible and eventually just gave up.

Feeb wrote:

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

There are a few in the bottom of dathomir that are ridiculous to get to and then to find.

Yeah the map was not great, reminded me of Metroid Prime's but it was harder to move your camera around it and the decision to not fully hide the in-game background was dumb.

So far I'm at 100% on Ilum, Boganno and the Wookie planet. I only have a small section in Dathomere, at the bottom swamp, to find something and then a few things in Zeffo. Zeffo stinks b/c I missed things in both tombs and getting back into them is annoying and hard as heck to find via the map. I've also used guides at times to find things vs beating my head off of a wall. If I didn't enjoy the overall game this much I would've just walked away, but spending an hour or 2 to get the handful of remaining things seemed alright, plus I've cheated already if you will with looking things up.

Sun wrote:

There's a bundle on Fanatical right now with this. Did you like it? Can't really tell...

Kommie wrote:

I did enjoy it. It provided that old-school Metroidvania feel which is a genre I really enjoy (I think it caters to my OCD tendencies). While I don't need to 100% every game, I came close on this one, but they only tell you which general area the missing books are in and not the exact room. For $7.99, 30 hours was a steal. I did have use some YouTube videos to beat some of the bosses, but even then it's still an accomplishment given the difficulty.

If you do get the game, I'll give you a tip right now. Make sure you buy each armor upgrade at each of the towns. I did not do that and it made the game harder.

Sun wrote:

I'll probably grab it, there's a bundle of 3 games for $9.99 and it's one of them

Scars Above is short but enjoyable not worth $39.99 since it has no replay value but an easy platinum and a short playthrough 7-8 hours long. I found the repeating boss battles and lack of enemy variety to the biggest issue. I found the commentary on the world to be enjoyable but the story is messy to say the least. It has decent elemental weapons but is mostly a generic FPS with some gimmicks included. I highly recommended just renting the game at most. Now the long wait till March 17th for Bayonetta which I might hate.

Crysis 3 remastered
Not a bad remaster visually. Probably the best looking in the remastered trilogy IMO. The gameplay though screams Call of Duty for the most part. This came out around 2013 when COD was still the hot ticket so I guess that’s why they wanted to cut/paste the formula here with trying to retain the Crysis motif of having an alien power suit and being able to use its various functions like armor and stealth while blowing the crap out of stuff tenfold. I still enjoyed it thoug for what it was. A short and sweet high octane FPS with some cool suit features and upgrades. -7/10

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

Going from a game like 'Fire Emblem Engage' to 'Ishin!' really highlights the difference in narrative quality. Where 'Engage' was rote, cliché and downright bad, 'Ishin' is nuanced with questions about opening up 1800s Japan to the world, colonization and country loyalty while sprinkling in just enough personal conflict to invest in the characters. It's still a bit melodramatic, as this series tends to be, but I was "engaged" the whole time.

The game itself feels both new and familiar. The fighting styles help it stand apart from past games (oh the swords!), but the sub-stories are notably tamer here. I finished the game with almost 14% overall completion with not even 50% sub-story completion. There's still a bit of clunkiness and graphical holdover from the original PS3 release, and I made my opinion clear on the switch to Unreal Engine in the other thread, but all-in-all this is a great update to a great game. This only leaves me with 'Yakuza 6' to play/beat before the next entry.


Kirby's Epic Yarn

I haven't not played this game in years, but for some reason had a real desire to. I didn't own it anymore, and went back and forth on getting the 3DS or Wii version, but opted for the latter to see the excellent aesthetic graphics on the big screen. Yes, it's easy, and yes, it's short (I finished it with 88% completion before the final two levels unlock from beating the game), but it's just so cozy. Credit has to be given to the music for this. It's lively yet calm, and tucks the player in. My only real gripe is the forced use of the Wiimote only. Yes, it's needed for the occasional train section (not my favorite), but the Wiimote can make diagonals tougher than they need to be, especially when trying to swing around the levels or throw something at an enemy. Otherwise, what a little joy.

DCGX wrote:

Glad someone else feels the way I did about Engage. The story is awful and a huge step down from Three Houses. It's like a bad anime with terrible pacing, a boring story and completely forgettable characters. I only beat it about a month ago and I don't remember a single thing about it. How it managed to crack 80 on Metacritic is beyond me because even the gameplay isn't that great. Map design falls off a cliff later in the game and the novelty of the engage system lost its appeal for me pretty early on.

Sorry for the random rant lol. Glad you enjoyed Ishin, though! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on 6.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I get 'Engage' to a certain extent, because when you're strategy is clicking and you're taking out enemies in one hit, it's very satisfying. Even then, though, outside of a couple interesting maps later on, the game relies too much on reinforcements for added challenge. Otherwise, yeah it's a pretty dull game. Not bad, but not that great. It's the story that drags everything down. From what I read, the Emblems/Rings were a way to celebrate the franchise, but really it's not much more than equipment in game. I think people just get excited for anything 'Fire Emblem,' but they release regularly outside of Japan now that that isn't enough.

Will do! I don't know when I'll get to 'Yakuza 6.' Probably later this summer.

Hogwarts Legacy - 8.5/10

Just finished this and it was a blast! I've heard a few complaints about performance, but it's very solid on the PS5. Played it on Hard in performance mode and it was smooth for the most part. A few hiccups here and there and I had the game crash on me 2-3 times, but nothing major. It took me about 55 hours to complete (did a huge chunk of the side content). I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and this game is a dream come true in many ways, but I think my connection to the world (top tier world building here, btw) made it easy for me to overlook its flaws.

So the game suffers from the same issue many open-world games do in that it becomes pretty repetitive. Exploration in the last third of the game felt like a bit of a chore and once I hit the 45-hour mark, I started focusing on the side quests and main story to wrap things up. The loot system is...straight trash. No other way to put it. It's really bad. And it's such a shame too because you've got caves and hidden areas to explore around the world, but the only thing you'll find is equipment that's always worse than what you already have. It got to a point where I just ignored these areas completely. Lockpicking is another thing that's pretty poorly thought out. No one wants to sit there and go through a lockpicking minigame 100 times. It should have just been automatic once you learn the lockpicking spell.

Now the good. As I mentioned earlier, the world-building here is truly fantastic! Traversal is kick ass and combat on Hard is a very nice challenge. Things get a bit too chaotic when you are facing 10+ enemies at once, but it's still a ton of fun putting spells together to take down foes. You can get into a flow in combat and it's an awesome feeling! Also, seeing the Room of Requirement brought to life is pretty damn awesome! It's basically a little base of operations where you can brew your own potions, upgrade equipment, grow herbs and plants, and manage a pet sanctuary for any animals you find/rescue as you travel the world. It's all completely optional, but it's a wonderful addition. The story isn't mindblowing, but it's very solid and the voice work, especially for the female MC, is fantastic! The characters are great, the customization options are on point, and flying around on a broom and chaining spells in combat all feel really good. Props to the devs for nailing those aspects of the experience. I can't say enough good things about this game. It's far from perfect, but it's an absolute must-play for fans of the franchise. I've got a whole laundry list of things I'd like to see in a sequel so here's hoping we get one soon.

Nice review. I'm still playing it, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I know this doesn't help you at this point, but, in case anyone else ends up reading this and plays the game too: you actually can automatically skip the lockpicking minigames. When the minigame comes up, it tells you at the bottom of the screen that you can press square to auto-solve.

Heavyd814life wrote:

@Bleed_DukeBlue What difficulty are you playing it on? I didn’t see an option to auto solve and googling it now, it seems it’s only an option if you play on Story difficulty?

That makes sense. I'm playing it on Story. Sorry. I didn't realize it was specific to that difficulty level.
On really long games in which I'm mostly interested in the story and the atmosphere, I usually drop the difficulty so they don't take even longer.

Heavyd814life wrote:

Prodeus via Game Pass

It wasn't my intention to find the exact opposite of 'Kirby's Epic Yarn,' but I think I found it. An homage almost to a fault to the earliest 'Doom' and 'Quake' games, if this had come out after either of those series' second entries, it'd be totally understandable to assume 'Prodeus' was officially part of either. Which is to say, this is straight up an action shooter set in a hellish environment. What it goes for it nails, but that also means it could use better enemy variety and variety in the environments. Everything is gray and brown when not drenched in blood. The game tries to mix things up in the latter, albeit short, half, but it's not enough. Hellscapes and demonic imagery isn't really my thing, so I was getting tired of it.

Same with the arsenal. There are six categories of weapons, each with three options, and each of those three options in the category share the same ammo pool. Though I never really found myself without ammo, and in the late stages there are floor panels that regenerate your ammo automatically. There isn't any surprises here, though you're forced to buy a few weapons before the double jump and dash can be purchased. Both of which feel underpowered. Purchases are made with ore, which is found in each stage. The game is designed to be replayed over and over, so it's impossible to get everything in the first run. The overhead map is cool, but slow to navigate.

The game feels like it's unfinished. It more or less ends with a short cutscene and a brief text explanation of the ending. In the campaign menu, it looks like there will be more, but I don't think anything is announced. This is available physically too, so if that's the case, that sucks for collectors. Quick note on the menus, in most cases, scrolling up and down is only handled by the triggers, which doesn't work well. They too also feel like mid-90s 'Doom' and 'Quake,' but that isn't a good thing for navigation.

'Prodeus' is a quick game to finish, but it'll take a long time to fully complete. It's worth a run for fans of 'Doom' and 'Quake,' but with that in mind, it has its foot firmly planted in years past.

I enjoyed Prodeus but agree with most of @DCGX's points. It knows it wants to be an homage to early 90's fast paced shooters and largely pulls that off. Needing better weapons in later stages and thus needing to find the hidden ore to purchase them was pretty annoying. I generally didn't want to have to replay levels to find more. I also didn't like the over-use of 2 colors, early on most enemies shot red projectiles at you while also covering your screen and/or the arena in their same red blood. Later that flipped to blue but both cases made spotting incoming projectiles challenging at times, especially after melee'ng some foes or exploding them near by.

lol Ironic since they introduced blue in the stage environments later on too. Plus,

I just beat Super Mario Bros 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap via NSO this past month. Never played the GBA version of SMB3 until now, and never beat Minish Cap until now despite starting it several times.

Now starting up Octopath Traveler II and Ocarina of Time to finally give it a legit play through.

I am eyeing that Mario & Luigi GBA game on NSO too though. I hear it’s a great game but I’ve never played it. I dig Mario RPG on SNES so I’m sure I’d have a good time with it.

Far Cry 3 Classic Edition.
This was such a fun game, but that last mission was some real bullcrap. Good use of The Flight of the Valkyries, though.

Final fantasy 6 - 8/10 Still good, but definitely some nostalgiatardation going on.

Slain Back from Hell - 7/10 This was $1 recently in a Fanatical bundle with Valfaris. There was definitely some bullcrap checkpoints but the music slaps and Valfars is supposed to be way better. Will probably wait awhile before playing that though.

Kentucky Route Zero ??/10
It's hard to describe KR0 in terms of a game, I suppose it's a great example of games as art as some folks get it, some don't and I suspect more oscillate between the 2 options. Some scenes were beautiful - the bar-concert, visiting the Rum Colony, the effectual ending scene. Then others were boring, pointless or odd like the very long bar/play scene or the final interlude.
Parts made me sad, missing my dad who died ~8 years ago and other parts felt like I was just tapping A to bring up the next dialog, holding B to print it on screen faster, barely reading and repeating those two inputs.
The music and sound were top-notch and I should have used headphones as I'm sure I missed some of it. The sounds when you're 'on' the Zero were really good, plus the afore mentioned bar-concert song.
It's an experience for sure, but is it really a game? I started it b/c of the good 'press' it had, pushed myself to finish b/c it's leaving GP in a few days and enough things about it made me want to complete it, but the 'satisfaction' normally found in completing a game really wasn't there...

Beat the Resident Evil 4 Remake demo and got to say it was a decent experience. Stealth killing in the village to pickup more items without alerting the horde and trying to kill chainsaw guy was difficult. Weapons aren't quite as impactful but it is a decent time. Parry mechanics exist as well. Bayonetta on the other hand wasn't as much. Canceling my preorder and will wait for reviews.

ued222 wrote:

I haven't played RE4 in years, but went through both the Gamecube and Wii versions multiple times each. I also haven't played the RE2 or 3 remakes. I played the RE4 Series X demo, and Leon's movement felt wobbly to me. Aiming also felt pretty bad. I turned on snap aiming, and that still felt bad. Maybe it's just me?

The Callisto Protocol 7.5/10
I can kinda see why some people didn’t like this. If you directly compare it to Dead Space, you’re gonna have a bad time. It has Dead Space like elements sure like stomping on enemies and shooting tentacles but in most other regards it’s more of an in your face meaty action horror title with a heavy emphasis on dodging, countering and melee attacks over shooting off limbs. It does rely more on gunplay in the final boss fight though and one other before it. You also get a cool GRP force pull feature that allows you to toss enemies and projectiles around which was fun. I really loved the atmosphere here. It was eerie and the prison was haunting at times. The graphics were pretty gorgeous. Lighting was lush and shadows displayed realistic affects with the voice acting being pretty to notch for the most part. The framerate could have used some work though because at times there were too many stutters even on my VRR OLED display. And the controls felt a bit sluggish when aiming a weapon down the sights even when using auto aiming. Other than that this is a solid action horror title that people of the genre would enjoy albeit it’s a rather short romp. Only about 8-10 hours so I say wait for a price drop or get it on a sale. I’d say it is worth about $35-40. Not the asking $70. And do not play this on last gen consoles. It’s very rough around the edges. I tried the XB1 version and I do not recommend. At. All.

DCGX wrote:


I agree, something about the aiming does feel just a tad off. I am glad they gave the option for gyro aiming on PlayStation systems, but it just doesn't feel quite accurate, and it still feels off when I disable that and use the analog stick to aim. I'm hoping for a patch after release because there are definitely enough people complaining about it.

ued222 wrote:


is this any good? Snagged a copy for cheap. Did you also play it @brian9824 ?????

Signalis - Finished this with the "Memory" ending. Seems like it should have been the "Promise" ending, based on what I've read about the different endings. Looked up the secret ending (which requires a second playthrough) on YouTube. Probably won't be replaying this, but I liked it.

I feel like I got the wrong ending as well in Signalis but oh boy did I love that game! Got a physical copy on ps4 to replay at some point. Played first on Gamepass.

Yeah, I was going by what I've read about how to get the different endings:

https://gameranx.com/features/id/389940/article/si...

Other sites say similar to this. The "Memory" ending supposedly involves beating it fast, not taking too much damage or talking to NPCs, etc. I feel like I did the opposite of that. I definitely talked to every NPC I came across and beat it in about 12 hours. I have too much of a backlog for now, but I could see myself playing it again without getting bored. Interesting game and definitely recommended.

Same, took my time talked to everyone and got Memory. I did miss getting the Rifle gun though, with the smelling salts.

Kommie wrote:
Try the demo and form an opinion on that. Honestly, the issue was that synthesis is seriously broken and I felt the time staying on the first world is way to long like in Star Ocean 3 but worse. I say it is good or decent but not a must play game.

The game dragged a little bit, but it was fun. Synthesis can definitely break the game and sadly is a bit of a grind but overall I enjoyed it

Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart great experience for classic Ratchet Fans and show for early PS5 power and haptic feedback. 8/10 I personally didn't like the glitch or clank puzzles. Overall fun game!

DCGX wrote:
I got use to it after a while. Well unsure how to improve my ranking. Got to the village found the SMG after dropping all my items. The TMP is overpowered and well worth it. You even get to keep it after beating the demo but you have 50 rounds. Killing Chainsaw Guy and getting well over 10k pesos using stealth is possible.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I borrowed this for the library on PS5 and I'm currently on the 2nd to last chapter. It's been pretty fun so far. Playing with the 3D Pulse Headset has been awesome (though I'm still dealing with the common problem of audio being dropped here and there). I feel like the sluggish controls for movement and weapons was intentional to fit the atmosphere of the game and that sense of dread.

I'm hoping to play the Dead Space remake at some point, but I also have RE VII, REmake 2, REmake 3 and RE Village on the backlog, with RE4 coming up too lol.

Sun wrote:
You've got an awesome library, that it has video games.

nonamesleft wrote:


Have you checked your local library? I feel it should be pretty common by now. My local library in NY was lending out games since the N64/PS1 era. They have a decent selection of movies too.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:
I've been there a couple times, but didn't notice a video game section. I'll have to check again, since it has been awhile.

nonamesleft wrote:

I only occasionally browse what they have on the shelf. I primarily use their website, which is actually for the entire county's system, meaning they share all their materials between branches and transfer hold requests daily. So I just browse what they have for PS4 and PS5, usually sorting by release date, and put all the new games they get on hold (up to the allowed limit) that I'm interested in. So there's a hold queue, kinda like old school Netflix. Once I'm up, they send me an email and I have ~7 days to pick up.

New releases are usually a 7-day loan, then they become a 21-day loan after a period of time. If there is no hold request, they'll automatically renew what you have checked out.

They have games like Marvel's Midnight Sun, Dead Space remake, Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnorok. They get new stuff which is pretty awesome. Between them and PS+, I don't really need to buy a new games if I don't want to play on release day / week. The only games I have on preorder are Tears of the Kingdom and FFXVI.

I actually just got Hogwarts Legacy from them as well, so I'm hoping I can finish The Callisto Protocol tonight so I can play Hogwarts Legacy for the next couple of weeks. They also have no late fees, so you can usually hold the item you've checked out for a couple more weeks past the due date. They'll charge you the full purchase cost if not returned within 3.5 weeks or so after the due date, calling it a lost item.

Quake Remake
6/10
Without the nostalgia that I have for Doom from that era this was just alright, though I'm playing and enjoying less FPS games the past few years too. I lazily played via an X1 controller too, so maybe I would've enjoyed it more with KB/M.

I'm breaking the rules, but that's okay because rules are meant to be broken.

This is where I freaking wish I was posting that I had beaten Ratchet & Clank (PS3 HD Remaster of the PS2 original on PS+ Premium), but I think I'm ready to throw in the towel. I've enjoyed the challenge the game offers, but this final boss is just pissing me off, and it's not even really the boss's fault.

I replayed a bunch of previous stages to grind for the in-game currency so I could max out my health and get 8 orb thingies. Now I have very little of the currency left and that's a problem, because any time you die you will not get back any ammo you used on the boss and you'll have to repurchase it every time. I don't want to have to replay levels again and grind for the bolts, I did that already to be able to afford to upgrade my health. This has to be one of stupidest design choices and I really hope that isn't the case in other games in the series because this is the only one I've played so far. It has been a really fun game besides that.

I just beat Majora's Mask last month for the first time on N64.

Game- 6.5/10
Vibes- 10/10

I love Zelda games but this one was a slog to get through. I don't understand how anyone ever completed this game without a guide. The story and style of the whole thing was fantastic though. Amazing music, characters, and locations. Just the sheer lack of direction most of the time was infuriating. My least favorite Zelda game but still a Zelda game.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I just beat this today. Had to drop the difficulty down to easy to beat the last 2 bosses (the last Two-Head and the final boss). With the last Two-Head, I got into a situation where I didn't have enough ammo. Only until I dropped it down to easy was I able to beat it. I had issues with the final boss too until I dropped the difficulty to easy. I had played it on normal up until the end of the game.

I played Callisto on medium security (normal) until the bitter end and wish I dropped to down to minimal security. Those last 2 bosses blew chunks in regards to repetition and being very bullet/melee spongey.

I played normal the whole time in Callisto.... Never had an ammo problem. Wish I never got one of the guns though, it sucked and there was no way to store it away and therefore not pickup ammo for it.

I ran out of ammo on normal in the final boss fight so I just kept throwing bombs and explosive enemies at him with my GRP. Pretty funny.

Boneraiser Minions - 8/10 ---- After 10 hours, I can say I beat this. It's fun, it gets the Vampire Survivors clone label which it is. But I find it more fun, more player interaction. You can't just stand in one spot and walk away. You need to run around to collect things and avoid damage. You basically Boner Raise minions who attack for you. Different classes and whatnot with different abilities but at the end of the day they're not that different for me to want to 100% of the Achievements. Maybe I'll play occasionally but just like rouge likes/lites re playing over and over again is something I usually am not fond of. It feels very samey. There is some card mini-game but I didn't bother with it.

Paw Patrol On A Roll. - it's a very simple game. Had to replay one level like 3 times cause I kept missing a Pup treat for 100%.

Metroid Prime Remastered

I beat this last week, but my delay in posting this kind of sums up my relationship with 'Prime' in general. For context, I've played a lot of 'Metroid II' back in the day, never getting anywhere, then played the 3DS remake, really loved it, then 'Dread,' which was disappointing but still good. So leading up to 'Prime,' I only ever played 'Samus II' and it left a real bad taste in my mouth. I bought a used Gamecube from EB in 2003 or 2004. It came with two free games of choice, with my choices being 'Smuggler's Run: Warzone" and the original 'Metroid Prime.' I tried the game out, but didn't get far. Once I started to trek back and forth, I lost interest, and patience, and stopped playing. Fast forward to the end of the Wii era and I have no Gamecube stuff anymore. I'm in a Gamestop and find a complete copy of 'Trilogy' (the steelbook run), which I get for less than $30. But beyond making sure the disc works, I never played it. Now, with 'Remastered' releasing with QOL changes and proper dual-analog, I thought this would be the perfect time to finally sit down and give the game the time it deserves. And...yeah, it's solid, but...

It's hard to play 'Prime' after 'Samus Returns' and 'Dread' for one simple reason: fast travel. Now, this is contentious for people with the 'Prime' trilogy, but for me, not soon after starting, Chozo Ruins began to feel like the comedy skit (think Benny Hill) where the camera is stationary on a hallway or area, and the characters enter and exit from various sides/doors yet continue to traverse the same small section over and over, getting nowhere. And the more I played, the more this stuck with me. Especially since leaving a room/area for more than a little causes all enemies to respawn.

The game became a war of attrition to me. I started losing patience, was getting frustrated, and the fun that exploring gives would be undermined by walking through the same areas and killing the same creatures for the umpteenth time. Eventually I started running passed everything unless I absolutely had to take them out. Maybe adding fast travel to the elevators would've broken the game. Maybe it would've taken too much time/work to implement. Maybe it's for posterity. I think the real reason is because the game would be too short with fast travel. While playing, I thought I had slogged a couple dozen hours, but the end stat screen (I finished with 91%) said I played exactly 11 hours. That just goes to show how little content there actually is in my opinion. (And yes, I used a guide towards the end to find the artifacts because I wanted the game to be over with).

Purists are going to hate on me for this, but as someone with no nostalgia for the Gamecube/Wii entries, and having only played the most recent releases which have a more modern design, traversal alone makes 'Prime' feel like it's stuck in the past. There's a really great game about exploration, both geographically and scientifically, in 'Prime.' I just don't have the desire to ever play it again.

My Friend Peppa Pig

I finished up WWE 2K23's Showcase mode. I don't see myself playing much more of this, I think I might mess around with a few of the other modes and then toss it on Craigslist next week.

Beat Garten of Banban, it was free and I figured I'd give it a shot since Resident Evil 4 is coming out soon. I suspect my copy will arrive Monday or Tuesday. To simply put it is terrible. Graphics, gameplay are just plain terrible. Unsure why my nephew recommended this game but he did and I instantly regret it.

Hobo Cat Adventures - 8/10

A Plague Tale: Requiem 8/10

It was great returning to this series again after a few years. I didn’t think it would net a sequel even though it was a great stand alone game but am glad to have experienced it until its bitter end. The sequel is just more of the same with more rat hordes and enemies to either stealthily sneak past or strategize how to take out with your limited arsenal of alchemist concoctions. You get a crossbow too for when things get really hairy and can upgrade your tool belt to expand on your gear making surviving and dealing with enemy encounters more manageable. The sequel felt a bit longer than the first game too. I think it took me almost 20ish hours to finish it. Overall if you’re looking for a good stealth game with action elements set during the dark ages with an emotionally driven narrative this will satiate your plague infested appetites. My only issues were performance wise with wonky frame dips and a cap out at 40fps with no performance mode options and sometimes the controls can stick a bit and are a tad too sensitive when turning and trying to navigate mild platforming sections. Numerous times I faced one direction to have the camera face slightly to the right or left and made me platform in a different direction causing me to be spotted by enemies.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - 6/10

Think of any game that tries to tell a story. Think of the most convoluted and nonsensical example of storytelling in a video game and I guarantee it isn't as bad as the story told in Stranger of Paradise. The story, the characters, the world-building, the dialogue...it's all so bad it's honestly kinda impressive. When the credits rolled and Tetsuya Nomura's name was the first to pop up I just couldn't stop laughing because of course the clown responsible for Kingdom Hearts is responsible for the trainwreck.

And the real kicker here is that the combat is actually really solid! Team Ninja nailed that aspect of the experience, but you can tell there were budget constraints because the environments are just corridors for the most part and kinda samey and graphically, it's not very impressive at all. I had to turn off HDR because it's just so poorly optimized even a year after the game launched. It's a 30-hour game, but after about 6-7 hours you've kinda seen enough. I really wish I had just played the demo because that vertical slice is really great, but the game doesn't evolve beyond that and becomes VERY repetitive. It's also a bit of a lootfest (it's even worse than the Nioh games) and it's poorly balanced because the trash mobs in every level are too easy even on Hard and then there is a massive spike in difficulty for the bosses. It's just not a well-rounded experience. The job system is quite good, though. A lot of variety and I just alternated between jobs to keep things from getting too stale.

All in all, it just isn't a great experience. There is definitely an audience for goofy action games, but just go play something like Vanquish or Bayonetta instead. At 30 hours, I have a really hard time recommending this to anyone who values their time.

Idk man, seems like they just decided to go full campy for it. FF XV looks just as dumb, if not more so cause it probably tries to take itself seriously but it just looks like a metrosexual dude bro adventure.

Got it Monday Resident Evil 4 took two days off but the game at least on Assisted since I wanted to try a Handgun Knife only run big mistake as I ran out of Handgun ammo even with using the case boosting handgun ammo drops only lasted a day and a half. Going to 100% this but not finding this as enjoyable as the OG. Maybe my tastes in games just changed heavily. Ashley has been changed greatly for better for the most part. Weapons are different with some new ones. I might just 100% this like Dead Space or give up on it if my Standard playthrough after reattempting my handgun/knife only run if it works out. Maybe going Handgun/Knife only ruined my enjoyment of the game though. Going to give at least 2 more playthroughs another Handgun/Knife attempt with my upgraded Handguns and buying that sweet Infinite Rocket Launcher for a no heal assisted playthrough.

Re 4 knife pistol run

Beat GBA games:

Rebelstar: Tactical Command - made by the guy who made X-com and somewhat of a simliar style but simplified. It was OK - A LOT of monotonous slow scrolling around multi-screen sized battlefields.. made it kind of a drag. Story was kind of cool, but left on a cliff-hanger and the intended sequel was never released. It would have been much better with QoL improvements to reduce all the slow manual scrolling around the large battlefields.

I'd still give it a 6.5/10

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance - quite a good game, very similar to SoTN. I quite enjoyed it... I found that the wind spell book + cross is a brutal combo that allows you to breeze through most screens mowing down enemies without a second thought. Dracula was kind of a let down, being super easy when leveraging all the tools the game makes available to you. WAY easier Dracula than Circle of the Moon, which for me is sort of a benchmark for a properly difficult boss. That said, the gameplay was fantastic. I loved the little bonus of collecting items to decorate your room lol. I got all three endings... the endings were pretty cool, and a cut above what I have come to expect.

9/10

Resident Evil 4 Remake is interesting after finishing my Knife Pistol run. 2 Million for Infinite Rocket Launcher which is OP ruined the game for me. Your ability to resell your upgraded weapons for 80-90% of their value didn't help. Really wish they gatekept that for S+ Professional run. Not much reason to get the other bonus weapons. Yes, you cannot get S+ with a new game+ but I don't see the point getting it. The game is enjoyable but I think it just has decreased replay value. Going to wait for Minecraft Legends depending on reviews or wait for Dead Island 2.

Stray 7/10

I thought this was a solid 5ish hour game and felt that even though it mostly encompasses what it feels like to be a feline some things felt more so constructed solely for progressing in the story like there’s one part which pretty much turn the cat into a dog by having them fetch and retrieve something but anyone who owns a kitty knows the majority of the time while they will run after toys and play with them they’ll as soon as swipe the object down a drain or off a cliff before returning it to you. Other than that I felt while the focus on a dystopian future was appreciated it was mostly forgettable in the end and was solely there to drive the game forward but on the other hand I would rather a story based game about being a cat vs a goat sim like game where there’s no direction other than to do anything you want. But perhaps if it was structured more like that untitled goose game with a clearer focus on small objectives of mischievous deeds it might have fared better.

No More Heroes III

I quite enjoyed the first two 'No More Heroes' on the Wii, and despite not playing either since near their respective releases, I still picked both up on Switch. I was looking forward to the third game especially after all the praise, but the technical shortcomings had me wait for a release on more powerful hardware. I used some Gamestop gift cards to get NMHIII at launch, but hadn't gotten around to it until now. After beating it, I have one question for all the reviews that praised this game: did you play a different game than I did?

Let's start with those technical details. The game runs well, a locked 60fps from what I can tell, and looks super sharp. That's not hard given the simple geometry, small world, and origins on Switch, but it's still nice to see. That said, whenever a scene or even camera position changes, the textures still take a second to form. It's distracting and confusing on hardware like the Series X. Character design is diverse for enemies, but in the open world there are literally two character models; a male and a female. That's it. For all the style this game oozes, it's incredibly bland at the same time.

Speaking of the open world, that's a generous description. There are five sections of the world connecting through loading screen via a tunnel you don't traverse, but aside from those few NPCs and couple of cars that wonder around, it's completely empty. Santa Destroy and Perfect World are at least pleasant to be in, but the others, especially the battle torn areas, are a chore. There are dead ends and invisible walls everywhere. Sometimes Travis can't even walk up a curb without jumping. The only thing to do in any of these areas is the occasional odd job for money (which are simple and boring) and the battle nodes that come in two flavors: waves of enemies and designated battles necessary to progress. When activating a node, you're transported to one of the few separate arena spots to fight. Nothing takes place in the world itself. Everything goes to a separate spot, even the odd jobs. On the overworld map, there are giant swatches of red that can't be access, but those never open up either. It's just inaccessible land to taunt you. I know the first game did this to a degree, but it was the Wii. It was understandable given the hardware and time of release. This isn't an excuse even for the Switch that has many bustling open world games. They should've either committed fully to the open world, or stuck to level progression like the second game. But this in between compromise just makes the game feel disjointed and incomplete.

Moving on to the story, admittedly never the most important thing in a NMH game, a little alien crash lands on earth and is saved by a boy who hides him from the authorities and nurses him back to health. The little alien leaves having formed a bond with the boy, and comes back as an adult to take over earth with the now grown man. It's an interesting setup, told through animated still (one of the many competing styles on display in this game), but goes nowhere beyond simple world domination. In stark contrast to something like 'Fire Emblem: Engage,' the voice work carries the whole story. Good thing too, because the ending twist is no surprise and the ending as a whole is pretty whatever. The voice actors do a very good job, but most characters only pop up in the very beginning and very end, which sucks for anyone hoping for more interaction.

Ok, so the world, story and characters are mostly a bust. How's the gameplay? It's good. Well, fine. It can be good. Travis can increase his stats in the lab below his apartment in the motel (something they don't tell you and took me half the game before I ventured down there), and there's a simple combo system in that it tracks your continuous hits, but not many actual combo moves. The gameplay definitely loses something without the motion of the Wiimote (or Switch Joycons, but those aren't as fun as the Wiimote and nunchuk). Your death glove, which still resembles the red and blue Joycon, has special cooldown abilities. After every major fight you get material to craft new chips to permanently augment your play. Most are a give and take with a gain and loss, but some are useful. This game suffers the same issues 'Bayonetta' does in that there can be so much on screen at once, like the slots graphic that literally takes up two-thirds of your viewable area, that it can be hard to see enemy attacks coming in order to dodge. It's not as big a problem as 'Bayonetta,' because there's never more than 5 enemies in an arena at a time and there's stuff like boxes to move behind, but with the camera closer to Travis it can be just as detrimental. Also, the same enemy attacks can deal different amounts of damage it seems. Sometimes the same attack will just knock me back, taking a small amount of health, and other times the same exact attack from the same enemy can one-shot me. Also, it takes waaaaay too long to get back to your feet if knocked down. And there's no invincibility frames, so you can get beat to death with no chance of getting up. Each enemy has their own types of attacks, but each only has a couple. Nothing really evolves during the course of the game, and that goes for the bosses too. The devs try, sometimes to great effect, sometimes to eyerolls, to mix things up with bosses, but standard boss battles are pretty simple. The only thing tricky might be the short amount of time any given boss is open to attacks.

So the world, story, characters and gameplay is mostly a bust. The odd jobs are boring and the few collectibles don't reward anything outside of currency for fights, food (of which I only used the one to refill health in battle) and for upgrades. There's a lot of t-shirts to collect through certain in-game achievements by way of friendly aliens, but you can only see what those are by going to a said specific alien for him to tell you only when it's possible to achieve them. There's no additional jackets (outside of no jacket) and unlike prior games, there's no change to your beam katana. I'm sure this game was working on a smaller budget, but it doesn't feel like that budget was used in a smart way.

I had to struggle to finish this game (a pattern I've seen with recent Japanese developed releases I've played outside of 'Ishin!'), not because it wasn't necessarily good, again, it's fine, mostly, but because I found myself really bored. You do the designated battles, maybe an odd job to get enough currency, then a boss, repeat the whole game in the same few spots. I'm massively disappointed in 'No More Heroes III' to the point where I regret buying it. I don't know how a game that screams such style and artistic variety can be so boring at the same time. I don't know how a game that garnered 8s, 9s and almost perfect scores across the Switch and current-gen consoles can be so utterly...okay-ish. For anyone interested in this game, I'd only recommend it for die-hard NMH and Suda fans. And even then, I'd suggest renting or waiting for an even bigger sale (it's currently selling at retail for about half its launch price). The physical bonuses that come with the physical game are cool, but the game, in my opinion, is not.

I loved the 1rst one because of the boss fights. Never played the 2nd one and probably never will. Will likely buy the 3rd for PS5 when it drops to $20 or something. I hate that its open world though. Id rather kill some aliens in a corridor and fight a boss at the end.

Little Hope
7/10
I got this with my PS Extra upgrade and decided to give it a whirl since I enjoyed Man of Medan. I thought this was better than Man of Medan in the biggest way which was that Silent Hill 2 like feel with walking on fog dense filled streets. I also enjoyed the Salem witch trial esque plot going on here but did think the ending I got with that one big twist was kinda silly to an extent and the voice acting felt really stiff at times minus Will Poelter that is. And whenever you actually had to control and move players that too felt rigid as it did in Man of Medan. And that was fast button still feels just as useless as it did in Man of Medan as well.

TalonJedi87 wrote:
I prefer Man of Medan solely due to the twist at the end. It seemed odd since the opposing force wasn't related to the true cause of death. I would assume they would have done an analysis to find the true cause of death. Especially given the final moments of the game and the inclusion of an Asian guy made me question if they were being inclusive or if something else was occurring.
kevolones wrote:
The open world is quite small and not as time consuming as the mini games in the first game. Try the second one if you get a chance it is on PC.

I preferred the twist in Man of Medan much more myself too than Little Hope. Little Hope’s twist was just strange.

@kevolones I agree with @ued222 about trying the second game then. The open world in the third game wouldn't be so bad if the fights, jobs and whatnot happened in the world, but they don't. Nothing really at all happens in the open world except collecting scorpions and comics. Everything else transports you to a self-contained area, including the jobs.

I didnt know it was on PC. Though it was Wii only. Ill look into it.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

7/10

A bit on the longer side than the original for my tastes between 30-40ish hours and yea those constant enemy respawns within almost every battle get quite tedious and frustrating. But overall it was still a solid sequel I thought adding onto what made the original game such fun and simple strategy turn based combat. The story was cookie cutter defeat the dark energy yadda yadda to save the Star bits blah blah but we all know what we came here for. That sweet turn based combat with elemental twists. And there’s just something that satisfies a primal need watching you dash into enemies and making them go flying into a combo maneuver passive counter attack. 👌🏻 But alas I did enjoy this one as a whole. Not sure if I’d play a 3rd installment or not, especially if it’s as long as this entry and has those damn enemy respawns. I got my fill for a while.

Kirby’s Dream Land via

8/10

Sometimes the simple games in life are the best. Kirby’s Dream Land is a prime example. Having finished the game in just over 90 minutes, it left me feeling satisfied like it knew what it was about. 4 levels. A boss rush finale. It gets you in and out in no time flat and still holds up well minus the green screen of the Game Boy that it still retained on the Switch emulator. The controls were still pretty precise and music was as catchy as playing the console counterpart.

The Quarry

8/10

I heard this one was kinda dull in comparison to the Dark Pictures series but while it was indeed a slow burn for the first several chapters I thought the pace picked up nice in the second and third acts. Also the graphics were incredible. I now know where all the budget for this game came from to make those slime balls at 2K have the balls to charge $70 at launch for this 8 hour movie for the most part. Thank goodness for this being included with PS Extra. But alas I did rather enjoy it in the end. I’m a sucker for the mythos creature portrayed here and thought the acting was much better than the stiffness in the last Dark Pictures game I played Little Hope. I got the ending where all the counselors survived too. Complaints of course come in the form of all these Supermassive games in where you controlling anyone feels janky and awkward and the damn walk fast button is as useless as a screen door on a submarine. Overall if you liked Until Dawn you’ll enjoy this one from the same devs.

Kirby’s Dream Land 2 Online

8/10

Man this was way more fun than the first game. More power ups from enemy assimilations and you get your pet pals to ride throughout most of the levels. They really encompassed the best parts of the SNES Kirby games into a neat little Game Boy package. The first Dream Land felt like a demo only having about 4 levels but the sequel here had 7 levels and about 25-30 stages in total. Not too shabby for a GB game.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I should continue this game. The little I played was pretty interesting and I liked the characters. I did notice some weird facial animations though. And I do not like that the characters proportions look weird to me. Everyone looks like they have a big head and small body.

Their teeth are terrifying too. Like movie Sonic the Hedgehog big teeth before they redid him.

The water looks super weird in The Quarry, too.

Resident Evil 4 Remake - Still great.

Working on Golden Sun now

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope The Tower of Doom has been beaten. It is 3-4 hours long and can be challenging. I am hoping the later DLCs are superior. The story is forgettable and doesn't add enough to the gameplay and character wise to make it worth it. If you liked the challenge rooms in the game that got you more skill points you might enjoy it a bit. Overall I say wait or don't buy.

Kommie wrote:

Its so fun to play!

Hi-Fi Rush

9/10

Man I loved this game and it came out of nowhere. It was like Devil May Cry with rhythm based contextually timed button presses. You hack and slash with a robotic guitar thru 12 levels while gathering health and energy upgrades and collecting parts to unlock new crazy combos and special modes. You also get support summons from members of your crew which prove highly useful throughout the game and there’s even some minor platforming puzzle like elements in which you incorporate your crew to assist with. The music was kick ass, the acting and humorous writing was great, the anime style graphics were superb and minor platforming issues aside, this was one of the best action games I have played in a while. Highly recommend.

Maybe I should try that game out, I hear nothing but good things despite the fact that I generally have no interest in rhythm-based games.

It’s more hack and slash action with QTE’s really vs rhythm IMO. Just think of it as an anime Devil May Cry. The only thing is make sure your TV is calibrated for the QTE’s cause those are the only real rhythm parts. There’s an option in the game’s settings to tweak calibration too.

Both games from the same people and for the PS4... beat in less than a week.

The Council and Call of Cthulhu.

They both have replayability but I find myself more to wanting to replay the Cthulhu game than the Council.

Steel Horizon

I got this on sale a few years ago, and played it bit by bit. There's only seven stages, but it's a fun steampunk style shmup. It's not crazy fast either, but can present a challenge at times. The 3D effect is pretty nice in this release too. For anyone interested, Strictly Limited put up pre-orders for a 'Steel Horizon' collection on Switch and PS4 that includes an HD remake, GBA release (which I didn't know existed), the Genesis original and the spiritual NES predecessor. Obviously the 3DS release isn't included.


Marvel's The Avengers

Man, I was so excited when this was announced. Then all my excitement faded when the live service aspect was announced. Then I was pretty pissed at Sony when Spider-Man was only available on PS4 (get off your high horse with Microsoft and Call of Duty Sony!). Combined with the short campaign, I chose to ignore this game because I'd only be playing the campaign anyway. That was until Crystal Dynamics announced its end of life and making all the cosmetics free. I picked up the PS4 version for around $15 (though I've seen it locally used for about $10), and for that, this game is well worth it.

Yes, the main campaign is short, though the other free campaigns do bring the total play time to a more respectable amount. And yes, the story does tread the same ground as many recent Marvel stories both in comics and the MCU, but it's well written and really well acted. I was only vaguely familiar with Kamala Khan around her creation, but last year's Disney+ show was a lot of fun, and she's a lot of fun in this game. By far my favorite character to play as. Each character does feel distinct to play as on the whole, but sadly not enough from their MCU counterparts. Something that was painfully obvious from the first time it was shown off. In fact, every major outfit from the MCU films are here for each character (except No Way Home for Spidey), so I eventually stuck with the MCU outfits for each. Not that there isn't a lot of choice outfit wise, but don't expect Insomniac's 'Spider-Man' number of outfits. Each character has about 10 unique outfits, and the rest are variations/color swaps. Even some iconic comic outfits are just reskinned versions of what was already in the game.

My biggest complaint about the game is something that reared its ugly head all the way back in the beta, and that's the locations. There's only a handful, and within those you're replaying the same exact spots. Even during the short main campaign, exact terrain and copied environmental object placements were repeated. The sameness is so real it hurts. There are some cool, unique locations in the campaign, but don't expect that from each characters' specific mission threads. Also, Black Widow doesn't get to do any spy stuff. That sucks.

That said, this is a great time to jump into 'Marvel's Avengers.' It's really inexpensive, you don't have to deal with the micro-transactions (Crystal Dynamics increased XP and resource rewards by 50% after the March 31 update), and there's a fun brawler here. There's enough free campaigns to enjoy in shorter bursts for Marvel fans..

Wartech Fighters PS4

You pilot mechas in space and you shoot down spaceships. I like this type of games a little hit too much but Id say this is a 6 at best. Story didnt grab me so I just skipped dialog. Gameplay is ok, it is too simple most of the time but has some satisfying moments. The soundtrack is pure metal and fits the game well. I hated how slow the mechs are in this game but that fixes itself halfway thru.

Id give it a 6/10.

Zone if the Enders 2 is still the best.

Redeemer
I finally fully finished a game.
Loved every minute of it, deep combat system, brutal gory deaths, super fun to pick up and play.
Reminded me of Smash TV meets Hotline Miami meets every kung fu movie.

I just finished up Toy Story 2 on PS1 (via PS5). I'm not really sure what made me want to revisit this out of all the games available in PS+ Premium's Classic Games Catalog, but I don't regret the time I spent on it even though there were some frustrating parts due to the crappy camera. I was only 9 tokens away from 100% completing the game, but I really don't want to go after them (I might have if they had retroactively added Trophy support to this like they do for some of the other games) and so I'll just go start another game instead.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - okay for free. However somehow my save files don't actually save so I had to basically beat it on one sitting/put it on sleep.

The Artful Escape on
Half 2D platformer, half rhythm game, but the story is the star of the show. I don't know if it's on GamePass, but it's in the Game Catalog on PS+ Extra/Premium and I recommend checking it out. It's barely a 5 hour game, I'm gonna see if I can replay some chapters and get the few trophies I missed, which is something I wouldn't normally bother doing except I liked this game enough that I wish it was a little longer.

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion 9/10

Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards via

7/10

Another simple and clean Kirby game in the books. I never finished it on the 64 when I was a kid but man once you get that fireball and great sword combo power up it kinda breaks the game and that’s just fine to me. Completely breezed thru this in a few hours. Kirby games are great for serene easy going gaming. Next stop another chill game. Yoshi’s Story as my nostalgia trip continues.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I think it's still on Game Pass. At least it was, that's where I played it. Definitely a unique and cool game.

The Artful Escape left GP a few months back.

Octodad Dadliest Catch - this is the first game by the people who made one of the greatest games ever, Bugsnax. It's just as good. Not as good, but still amazing.

Atomic Heart

5/10

I have no idea why I played this until the end. It was kinda boring even with it being an action shooter. The plot was dull, acting felt crass and forced, puzzles felt overly complex and not in a good way. More in a frustrating way. Controls were wonky especially when aiming and platforming. The crafting and upgrades were okay but nothing to write home about and the boss fights were too chaotic and frantic and felt like I wanted it over just as quickly as they begun. Even the basic enemies were just annoying AF to encounter whereas they felt like chores as was the theme of the entirety of this game. A chore. And the only really redeeming quality I could find without much flaws were the music. It had a nice mix of classical orchestral music somewhat remixed and I thought it fit nicely with the theme and setting. But yeah this game is trying to become Bioshock so much it blatantly referenced it in one scene hoping for that crossover that’ll likely never happen. Plus to add salt to the wound, it’s buggy as hell. I had to restart the app so many damn times because it either soft locked me without letting me open a door or a scene wouldn’t pop when it should have to progress again I do not know why I saw this thru to the end. And you have a choice in the final part of the game to walk away and get the bad ending or stay and do a set of boss fights and get the good ending and because I pitied this title I stayed and trucked thru the final battles to get the “good” ending which don’t ask me what it’s about because like the rest of the game it’s too uninteresting to care about. Thank the maker it was on Game Pass. I cannot see why someone would charge nor spend $70 on this.

Yoshi’s Story via

6/10

Such a weird Yoshi entry this was but I get what they were trying to convey. A choose your own adventure book so to speak. You select which levels you want to experience within each world and it tells a story at the end of the game in a storybook format. But the gameplay is just strange. The basic objective is eat enough fruit to make the Yoshi happy to end the stage with a final boss fight at the end of the game which was the only real fight I felt in the game. The rest of the game was basically eating fruit.

TalonJedi87 wrote:
Loved that game growing up honestly. Was one of the only N64 games I played besides Star Fox. I was poor back in the day.

Beat The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. It is around 2 hours and has no voice acting. The costumes are interesting to say the least. I find some of them to be great like Tails and some are odd like Shadows. It is free and well worth a playthrough. The mini game if you will gets progressively harder over the game. Going to get Advance Wars on the 21st and Dead Island 2 on the 21st assuming they don't take 2-5 days to get to me. So probably Tuesday or Monday.....

The mini Game Gear thing in the Murder of Sonic wasn't that great. I just dumped it to easy mode. I get what they were doing but for a visual novel, seemed kinda dumb.

Kommie wrote:
I also disliked it. I disliked Sonic, Sonic 2, Mania and pretty old the classic mini games for the Chaos Emeralds. The only one I somewhat liked was Sonic 3 and Knuckles ones but that was probably due to the ease of it. Grabbing those spheres was an easy time.

Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose - 8/10

Nothing truly special here, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It feels like a retread in many ways because you visit the same locations from the main game, but being able to play as Rose, in 3rd person, and with her unique powers makes it a worthwhile experience for fans of the series. I played it on Hard and it took me about 3.5 hours to beat so while it isn't some lengthy piece of DLC, it doesn't overstay its welcome and is the perfect ending to the Winters Saga. The way the DLC ends sets things up really nicely for RE9 and I wonder what direction they'll take the series in. I like Rose a lot and if she's the future of the series, I'm all for it!

Heavyd814life wrote:
I really disliked Shadow of Rose 2nd portion more stealth based areas but it was enjoyable.

Beat Pizza Game. It is an interesting game helped developed by Jello. It has a ton of charm, branching paths and a ton of spelling mistakes. I think I enjoy visual novels almost as much as reading books which is really say something considering my hobbies. Going to try Doki Doki Literature Club next possibly.


Doki Doki Literature Club was not for me. Heard it was good but it wasn't. I also didn't like Dead Island 2. The story seemed generic, the dialogue was okay bur questionable and the gameplay was boring. Hit, block or dodge to victory. Maybe it gets better but after 3 hours I gave up. Plus it takes a while to unlock dodge or any of the worthwhile skills.

My Star Wars copy shipped but will probably be in Monday or Tuesday then the long wait for Zelda then Gollum then System Shock. June will be Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16 and Front Mission 2. I may get Katamari and Ghost Trick as well but I doubt it.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale on which tbh kind of bored me at times, so I'm glad it's over. As soon as the credits rolled I deleted it without even looking at how many of the trophies were left and if it would be worth going for the remaining ones.

Kaze and The Wild Masks - 8/10 Decent platformer, I can't really compare it to DKC as I haven't played one since the SNES era was current Gen. Won't bother to 100%, got no time for that.

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3 via

9.5/10

I forgot how much fun SMB3 was. It really set the template and precedence for my favorite SMB 2D game of all time, Super Mario World. And it looked great on the GBA with all of the enhanced colors, sprites and even Mr Martinet adding in some audible Mario VO work.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

Such a good game. I have my original GBA version (Walmart-exclusive...it came with a few exclusive e-reader cards). I have all the US e-reader cards they released for that game.

Blasphemous on 10/10 Truly a GOAT game. I mean, I've bought and beat it on three different systems now......

Bayonetta 3 - 7/10

I played all 3 Bayonetta games this year. While each one incrementally improved over the previous one, I found them somewhat repetitive. Not sure if my tastes how just outgrown button mashing action games (I feel the same way about DmC: Devil May Cry which I'm also currently playing). The game does feel good, and the presentation is over the top, but the levels seemed like an afterthought and a big tunnel to get you from point A to point B. The various change in gameplay was refreshing though and interesting.

Really enjoyed playing as Viola though.

Beat Zone of the Enders PS2. It was a great game minus the fact I didn't know how to disarm the bombs which you needed to grab. Unsure why I plain messed that up. It was interesting doing three playthroughs. My first had me failing due to the lack of understanding of the bombs. My second had the bad ending as I tried to get as many people killed as possible. The third I actually finished the game. I think the biggest gripe had to be the porters. The lack of lock on them and finding them was a hassle. The combat was stellar and I highly recommend it.

I dropped Dead Island 2 as I disliked the combat and am installing Star Wars Jedi Survivor right now. Assuming I dislike that I will be switching to Zelda come May 12th. I fear the building aspect will remind me of Minecraft to much causing me to drop it. Hoping that isn't the case.

ued222 wrote:

The first one is kinda rough when compared to 2nd Runner, but very fun nonetheless.

Life is Strange 2. Pretty darn good story. The second half of the last episode was...whoa. Right in the feels, brah.

Metroid Fusion via

10/10

Easily my all-time favorite 2D Metroid title hands down and it has aged like fine wine here from the first time I played it over 2 decades ago. From the sense of wanderlust for completing the map and finding new areas and items to the slow churn anticipation of recovering your abilities one by one and the awesome music and boss fights to the airtight crisp controls, this is the complete Metroid package for me. I wish it had a NG+ cause the mere 3.5 hours it took me to run through this game was not nearly enough. Luckily, I'll be replaying Metroid Prime Remastered soon enough.

Mass Effect 2 - 10/10

15 years later and it is still one of the truly great gaming experiences. I've put off replaying it because I didn't think it would live up to my memory of it, but the nostalgia is very strong with this one and I had an absolute blast playing through it over the last month. It holds up incredibly well. The characters, storytelling and combat are all phenomenal and I have to say that Lair of the Shadow Broker is still the gold standard for story-driven DLC. Nothing in my backlog really speaks to me atm so I think I'll jump right into Mass Effect 3. I haven't replayed this one either because I remember being so angry at the way it ended, but I'm looking forward to playing it without the expectations I had going into it back then. Also looking forward to the Citadel DLC which I never played because I was a big baby back then and swore off everything BioWare for a while.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Never played this. Maybe I just wanted to play as Max again or something, but I remember not really caring for the new cast of characters and having no real interest in playing it. How does it compare to the original and to Before the Storm and True Colors (if you've played those)? Anything choice-driven with dialogue trees is pretty much my favorite thing in the world and there's a shocking lack of those games on the market these days so I really should give this a shot.

Well rushed and beat Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I found it interesting to have multiple fighting styles and like the previous entry it notes how many collectibles are in area. The map is still bad though and the soulsbourne nature of the game isn't fun to me. I prefer Unleashed somewhat. It isn't a bad game by any means though. I just find the story to be somewhat pointless as I doubt they will ever link it to the TV shows and movies minus the reference here and there. Rogue One's character being a key example and some others later in the game I won't spoil. Overall I say wait for patches. I think Gollum will suck but will wait for reviews and will be getting System Shock next. June is loaded for me with Daymare, Final Fantasy, Diablo and Front Mission 2.

Beat Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy . Decent game, good story, great voice acting. Gameplay was fairly basic. Game was a little buggy at times. Music was awesome.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Velentia - 8/10

It’s taken me near a year to trigger the credits. I got caught up on Berkut. After several failed attempts to claim a victory, I simply gave up and shelved the game…until now. I never meant for this break to last as long as it did but gamers gotta game.

Probably one of my favorites in the FE line up. I loved the story albeit the ending after the final boss was a bit anticlimactic. Playing both protagonists in tandem and watching their parts of the story unfold was rather enjoyable. A little long in the tooth as you make your way through the last few chapters… slaying the final boss was satisfying nonetheless.

I played on classic mode and I think my companion death count was 4 or 5 soldiers lost in battle. Traditional FE game. If you’re a fan of FE definitely worth the 25.5 hours it took to finish.

Heavyd814life wrote:


I haven't played True Colors yet but I intend to soon, my friend bought herself and I each a copy of it so we can play it and compare choices (we always do that with these types of games).

I think LiS 2 sits right in the middle of the other two I've played. The first LiS had such a good story, it's hard for anything in this genre to top it. I refuse to play it again though because I worry it won't have the same impact. Before the Storm, the first two or three chapters kind of bored me. I felt some of the dialogue was kind of cringe, but maybe that's more to do with I can't really relate to teenage girls trying to be edgy. LiS 2's story touches on things like love, loss of a loved one, and racism. I felt like it was telling a story that felt more like what you'd see in a movie or drama series and more importantly I felt the story had hooked me by the end of Episode 1 unlike BtS which took until nearly the 4th Episode to make me care.

Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles

I just felt like playing an AC game, without spending dozens of hours before 'Tears of the Kingdom' comes out. To its credit, it looks the part. There's even short CG cutscenes. The locales are varied and the couple touchscreen mini-games are nice change of pace as they are infrequent, yet still last too long when they do pop up. However...

Anything that can be wrong with a 3D action-platformer is here and incredibly frustrating. Jumping can be imprecise. Ledges are slippery. The action prompt is finicky because the window to press "A" is too short. The hidden blade is so sporadically used, basically just for finishing off "bosses" that stand and wait to be killed. Combat is boring, and while there are a few combos, blocking and rolling doesn't always work and enemies can be damage sponges. There are one-hit deaths galore including the most accurate crossbow wielders ever. Normally I hate when games track your amount of deaths, but I really want to know what mine was out of sheer curiosity. I have never died so much in a game, on any difficulty, ever! How Long to Beat has this game at about 5 hours to finish, and I finished around 7 hours, so I think it's completely fair to assume I spent about 2 hours dying and replaying sections because of the wonky checkpoint system. But a large reason for all my deaths can be attributed to a really large glitch. About two-thirds of the way through the game I noticed a blue orb in the top right corner of the bottom screen. The game hadn't explained this. I pressed it, saw the total orbs at zero but with upgrade options for your health and sword below that. Upon a Google I found out the game is supposed to be littered with these blue orbs to collect for said upgrades, but there's an extremely common glitch where no orbs will ever spawn. Starting a new game might fix this, but that's not a promise. So the game was effectively made way harder for me and I hadn't even noticed.

For all the bad, when the game clicks it's actually...good. Traversing the world can be fun. The story sets up the first AC nicely. If AC had originally come out for the PS1, I think it would've looked a lot like this, and that's not a bad thing. Just, it seems this game wasn't play-tested enough. Or they didn't have time for it. It is a Gameloft game, strike one, and right when they started their hand at non-mobile games (this did eventually get a release on a few mobile platforms, but they're long delisted), strike two, but with some more time this could've been a good little game for the $10 I paid for it.

I went right to the next and last DS AC game, 'Assassin's Creed II: Discovery,' after finishing 'Altaïr's Chronicles.' That one was made by Griptonite, the devs behind many highly regarding GBA and DS side-scrollers including many 'Spider-Man' games, and it feels like those 'Spider-Man' games so far. Not perfect, but much more fun.

Last night my friend and I beat Untitled Goose Game on
It was my first time playing it in co-op and her first time playing the game at all. Fun was had. Now we're just doing some of the bonus post-game objectives before moving on to something else.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I didnt noticed it was coop! Should be nice in coop

kevolones wrote:


They patched in the co-op mode in a free update around a year after the game originally released.

Assassin's Creed II: Discovery

Ok, this is an improvement over the first DS AC game, but it comes with its own set of problems. First, the basics:

Playing as Ezio, he reluctantly travels to Spain to help stop a war but inadvertently sets Christopher Columbus, or at least someone with a very similar name, off on his journey. Gameplay is switched to a side-scrolling, not quite Metroidvania style akin to Griptonite's 'Spider-Man' games. In fact, level design wise it's very similar, but we'll get to that. Everything is voice acted and the 3D models look pretty good for their time and device. Gameplay is also much quicker and makes better use of the hidden blade. Like 'Altaïr''s Chronicles,' it's pretty short (it took me less than 7 hours), but finding maps in the world opens a series of challenges. Tearing down wanted posters increases Ezio's life bar, and in a nice touch, if playing on a DSi or 3DS, the player can have their picture taken and a very crude facsimile appears on the wanted posters in-game. So much of the game is well and good, but that same design used for the 'Spider-Man games is this game's downfall.

One thing 'Altaïr''s Chronicles' got right was the lower screen map. It was overhead, but showed the whole of the area including where buildings and other platforms were, as well as enemies and civilians moving in real time. In 'Discovery,' the map is a gray square inside a larger gray square. Seriously. That's it. When close enough to an enemy, an arrow representation shows and said arrow also indicates alertness, but that distance is rather small. The bigger issues it there's no way to tell what else is in the environment. This leads to a too-large-amount of blind jumps. Ezio can land on a building, haystack (though they are few) or fall multiple stories to his death. If he doesn't die, there's a good chance of landing next to an enemy or group of enemies. Ezio has his sword and throwing daggers to dispatch enemies, but that's it. It isn't explained in-game, but according to the manual, pressing attack twice should break an enemy's block/shield, but I never had this happen once. The enemies always block unless attacking, but you can't interrupt their attacks. If Ezio is blocking, attack can be pressed at the correct time to counter. Sometimes it pushes the enemy back and other times it's an instant kill. It doesn't matter the type of enemy, and it seems random, but more often than not it took three counters to take out any enemy that wasn't an archer. And if Ezio leaves himself open, he goes down in a few hits easy, because as long as an enemy is attacking, Ezio can't block if not blocking already. This wouldn't be so bad, but if you want a full sync, you also have to beat any given mission within a certain amount of time. And these are ridiculously short times, sometimes as short as 30 seconds, but usually around 2-3 minutes. That renders a mostly stealth approach, even in explicitly stealth sections, nearly impossible. I didn't replay any levels, so maybe all the objectives don't have to be completed in one go, but if so, the frustration isn't worth it.

And unfortunately that's where 'Discovery' stands: another exercise in frustration. Sure, platforming is better and in theory combat is too, but the level design was designed for a different series of games. In the Griptonite's 'Spider-Man' games, Spidey can usually web swing out of a bad jump or area and land somewhere safer, but Ezio can't. And when Ezio dies, that typically means replaying most of a mission over. It makes cheap deaths sting even worse, and 'Discovery' becomes a giant trial-and-error campaign reminiscent of poorly designed 8-bit games; hard for all the wrong reasons. It's a shame because the rest of the game and presentation is really great! And like 'Altaïr's Chronicles,' when 'Discovery' clicks it's really fun. But it's clear the game ended up being designed with cheap deaths to lengthen its campaign.

A Juggler's Tale on
I had this in my eShop wishlist for several months waiting for a sale, but before that happened I was able to get it as part of a Humble Bundle. I'm glad it worked out that way because this makes a good Humble Bundle game. It'd be $17.99 on its own in the eShop and while I did enjoy it, it was over in less than 2 hours.

Resident Evil 4 Remake

9/10

Minus some learning curve with tweaking the controls, I simply adored this remake to pieces. RE4 is my all time favorite RE game so I had high standards here and it almost exceeded my expectations in many ways. I love how they complimented most of the original game’s moments and environments with little nuanced extras from expanded locations within chapters or by just adding a new enemy or boss because reasons. Graphics wise, the RE engine is still one of the best graphics engines of late I feel and I played in performance mode with ray tracing on and it ran smooth as butter. Even the more annoying parts of the original game like babysitting Ashley didn’t feel as aggravating here for some reason and her sections with some new additions were pretty cool too. They also made some moments that I found scary and eerie in the OG game even more terrifying like the first encounter with the regenerators. And the replay value I feel is higher than ever with NG+ and collecting all the weapons and upgrades along with the merchant’s shooting gallery and mercenaries mode. I’ll definitely be returning again sooner than later for another play through. Alas,, Capcom continues its trend of being the poster child for how to do remakes just so right.

Metroid Prime Remastered

9.5/10

Still a damn masterpiece 20+ years later. Minus some minor platforming timing on the buttons that is. Other than that, chefs kiss all the way thru from the music to the sense of wanderlust exploration. It’s a timeless classic and with the new twin stick revamped control scheme and silky smooth graphical polish, this feels like a fresh new experience to me. And Meta Ridley is still a welcomed pain in the butt to face. It only saddens me to know Metroid Prime 4 isn’t anywhere near completion. Ah well, maybe they’ll toss us a remastered Metroid Prime 2 and 3 in the next year or so to satiate our Prime appetites.

Fez

This is some fudgeed up game. But it's the first game I've beaten in nearly two years, so it's obviously doing something right. I was binging it for hours at a time over the weekend.

I loved Fez. Played that, Braid, and Portal all within a year or so of each other. Don't think I'll be hitting that puzzle high ever again.

1cc'd DoDonPachi Resurrection on iOS

I give this one a 6.5/10. Wasn't a big fan of the laser gimmick so stage 5 was a chore. It was worth the play through, but I'm not sure I'll return to it. Though it was really cool seeing the playable characters from the previous game as bosses.

Beat System Shock Remake demo. It was interesting to say the least. Cyberspace reminded me of Descent which is an old school space sim. Melee and backtracking wasn't enjoyable. I learned midway through the demo you can vaporize things for scrap which can get you credits for items in vending machines. Overall a huge waste of time doing so and I feel that the UI needed some serious work. Melee combat is pointless and once you get the gun swap over to it ASAP. The lack of RPG elements in this make this less then enjoyable knowing Prey and System Shock 2 exist. I might skip over this and Gollum and wait for Diablo 4 as I enjoyed the beta. Enemies respawn and I cannot for the life of me find the shotgun and assault rifle. Perhaps you can repair broken weapons or you get ammo for it for no reason.

Worried this and System Shock 3 may be less then stellar.

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix on
I finished first overall on each cup in grand prix mode, then I did the challenge mode which has 42 challenges in it, but there were 5 I didn't bother to complete and don't care to because I beat the important ones that allowed me to unlock the remaining hidden characters. I consider this game "beaten". I don't know why I bothered doing that for a game so bland and that I very likely won't ever touch again. Mario Kart 7 & 8 and Sonic & Sega All-star Racing Transformed fans might experience deja-vu while racing on several of the tracks in this game, because I know I did.

I "beat" Barro on Steam. I don't really know how to consider this game as being "beaten", other than unlocking the achievements...all 109 of them. But that took less than 45 minutes, since 90% of them literally unlock just from booting the game up for the first time, you do nothing to earn them. There is no career mode or anything like that, just single races across 19 tracks. I'd never heard of "achievement whores" on Steam the way I do with PlayStation and Xbox gamers, but if they exist on Steam too that must be who this game was targeted at.

Uncharted 2 Among Thieves 6/10

I might have liked Uncharted 1 better, I mean really only 1 section in there stands out as annoying, while several in 2 were frustrating, like the fight later on where you and Flynn with only pistols, or the 1 Tibetan section where they blow up the structure you're in and are firing rockets and snipers at you and it's crazy easy to die a bunch, or a few others. Then I didn't love all the climbing and the whole 1-man army was crazy - I killed a LOT of military dudes from Lazarevic's forces, as a dude who felt more like an explorer and not Rambo. I think I liked the lower combat focus of 1.
I get that they wanted to up the ante, but fighting against, what, 3x Hind choppers and a tank just felt unreal to me. And a few sections like the train and truck chase just didn't seem real. Obviously it's a video game, but if I compare what I remember from say 2013's Tomb Raider remake or the sequel Rise, those still had challenging and cool aspects but felt a good bit more grounded in reality.

I didn't hate the game or anything, but after reading some strong hype that 2 was really good, I felt let down. The story was pretty cool and the gameplay itself was generally solid, though a few times the controls basically got me killed from falling. It was just a bit too far fetched for me. I am looking to continue with the series and play 3 and 4 hopefully before too long, as well as Lost Legacy... but 2 won't get my top vote so far of the series.

Beat Amanda the Adventurer. I am no longer buying and playing these popular horror games. I don't like playing games multiple times to get the true ending assuming there is one. With that being said you basically enter responses and are sometimes forced to answer a certain way. Without spoilers going over the details is difficult. It is super short as well. Well Gollum sucks my next game will most likely be System Shock Remake my 2nd playthrough of the demo cemented this is one of the better games of the year for me.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Beat Alone in the Dark Prologue is super short and doesn't show off the combat at all. There are some horror elements but it is mostly picking up object A to use said object. System Shock Remake in three more days.

I beat Salamander for Famicom. A couple minor graphical differences to the US version, and one major gameplay difference (you can have 3 options instead of just 2)

The translucent green cartridge is cool.

Assassin’s creed 2 - 6/10


I remember purchasing this game back in the day and lost interest early in. Thought I’d give it another go via the Ezio collection.

For a 14 year old game there’s a lot going for it. I like how the cities feel populated and busy even if there isn’t to much variety in general. For me, the problems lie mainly in the controls. While Ezio controls nicely meandering about, things start to fall apart when under duress or in chase type scenarios. Inadvertently side jumping or missing a ledge etc. I also didn’t care for the fighting mechanics as I never could get Ezio to side step or back step when it was needed most. Lastly, the redundancy/perpetual fetch quest is tiring.

Never been a big fan of Assassin’s creed in the first place and this iteration certainly didn’t change my mind.

Beat System Shock Remake, around maintence I came to the conclusion this wasn't my best purchase. Inventory space is lacking, the final boss is a major let down I played on all lowest settings but the game isn't to enjoyable. The weapons aren't enjoyable to use either. I felt none of them were that unique. Credits become worthless at a certain point like some weapons. The game is fairly difficult until you abuse walls shoot once pop out of said wall cover shoot again and repeat. It just becomes a total slog though. Cyberspace seems interesting at first but overtime it just drags on and the ending reinforces that heavily. I took two days off to beat this 14 hours long and felt unimpressed and annoyed hopefully Diablo 4 is a lot better. Wasted $40 on this. If you are a hoarder like me just don't hoard. Waste of time and enjoyment in this game. At first I spent 1.5 hours on medical then I started to rush a bit more. Enemies also respawn or pop up out of nowhere. They have this devices that come out of the floor with respawning enemies. If you kill them to quickly they will go back into the floor and you won't get their loot.

I was hoping for more RPG mechanics but you basically only upgrade your weapons and armor once to survive. Maybe if I used boosters better I could have tried going more melee heavy but that seems annoying.

If I were to improve this, weapon wheel system like Doom 3 maybe where you can carry all the weapons. Have a dedicated button to vaporize items or upon pickup vaporize them automatically or remove the entire system. Have actually upgrades and some skills shouldn't cost energy like your flashlight, damage reduction skill etc or something else.

June will be interesting might get the new Alien game and have Diablo 4 and Final Fantasy 16 coming in.

Layers of Fear on
Good horror game, a bit short though at under 5 hours long. They encourage multiple playthroughs if you want the full story, however I've simply got too much else to play. I'd like to say "I'll return to this at some point in the future and continue another playthrough", but by then I will have probably forgotten a bunch of the story anyway, so instead of doing that maybe I'll just look up on YouTube what happens.

Another year, another Mirror's Edge playthrough in the books. ✔
I still want this remade with VR support.

Last game I didn't beat:
Marble Madness NES

Played it for the first time in about 20 years. Got to the final part of the last stage before time ran out. Not too bad all things considered

My friend and I finished The Quarry.
She is willing to play through it again already and go for a better ending because 3 of our characters died. I really don't know if I want to do that so soon. I was host for this playthrough, so I'd let her be host for the next, but that means I'm stuck watching as a viewer now because it's not real multiplayer.

I loved the idea of multiple paths through the Quarry, but I didn't really want to spend an extra 10 hours getting there.

Ratchet & Clank on

This is not exactly a 1:1 remake of the original, and I'm glad, because as good as the original game was, they fixed all the things that needed to be fixed and this is damn near the perfect 3D action/platformer now. Basically they gave this game the treatment that Nintendo desperately needs to give Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, instead of releasing them with no improvements like in Super Mario 3D All-Stars.

The gameplay runs at a smooth 60fps (only when played on PS5), which apparently was added in via patch 5 years after the game's release. The cutscenes though are still 30fps, and you absolutely notice that after playing the game at double that. Now having played through this it makes me want to watch that R&C movie.

The Last of Us Part 1 Remake

10/10

Although I’m becoming burnt out of remakes and remasters alike, especially of one that already had a remaster several years ago, it still felt pretty damn good to experience this masterpiece in interactive storytelling with action/stealth mechanics again on a modern console. The revamped and re-recorded voice over lines felt impactful to the story as well as the updated graphics and framerate. I’d say I hope Part II gets the same treatment, but I didn’t really care for the sequel as much as the first entry.

I guess...Peggle again. I saw a strangely captivating speedrun of it during the most recent GDQ and decided to give it another go. I'm sure Peggle Nights will follow shortly. I love these games.

King Oddball

I played this long ago on Android which is how I knew about it. This is the quintessential videogame. The only knock I have against the game is that it's better suited for playing in short bursts, not the type of game you play for hours on end.

空気読み KUUKIYOMI: Consider It on
Not even sure if this counts because it hardly felt like a game and took under an hour, but I saw the credits roll and that's good enough for me.
It feels like an early 2000s flash game and is supposed to teach you about being polite in Japanese culture or some crap, but 90% of this just feels like common sense you'd use anywhere in the world, certainly not exclusive to Japan.

Beat Diablo 4. I rushed the main campaign minus some side content and used my mount whenever possible after Act 4 and still ended beating the game at level 45. It takes about 15-20 hours. I felt this was more character focused then previous games and didn't care for the story as much. They do mention Deckard Cain and was hoping he would somehow return. The story also was a bit more bleak then usual in my opinion. The biggest issue was the lag spikes and viable builds for me. For some reason my character would sometime cling to an object despite me moving forward previously. My internet connection is bad and the lack of no online ruined it for me. I don't care to play on harder difficulties knowing a single lag spike could kill me. I played as a Sorceror and have a feeling Barbarian would be more logical for me simply due to lag spikes.

Beat Final Fantasy XVI Demo. It was a decent story but not having some terms explained and watching the cutscenes especially the jump near the end spoiled some things. I also messed up as I didn't really read the tutorial on switching powers and tried to look up it via tutorial but it was missing from it. I somehow switched to Titan and felt having a block ability versus a teleport might be better but not being able to really try out the third element wasn't great to me. You can at least spend ability points and equip better items in the demo. I didn't know that at first but the extra attack power and defense may help. Unsure what kind of boost the extra 10 defense and 25 attack really did to my numbers. I would basically like a glossary possibly but felt the terms were easy enough to understand but I didn't know much about some factions and would like if the tutorial in the menu included element switching.

Tinykin on
9/10
Fun 8ish hours of exploring a somewhat unique world with a great art style and simple enough gameplay/puzzles. GamePass title at about it's finest.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

This took me exactly a month to finish the story, or around 80 hours according to my Switch. I want to preface by saying it's not fair to 'Tears of the Kingdom,' or even repeat playthroughs of 'Breath of the Wild,' but nothing is going to touch the first time exploring this Hyrule in 'Breath of the Wild.' Not knowing what was around the next corner or over the next hill made BOTW so special I was immersed in it like no other game before. With TOTK it was more, "oh yeah, I remember this area. This is what it looks like now." For that reason, TOTK, for all its improvements and additions, will never match BOTW for me.

That said, I still really enjoyed it, especially the sky portions. In fact, I wish there were more sky portions. The Depths is cool and all, but I'm not someone that likes dark and colorless places, so I didn't spend more time in the Depths than I needed to. Building is cool, and thankfully doesn't feel intrusive, but I just built what got me through sections and that was it. I also appreciate the attempts at a deeper story, but I also felt it hindered the overall experience because there's nothing special about it. Much of it was retread from previous Zelda games and other games in general. It felt beat for beat cliché, and again, I've complained about this will Japanese developed games before, so I won't go into detail, but the story bored me. It doesn't help that Matthew Mercer was a voice in this game and every character he does sounds exactly the same. I can't stand his voice anymore. I also really want a new villain. People complain that Sonic always faces Eggman, but Mario always faces Bowser and Link (mostly) always faces Ganon, and that doesn't seem to bother anyone.

I don't know, it's weird. TOTK is a great game, and I sincerely enjoyed my time with it, but I also was ready to move on much sooner. With BOTW I did everything except find all the Korok seeds (though I maxed out my inventory slots with them) and a few of the side quests. With TOTK, I still have 50 shrines to do, a lot of side quests (but I don't feel they're really worth it), about 10 armor sets to get, many inventory slots to open via Korok seeds, about half the Depths to explore (and whatever the "X"s from the old maps are), and right now, I have no desire to complete any of those. I didn't even touch parts of the map because I saw them in BOTW and they didn't entice me because of that. Opening new parts of the map quickly became going to a tower or shrine in the sky, and gliding down where I wanted to go. It doesn't help that...

So, honestly, I don't agree with the perfect scores given to this game. It still has its flaw, like basic enemies doing way too much damage with a stick, or "slipping" on an edge negating your jump. The story is whatever and the writing is bog standard for Japanese developed games. But, it's still an amazing game from an open-world sandbox perspective and I did enjoy it.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond

8/10

I enjoyed the remastered edition quite well for the most part. I just wish the global trade system was a bit more polished and fleshed out. The final Elite Four champion gave me a little run for my money too. Took me a few tries to beat her. Other than that it was another return to my early 20’s with this one. Next I think I’ll try out Arceus to see how the new Pokémon formula works.

Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure! on
Not worth the 5-ish hours. And the ending, even if I was 7 years old and actually enjoyed playing this, the ending would have made me feel like it was not worth it at all, just being a very brief cutscene that didn't explain anything.

Pokémon violet 6/10

This game is a technical mess. Black/white screens leaving you wondering if the game froze. Horrendous pop in. Frame drops. I think a 6 is being a bit gracious. The star team parts were dumb and the pre battles even dumber. The pre gym test were equally stupid and did nothing but distract from completing the gym. Some of the gym bosses were stupid, looking at you rhyming grandma. Arceus was a much better game imo. The pokemon battle were typical/traditional. Sitting through all the nonsense dialogue was a pain. Not sure what more I can say. It was probably one of the worst pokemon games I’ve played. The environments looked good. I’m going to wrap the end game and shelf this.

Rhyming grandma was the highlight of the game for me.

Just finished It Takes Two. Really fun game that constantly introduced new mechanics. The best platformer I played in years, but it can be (and was) frustrating to a partner not used to the genre.

Axiom Verge

Finally opened this sucker. Overall, it's a very good Metroid-style platformer. For the most part the areas are designed well with aesthetic and environmental differences. The enemy variety is good and there isn't a very "cheap" enemy. The music rocks, and I'm glad the Multiverse Edition comes with the soundtrack, but the tracks are short and they fully stop before starting again instead of being mixed together well. It's amazing one guy made this game, but it's moments like this where that comes through. The bosses look impressive, but they can all be beaten by either quick brute force or standing in one spot being patient. There's lots of weapons, but most aren't worth using. There are jumps that definitely feel doable until your character slides backwards off them, before realizing it's programmed that way to force the use of an upgrade. The beginning half is definitely more fun than the second half too.

I finished with 70% items collected and 89% of the map opened (there some crappy vertical sections of large areas that are only there for map completion). Because the game is on the short side, none of the shortcomings are a big deal. My one large complaint is I wish fast travel to the save points was an option. The game is enjoyable and the pixel art looks great on a giant screen (I usually play games like this on handhelds or my smaller PC monitor). I definitely recommend it for fans of the genre, but like SRPGs, I think I'm Metroidvania'd out. It's not a genre I enjoy much, especially when there's no fast travel.

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception 9/10 - via the Nate Drake Collection
Unlike 2, I really enjoyed 3 from beginning to end. I realize I didn't like some of the just over the top things in 2 and to me, 3 felt more like 1 - surely a video game with some 'yeah right' type of things, but less 'I can't believe that' level of actions like 2 had. Plus 2 had a bunch of sections that royally frustrated me causing me to have to repeat them 5, 6, 8, or more times. 3 had a few places that were annoying, somewhat thanks to inconsistent checkpoints in a fire fight, but I maybe had to retry a section at most 4 times before progressing and those were less frequent.
I also liked the settings more, the opening in London was cool, the playable memory of a young Nate gave great foundation to the characters, the castle in Yemen was better than the castle in 2 with the instant-fail for being spotted. Then the ship graveyard was really cool and the lost city, without overpowered 'mutants', also was an improvement over 2 IMO.

I was too harsh on 2, but feel like 3 corrected the series' direction, back into a package that I fully enjoyed.

Immortals Fenyx Rising

8/10

This game was way too much fun to be put out by Ubisoft of all folks. It’s how I felt about the Mario+Rabbids titles in the sense of man how are these Ubi made games? Immortals is pretty much a Greek Zelda BOTW without such annoyances as breakable weapons. While it’s not perfect and has a lot of the usual open world tiresome tropes such as ticking off a million boxes of things to do, it’s just so much fun to engage in for the most part. The vaults (like shrines in Zelda) offer creative puzzle like challenges to overcome which rewards you with stamina upgrades and it’s pretty much the basis of the game. It’s one half hack and slash action game and one half puzzle platformer with some really unique puzzles to solve which aren’t going to stump most folks but offer just enough of a brain tease to feel rewarding and adds that sense of accomplishment once you figure them out by using objects in the environment as well as your godly powers which ranges from being able to lift up light and heavy objects or slow down time by shooting arrows in first person. The combat is fun the more you unlock abilities and godly powers but by the end of the 25ish hour journey rhe combat can become and feel a bit on the tedious side. And lastly the story is quirky as heck somewhat cheesy dialogue at times but overall it makes me feel like they were at least trying to give us a decent Greek mythology story and this version of Zeus in a video game has to be the most charismatic yet flawed version of the god that almost made me feel like he wasn’t a complete butt munch at times. Overall if you’re looking for a similar experience to Zelda BOTW without those darn breakable weapons with a story length about 1/3 of its size then this game may be worth your time.

One Must Fall 2097

Found some of my old dos games and giving them a go. I played way more OMF than was healthy back in the day. Best PC only fighting game ever.

Pinch 50 Renpatsu! for 3DS. Came over here as 50 Pinch Barrage but was delisted some time back so I picked up the Japanese one before the eshop closes.

It's a pretty basic platformer that trolls you with surprises and subverting expectations.

It records your play so when you are finished you have a replay of every single challenge and every time you died.

It took me just over 2 hours to clear it but that can be broken down into an hour to complete the first 40 challenges, and another hour for the last 10.

Some of those later challenges get more frustrating than fun. There is some super precise jumping needed but the control isn't super precise. In the end though I cleared it.

One more for today... the Slot Car Rivals Streetpass game.

After years of off and on playing, I finally completed it this afternoon.

It's not my favorite of the streetpass games, but it's not bad once you get the hang of it

Hi-Fi Rush 8/10
I love music, but am not great with staying on beat, especially the constant beat of this title. But the art style, atmosphere, story/writing/jokes and overall package were solid here. I wouldn't call it my GotY or anything like that, but for a game that they kept 100% buttoned down, it was a lot of fun and I had virtually zero bugs/issues. Kuddos to that team and if you want a decent length 3D hack & slash with a different spin on it, then I suggest checking this one out.

EDIT, dropped 1 point b/c I forgot about a bit that was annoying. The QTE style bits that were around a good amount - unlike better QTE design (sort of an oxymoron there) they were randomly all over the screen with ABXY vs. what the God of War series got right with them by putting Triangle always in the top, X at bottom, etc. Also you had to break some walls with the 1 support character and called them in via holding in the Right Trigger. With him, you lined him up and needed to release the RT on beat... well holy &^@$ did I suck at that... but really using an analog trigger for that was completely stupid.

I just wrapped up Guacamelee! 2 on
I certainly wasn't going for 100% but I did try to find as much stuff as possible along the way, it took around 11 hours. I actually thought I'd have it finished on Monday evening, turns out I think I was just barely reaching the 3/4 mark through the game at that point. The farther you get into the game, the funnier it gets. I did experience a glitch during a boss fight where I had to restart from the checkpoint right before it, but no big deal. I had maxed out all the stats, including one that came in handy during the last couple of boss fights where you can refill your health and stamina by just holding down on the left stick. I tried not to use it too much, but I mean, as much as I enjoyed the game, I did want it to end at some point.

Knocked out Ravenlok tonight. 6/10
It was just okay, nothing really noteworthy, middle of the road as it was far from terrible, but not exactly close to great. Just over 4hrs means I didn't get sick of it, hard to argue against this as a GP title.

My 4+ hrs included a little time spent collecting all the figures and going back after the credits quickly to buy some supplies that I clearly didn't need, as well as visit the one npc to exchange basically my xp for actual level increases. Both actions earned me the final 3 achievements to get to 1000gs.

The Treasures of Montezuma 4

Several times now I'd start playing on a full charge and refuse to pull myself away until the Vita goes kaput in the middle of a level. And this is even after I installed the batteryfix app. (which works wonders btw) Best match-3 I've ever played, and *much* better than than the trash that was Puzzle Quest.

Haiku the Robot - 8/10 pretty good, shortish Metrodvania game. Read some people complaining about the final boss but he's very telegraphed movements. Got this in a recent bundle.

Beat Ghost Trick on the Switch. I missed it on the DS. It is basically a game where you possess objects to change fate. The story is good and clocks in around 11 hourish. It has a mystery that slowly is unraveled and has a satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend at least one playthrough. Back to Final Fantasy 16 then Pikmin 4 then Atlas Fallen if reviews are good.

What Remains of Edith Finch. I usually prefer gameplay to story, but I had a couple of hours to kill. Strange game that couldn't really decide on a tone. Player input is superfluous so you can easily just YouTube it.

Speaking of Youtube I also watched the Death Stranding plot. Glad I saved myself 40 hours of delivering packages.

Orlandu wrote:
Death Stranding. Even after five hours in I couldn't seem to enjoy it. People state you need to play it for 10+ hours for it to get better but that is insane to me. Games should be enjoyable throughout with maybe a couple of points of pain here and there. The Order 1866 and that entire damn stealth sequence comes to mind.

@ued222 I used to be more patient with games, but I just knew that one wasn't for me. If Death Stranding hits for you you'll probably never find another game like it, but it's hard to imagine it having broad appeal.

I think I maybe made it 2 hours into The Order 1866 before I asked myself why I was playing it. Cool premise but not even remotely fun to play.

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

8/10

I’m glad this got a western release after I think it was 9 years. I really enjoyed the story as I do with most Yakuza titles. I loved the feudal Japanese mid 1800’s esque setting. It felt very The Last Samurai-ish and since I adored that film, it somewhat resonated here in it’s storytelling in a sense. With that being said though, the combat I felt like even with its 3 swappable play styles between swordsman, gunsmith or wild dancer (gun+sword combo) it felt a little too tedious towards the latter half of the game, even with various trooper cards you get to diversify your play style a bit. But then again most Yakuza games are a bit on the tedious side in regards to combat, albeit overall enjoyable for the most part if you can look passed the tedium. Overall length I clocked in at a little under 23 hours with doing about 1/4 of the sub stories. Technically speaking the performance mode was most good at 60fps with the exception of one chapter where there was lots of fires spread about and when fighting within the flames the framerate tended to die a bit. Since this got my Yakuza blood boiling again my next stop in my queue I think shall be Lost Judgment and the Yakuza 8.

@TalonJedi87 Nice. If the gameplay in the brawlers is a bit tedious to you, I'd go with 'Yakuza 8' next, especially if you've finished the previous 'Yakuza' proper entries. I just beat -

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

After the chaotic nature of 'Yakuza 5' with its many playable characters, fluff and length, 'The Song of Life' felt like a back to basics approach all for the better. You only play as Kiryu, he only has one fighting style and the story is laser focused (it's still a great story). There's only two cities, Kamurocho and Onomichi, with the latter being pretty small with next to nothing to do in it and most areas blocked off at any given story point. There's not a lot of activities to distract in general. Just a god-like strategy game and a few arcade games. There isn't even much to collect on the street outside of specific keys for specific safes in specific places. Normally I complete a little more than half the sub stories, but I only did about 15. I don't know how many there are (the final stat screens doesn't show the number), but they aren't as easy to find as in past games. You just come upon them by luck unless using a guide. Because of all this, the game only took me less than 17 hours to complete. By far the shortest amount of time to complete any 'Yakuza/Like A Dragon' or 'Judgement' game. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to 'Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name' this fall. So far it isn't getting a physical release over here, which means it might be a while before I play it. But I've now completed every Western release for the whole franchise except 'Dead Souls.' Damn I love this series!

Doki Doki Literature Club! - 9.25/10

The word "unique" gets thrown around a lot, but I can honestly say that this is one of the most unique games I've ever played. It's a visual novel at its core, but it is soooo much more than that. I can't say much more without spoiling it, but if this is a game you've had even a passing interest in, I can't recommend it enough. If you're going to play it, please don't look it up online and please be very mindful of the disclaimers at the beginning of the game. But yeah, I beat it last night and I'm still thinking about it today. It's now probably my 3rd favorite VN of all time behind VA-11 Hall-A and Steins;Gate.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I can do VNs as long as they have interesting gameplay elements. I just bought Relayer on sale. Playing that soon

kevolones wrote:

Never heard of Relayer. Just checked out some gameplay and it looks cool! Definitely let me know if you end up enjoying it. Doki Doki isn’t really like Relayer at all. This is very much a visual novel, but it’s only about 5 hours long so it’s very manageable and I played through it in 2 sittings.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I had downloaded the trial over PSN+ when it came out. I liked it but didnt feel like it was worth the full price. Its on sale for like $12 so I went for it. I love mecha games so very likely Ill enjoy at least that portion of the game. The attack animations are neat. Kinda like Super Robot Wars

Beat Final Fantasy 16. It needed a deeper combat system and other builds. The equipment overall just increased defense, attack and hp. It would have been nice to go for a more ranged build or use status effects. It isn't a bad game but there isn't much to do besides the story and side quests. I hit around 45 hours with most quests and bounties completed. It is a mostly depressing game and is worth one playthrough at the least. I am not playing the new game+ as it doesn't seem to change much. Onto Atlas Fallen on Sept 10th if reviews are low Armored Core 6 on the 25th.

Pentiment

It should be prefaced that this is not a jolly game. I don't want to give anything away, but there is strife throughout. That isn't a bad thing, but rather something to be aware of. Again I don't want to give anything away, but this game doesn't shy away from objective takes on religion and the church's place, citizen rights, women's struggles and nobleism. And yes, the game is gorgeous. Though the game takes place during the period of Mannerism, the characters especially are more Gothic in design. They're meant to evoke early mass produced Bible illustrations, and they nail it for the most part.

As far as the gameplay itself, it's best categorized as a point-and-click, though there are set paths to walk, a nice map and anything to interact with has a clear icon. About 90% of the game is dialogue. The story is quite good, as is the writing most of the time. There is branching dialogue that directly affects both your character's choices but also the overall story, with many, many endings. My complaint here is that nothing visually really happens when in conversation. Characters might blink from time to time, but they are otherwise extremely static. Long conversation can feel like they drag on because of this, particularly in the first half of the third act.

Besides an achievement glitch that didn't award me for completing the first act (online others have complained about other achievements not unlocking, both on Xbox and Steam), this is a highly enjoyable, thought provoking game. It's worth at least one playthrough, but anyone that likes seeing all outcomes and playing out each branch will get a lot more out of it. I wish it got a physical release (it can be purchased digitally), but for now it's another perfect Gamepass game.

Stray - 7/10

Started and finished this in 2 nights since it's leaving PS+ Extra soon. Pretty entertaining. I had fun with it. Gameplay was super simple but minimal direction was a nice change of pace in trying to figure out how to advance the game. Really enjoyed the Blade Runner-inspired environment for part of the game.

Now if I can just finish Tears of the Kingdom, I can start FFXVI. Took a break from TotK to beat Stray.

Lost Judgment 7.5/10

The sequel spin off to the Yakuza franchise felt a little bit too long for my tastes in the dialog department but that’s Yakuza games for you. I did rather enjoy the 3 different combat styles though and the lite detective work. Although I will go on the record for saying the forced platforming and stealth sections did not belong at all and felt so out of place in this game. It was such a waste of time running thru those motions. Visual wise, the graphics look like they got a bit of an overhaul though which is kinda nice and I felt like the voice acting (I did Japanese) was as dramatic as ever and pretty solid. And the side cases were okay but I rather got frustrated trying to progress in some of them by using the keyword function app to find clues to their next waypoint section that felt like it took away from the overall momentum of those side cases. Other than that if you want a good action game which is lite on puzzle solving you may enjoy this one. Just forgive it’s completely awkward and wonky platforming and stealth segments.

Killzone 2 6.5/10

I'm only 14 years late to this, but the series wasn't too impressive with the first game and while 2 wasn't bad in any particular area, it wasn't noteworthy nor great in any either. Your squad-mate Rico is a foul-mouthed dumbass was about the only thing I took away from the story. Graphically it did alright, it was a bit dark at times could be hard to follow in the mayhem of battle. Your guns likely realistically became very inaccurate while moving or after each shot, which stunk as nearly all were automatic and even your 6 shot revolver was this way. Only being able to carry 1 main weapon and your sidearm (I think I could've collected an alternative or 2) felt too limiting, I don't necessarily want to tote around a dozen guns, but 2 primary would've been a lot nicer. Also the game gave you zero direction on where you needed to head toward next - in most cases this didn't matter much b/c areas were often fairly linear, but I got turned around a few times during fights and without really any help on where to go next, it was more trial and error until I went the correct way.
One final negative was the endless spawning enemies. I didn't notice this really until the final push towards the end boss, but in that section, if I didn't push forward and basically take ground, then the foes kept spawning and with the lack of direction as mentioned, I wasn't sure that was what I needed to do. I'm way more used to a set of enemies needed to take out to stop the chaos and move forward. I don't believe this was the case in all areas, but I also recall feeling like that was happening in a bridge fight around the mid-point of the game, possibly others too I suppose.

Well beat Baulder's Gate 3 early access. An interesting game, the combat is more turn based then I expected as I never have played the other games in the series. You have a ton of customization and if the early access is any proof of length it should be a 50+ hour game.

Going to be doing a Final Fantasy 16 new game+ run and get the trophy. Don't have much else to play at this point.

My friend and I finished up Knights And Bikes last night on
Pretty fun co-op game about two little girls on a Goonies-style adventure hunting for some treasure.

Kaze and the wild masks - 5/10

Starts out charming, ends infuriating. The “masks” are simply a gimmick. Used a few times through out the game and only on certain levels. Platforming for the most part is ok, fun I suppose. Levels are on rails and short. Took me 9 hours to complete. The final boss, 4 sections, is infuriating. Someone thought it would be a good idea to start you back at section 1 if you die rather than allowing you to begin from the section you died on. Deleted the game upon completion.

loztdogs wrote:

the last boss was pretty annoying, but part 4 is an auto win so long as you don't make a mistake and die quick.

Agree with the low score on Kaze - I beat it on in early '22 before I lost my access to that from some free trials and had I not be set to lose that access, I likely would've quit, it was frustrating.
I just looked up the final boss run b/c I had forgot and watched a guy try and was thinking, I recall this, it wasn't so bad... and then he failed and failed and failed again as I started to skip along and then my actually memory of that fight came back and yeah, that was hot garbage. I think I ate it more in the 2nd phase than any others, but the 'transitions' with the masks on were also frustrating at times.

Yeah it was just stupid. You could have a flawless run in the beginning and mis time a jump or get knocked back…. All the way back to the beginning you go.

My friend and I just beat The Past Within in co-op (literally the only way it can be played).
This is another one of those co-op games where you need to communicate with your partner or else you won't make any progress. You're each seeing different things on your screens and have to explain what you're seeing to each other so you can solve the puzzles. I played on Steam and she played on Switch, but you can mix and match with mobile as well because the games don't actually connect to each other, it all relies solely on communication between the players.

A Story About My Uncle on
A pretty relaxing game overall, up until the last level. There was little challenge to the game until the last level, then they decided to crank things up. I admit I was close to rage quitting it for good, in fact if I hadn't beaten it by later tonight I probably would have uninstalled and moved on to another game.

Trek to Yomi 6.5/10

Beat this tonight, wouldn't generally recommend unless you're into challenging games like the Souls series. It's not too bad until the later chapters and the final boss sucked a bit. But while it nailed the 50's era black and white Samurai film ascetic it was surely going for, that doesn't mean it was all that great of a looking game when you looked closer. I got stuck on a few sections and came close to giving up, at least once. It was satisfying to complete b/c it wasn't easy, but I also uninstalled it right away as I had zero desire to play it more or to go for the 2 other story endings.

Gone Home: Did not care for this one. Presented as a mystery with supernatural elements but ended with nothing of the sort. Pretty much just melodramatic teenage romance. I also got a bit of motion sickness playing.

New Super Luigi U on
Overall it was much easier then I remember it being in my initial playthrough in 2013 but maybe it's due to Super Mario Maker troll levels making a man out of me. It's still much harder than vanilla NSMBU, but that isn't saying much because that game will literally play itself for you if you die enough times.

Beat the classic arcade game Rompers courtesy of Namco Museum Collection Encore on PS1.

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It is really quite good, except for maybe 3 or 4 chokepoint levels that took a lot of trial and error to finish.

Probably would have enjoyed it more if it was 31 levels instead of 61. For an arcade game it overstayed its welcome.

Another alternative would be to give you an ending at the end of the first 30 levels, then a code to unlock "Super mode" the next time you play which would be the remaining 30 levels and the "real" ending. Doing it all in one sitting is not an easy task.

#31 Yakuza: Like a Dragon

8/10

I wanted to score this a bit higher but the difficulty spikes about halfway into the game prevent me from doing so. Once you get to chapter 9, between chapters 9-11 it’s a bit of a chore to progress until you get to chapter 12 and unlock the underground battle arena. Then you can level the playing field. But alas, if anyone out there is curious to play a Yakuza game with old school Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy gameplay mechanics, this shall fill your cup and have it runeth over. Some of the summons you get too are quite ridiculous and over the top too but really awesome as is some of the more special attacks your characters get to pull off. There’s even numerous death by pigeon attacks, one of my personal faves to use. You get to play as 6-7 different party members each with their own sets of job classes that range from hero to hostess to even the culinary arts as a chef and police enforcers, etc. I mainly stuck to max out 1 job class per character though to unlock all their ultimate skill attacks. The story is pretty interesting too and full of the standard overly dramatic undertones the Yakuza series is known for and I clocked in about 40ish hours after doing most of the sub stories and main quest.

Finally finished New Game+ of Final Fantasy 16 and beat Daymare Sandcastle Demo.
Daymare was fun the lack of the first games magazine system and easier puzzle made it more enjoyable. The added freezing system was good but I would like to listen to audio logs while moving which is a minor grip. There are upgrades for weapons and you cryo gun and from the gameplay footage the full game will have more upgrades for both.

Final Fantasy 16 just got worse as the game went on in new game+, I thought the same with the non new game+ at the 25-30 hour mark. The combat simply gets more boring and lack of builds don't help. Your spending left over gil maxing out your potions in new game+. Side quests become even more pointless to complete. Shiva has low cooldowns, titan has high damage and Phoniex rising strike has low cooldowns high damage. Bahamut, and Garuda are useless overall in my opinion. I went with Ultima Weapon, Orobous armor, Genji Glove, Beserker Ring and limit damage one. The 5% damage boost, precision dodge damage boost and the limit break build for extra healing is OP. Thinking trying the two limit ones might be a better build and perhaps Genji Gloves damage boost isn't worth it. Going for the increased healing potency might be better. Perhaps selecting the last skills for each Ekion would do better damage but the cooldown was so high for those abilities.

Atlas Fallen on August 10th assuming it reviews okay.

Blue Estate: The Game on
I believe it is based on a comic book that I know nothing about. It's a comedy lightgun shooter. The final level was pretty cool in that I was down to my last life and the final shot that killed the boss was the last bullet I had left for my revolver (you get infinite ammo in your basic handgun, but it is much weaker and I very likely would have gotten a Game Over if I had to rely on using it). It's cool when that happens.

Dark Souls 3

Thexder Neo (PS3)

MUCH easier than the classic PC version

I just finished Bound on and somehow I didn't unlock a single trophy. I think they might leave the story open for interpretation but I think it had to do with this girl that grew up in a toxic family. The ending was lame, I won't spoil it but they could have done more with it.

Beat The Expanse Episode 1. The game seems like more of a collectible fest then previous games in the Telltale series sadly. It isn't to long though and traversal has changed for the space environment. You still have dialogue choices but the system has been changed for better or worse, you only have two options and timing out isn't an option as the game actually pauses. Graphics are quite different and still not top of the line but the story is great. The TellTale game style of art seems missing. There are still QTE events as well. Overall for $45 and the biweekly episodes, I would say wait for the full game to drop.

ued222 wrote:

I always waited for the whole seasons anyway. I know this is a prequel. How does it compare to the writing/story of the first couple of seasons? To me, the show became a boring slog after Amazon took over, but the SyFy seasons were great.

DCGX wrote:
I never watched the show but love Telltale games but dialogue and choices feel somewhat impactful, perhaps the people who are injured will die later on making the consequences for my choices mute though. I didn't know it was a prequel and I am guessing who lives and dies has been already determined. Kind of a bummer if you watched the show but I didn't.

ued222 wrote:

Possibly. I don't now which characters are in the game.

I beat the second showdown with Iceman in the Slot Car Rivals streetpass game.

Took far too many tries but i finally won by a margin of 0.07 seconds.

Duck tales remastered - 6/10 google play

I played this on my switch oled and it looked amazing, bright and colorful. This is another one of those games I’ve fired up a dozen times but never really invested any time in it. If you’re a fan of the cartoon series, this plays just like an episode from the late 80’s. Many of the main characters from the series make an appearance adding even more charm. The long and short of it is this game is an overly simple platformer with very little challenge. Bosses are equally easy and levels are super short and easy to navigate. The game is over almost as soon as it starts and there’s not much in the way of an ending. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun game it’s just way to easy and really short. My play through had random graphic glitches where some sections of the environment would be white or translucent like the color and textures didn’t render. Was odd but only seemed to be a visual distraction if nothing more.

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