VideoGame_Discussion

Shadow of the Tomb Raider - 7/10 - The weakest of the trilogy but it still had some fun tombs, pretty good gameplay, and nice graphics.

I'm posting three times so it's not just one big wall of text in a single post, but I've been playing these over the past week.

Firewall Zero Hour {} 6/10
This kind of reminded me of "Unit 13" I think it was called, which was an early third-person shooter on the PS Vita by the SOCOM developers, except this is first-person. I don't actually remember a whole lot about that game other than it was a decent shooter on a handheld (something we didn't really get too many of prior to Switch) and that it wasn't just trying to be a Call of Duty or Halo wannabe, and neither is this game. I admit though that I didn't play this game for very long.

The game supports the PS Aim controller and DualShock 4, but I was limited to DualShock 4. This is also primarily an online multiplayer co-op shooter, and I'm just not as into those these days (especially when my only option is to play with randoms because nobody else I know is into VR enough to buy it themselves) compared to say 10 years ago where I would've been all over something like this, so that's why I didn't play very much of it and what I did play was mostly the offline mode where I had to protect a laptop against bots that were coming from all sides trying to get to it and steal the data off of it. I mostly just played that for around an hour until I got bored of it. I did have some tracking issues during one round where all of a sudden my in-game hand holding the gun would only point sideways, but the issue seemed to eventually fix itself after 5 minutes or so and there were no problems after that.

Considering that the game has over 13K reviews in the PlayStation Store and 65% have rated it 5 stars (I only mention this because the rating feature was only just added a couple months ago and that you can only rate games you own, so less chances of dogy gamers review bombing something), I think it is safe to say that if you are into online shooters then your experience with this will be way different than mine because there's clearly a good game in here. I was pretty surprised that the servers are not only still online, but there are people still playing it and I was able to join a match that had 5 other players (there was no list of lobbies to see exactly how many were still playing though, it just put me in a random lobby). But as it is a 5 year old game I just don't see the point at trying to invest the time into the online portion now because as a new player I'll just get stomped by the veterans. But this developer is closing down and I think Sony made a mistake by not buying them out, because they clearly had a hit on their hands with this game. But then again, I think I'd be more surprised if Sony did buy them out because it might show they actually care about their own VR product instead of just releasing it and leaving it up to everyone else to support it.

VirZOOM Arcade {} 4/10

Unfortunately I did not get to experience this game the intended way, hence the low score.
This is basically a fitness game, and how they intend for you to play it is with this $400 exercise bicycle controller. You can totally play it with just a regular DualShock 4 like I did though, but then the problem becomes there is no exercise involved anymore, and the game on its own is just not very fun, so why even play it with no benefit of getting exercise? Think of it like the equivalent of trying to play Ring Fit Adventure with a Pro Controller (which isn't possible, but I mean if it was it would feel pretty pointless).

The game is basically a collection of mini-games that are designed to be simple like old arcade titles. One has you riding horseback, one has you on a bicycle riding tour, one has you in a kayak going around a pond, one has you in a tank, one has you on a flying unicorn, one has you flying a helicopter and one has you in a race car. All of those are controlled by you peddling the bicycle...or just holding the R2 button to accelerate and tilting your upper body to the left or right to steer. I will say that it is cool that this game exists in the first place if you play it the intended way. But none of these mini-games are fun for more than 10 minutes when you play with just the basic DualShock 4, and in that case there are far better stand-alone racing, flying, tank combat, etc. PSVR games already, further making it pointless to play this for anything other than fitness.

Witching Tower VR {} 8/10
What we've got right here is a first-person puzzle/adventure game. As is the case with so many PSVR games in my library, I don't even remember buying this one, so I'm assuming it was on sale pretty cheap at one point.

The game takes place in the 1400s, and you start out chained up in a dungeon, in a cage across from you in a floating skull who is yapping away about something. A crow flies down with a key that you use to free yourself from the chains, then you you let that skull out of the cage he was in and he follows you around for the rest of the game, and he's actually quite annoying sometimes because you often forget he's there and if you turn around while holding your sword, you're often gonna accidentally hit him and he won't shut up abou it. Once you get out of that dungeon you've gotta climb the wall across a big gap to really start your adventure (which was kinda cool, and there are ladders to climb too later on but each of those sections last under a minute) and then you're given a torch which you'll use to fight enemies which are just zombie dogs and bats in the beginning (later you'll get a bow with infinity arrows and a sword). The combat isn't deep at all. Regardless if you're using the torch or the sword, it takes very little skill to kill anything and is as simple as back in the day when games would make you waggle the Wii Remote. I tried not to use the bow and arrow unless it was needed, bucause I couldn't aim it well.

The graphics are quite good by PSVR standards. I can't speak as to what kind of budget went into this game, but releasing at only $20 and barely 3 hours long I think it's safe to say this isn't exactly a AAA game, but visually I would rank it pretty high as one the better looking PSVR titles I've played (there are two AAA PSVR games that I haven't played, Skyrim and Borderlands 2, and I would like to see how this game compares to them). The audio though, that's where the developers kind of dropped the ball. First off when you kill a dog or bat enemy, you'll still hear them. Example, I bop the dog on the nose with my sword a couple times, that mf is still making growling noises after his corpse has faded away. More than once I was tricked into thinking it was the sound of another dog coming after me, but there weren't any to be found. The audio also is not 3D like most other VR games I've played. When those bats are swarming at you, you won't be able to actually tell from which direction they're coming from. You just gotta keep looking around and waggling your arm wildly. The enemies do have HP, but most only take 3 or 4 swings with the sword to kill. And them having HP is the closest thing to any RPG stuff you will find here.

Next I want to touch on the controls. I did have some tracking issues around 15 minutes into the game. There was this little cage thing with bombs in it and to get them out I needed to bend the bars. I couldn't reach down far enough without the PS Camera losing track of the PS Move controllers, and there is no crouch button in the game. I was hesitant to mess with the camera setup because for the past few months I've been going through my PSVR library, I have not had many tracking issues with most games, but I reluctantly moved the camera to my desk instead of keeping it on the TV. So far it has been working, but it felt like my character was a midget (there are various crates and barrels throughout the tower and I'm barely taller than them now). I did put the camera back on top of the TV when I continued earlier today for the second session and I had no issues this time.

That tracking issue brings me to the puzzles. So just before I reached that part at the 15 minute mark where I struggled with the tracking, that's the first real puzzle of the game. After I moved the position of the camera I then decided to restart my game from scratch and when I got back to that first puzzle the solution was not the same was it was the first time. It was a basic "push the buttons in the correct order" type of puzzle and this time the order was different. Assuming that happens to other puzzles throughout the game too, I think that is pretty damn cool and it encourages repeat playthroughs for puzzle fans. The rest of the puzzles, one or two ended up stumping me a bit, and instead of giving little hints at what to do, you can press the Triangle button on the right PS Move controller and the game will practically spell out the solution for you. That part is not as cool. Late in the game you unlock the ability to posess enemy skeletons and control them, basically using them to pull levers or step on switches to open doors for you and I liked that mechanic and wish it didn't come so late into the game. Another puzzle had you crush up a crystal and mix it into some potion thing. It was pretty cool but just like each of the climbing sections it only lasts briefly.

Overall there is some room for improvement here (especially the combat), but outside of the tracking issue I experienced in the beginning and the audio not being as good as it could be, I am glad that I played this and it wound up being one of PSVR's hidden gems once I got over a couple of rough patches.

Lies of P - 9.5/10

A souls-like with a coherent story that’s not just told through environmental notes and an absolutely perfect parry mechanic?! Color me surprised.

Even though its game design is linear, I found that to be to its advantage. Elden ring being the exception, I find myself fatigued by open world games. Lies of P has a deliberate path/loop through all its levels where you find shortcuts, fight a tough miniboss, get introduced to new enemies, and then of course the final save point before the big level ending baddie. I am not good at soulsborne games, and I absolutely suck at parrying. Lies of P parry animation is so instant and the timing window so telegraphed, by the end of the game I became a perfect parry god. For context: I couldn’t get past the first boss in Sekiro that’s on a horse, and I only beat Elden ring because of dodge roll invincibility frames.

It’s absolutely needed to tackle the final 3 bosses of the game, which for me were the only ones that took over 20 tries to beat. The enemies and bosses are well designed, feel like fair fights, and reward aggression/taking advantage of telegraphed attacks that are parriable. Most of them took me 5 tries or less to beat until the late game. Absolutely loved the Pinocchio meets Bloodborne aesthetic, and the story is actually damn good and heartfelt, with a teaser hinting at a sequel with a certain lead character that I didn’t see coming (but am very excited about). The weapon variety is amazing as are the enemy designs, everyone will find a different weapon that carries them through and fits their play style.

Grateful that this was added to gamepass, took me nearly 60 hours on my first playthrough, mainly because I grinded a lot if a boss gave me trouble. It’s absolutely worth getting, even if you’re not a fan of the genre. Take it from someone who was apprehensive to play it because I suck at these games but got hooked within the first 30 minutes.

Posted in FF thread. Thought maybe others would be interested in this:

Finally finished and platinum FFXVI

This one is a mixed bag. The story starts very slow and the pacing is a mess for quite awhile. When it does pick up- it’s a typical WTF is going on modern FF convoluted mess of existential philosophy and overlong dialogue that I mostly just wanted to skip through. It’s not helped at all by the fact that combat takes 3/4 of the game to really come together- and you don’t even have all skills or ability to mix and match any skill to your set until you “master” them with skill points- so you may never be able to do this on 1 playthrough.

The game is saved by the second playthrough- unfortunately it is a long game and rushing through / skipping cut scenes it still clocks in at about 30 hrs or so. The second playthrough ups the difficulty, opens up the inventory and crafting system and gives you access to all all skills and the ability to match any skill with any base eikon once it’s mastered. Leveling never feels like it really matters. Sometimes enemies are 10-15 levels ahead and still feel trivial. This game went from a 6/10 to an 8/10 for me after a second playthrough.

It’s unfortunate that they decided to lock the full experience behind a full playthrough- most likely won’t see it.

Another mistake imo is using the easy mode items they give you at the start. One of them automatically performs all dodges and pet skills, one of them allows you to just press 1 button to perform any move chosen by the CPU etc. these completely trivialize all but 1 or 2 end game encounters. The combat system is quite good and pretty fun once you learn it well. I’m thinking lots of folks used these and really dumbed it down made it boring.

Technically this game is one of the few that seems truly “next gen” this year. The visuals and seeing it in action are jaw dropping. The music is standard setting, the use of the dual sense is genius as you learn what each shake is queuing you up for. Seriously the battle music on certain bosses will give you chills.

The boss battles overstay their welcome frequently. I know this may be unpopular but damn- some of them require 30-45 minutes of play time to finish.

It’s a good game but does not feel at all like a mainline FF entry for me. It would have been a great spinoff or new IP. I can truly say I enjoyed FF XV better as a FF game. Lots of old standby enemies, spells, items, weapons- just are not here.

A great tech demo for the ps5.

I’m about 20 hours into Persona 5 Tactica and there is far too much dialogue for a tactics game. It’s fine in regular Persona where you have the overworld to break things up and add an additional layer to the overall experience, but here it’s about 70% yapping and 30% actual gameplay. The gameplay is fun when the game actually lets me do it. It’s nowhere near as nuanced as the best games in the tactical RPG genre, but it adds some P5 flavor to things and I’m enjoying it even if it is admittedly a little clunky. Playing it on Hard and it feels more like Normal, but I don’t mind it as much. Also I want to note that the whole fusion of Persona thing is kinda shoehorned in to this and doesn’t really impact the gameplay much.

Overall it’s okay but it’s a game I’d only really recommend if you are itching for something Persona related. Something like Triangle Strategy puts it to shame as a tactical RPG and Persona 5 Strikers is a much better spinoff and doesn’t feel quite as forced/contrived as this one does. Moreover, the story is super boring. It starts off quite nicely, but I’m definitely not enjoying it as much anymore. Maybe it’ll pick back up. The one standout thing about this game is Erina. She’s legitimately awesome and fits into the P5 crew perfectly. Right now the game feels like a bit of a slog and I’m probably going to start skipping through a bunch of dialogue so I can get to the gameplay.

I’ve been playing Resident Evil Village in VR for the first time and trying to get to the scene in the basement (IYKYK) to show my family when they arrive tomorrow. It’s really quite impressive. Hands down the best VR experience I’ve ever had so far.

Started Sea of Stars the other night through Game Pass. It’s touching on a lot of nostalgia feels and it’s new at the same time. I’ve died a few times though, since I’m not great at RPG’s, but it hasn’t killed the vibe for me.

I’m on the final act of Sea of Stars now myself and yes its a very good game with a ton of member berries moments. I wish we had more games like this that’s fresh yet familiar.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I was going to play this when I got back home after the holidays. I might hold off now.

Just finished Callisto Protocol. Got this for free thru PS+ and have to say it wasnt as bad as I expected. I can understand how people who paid full price were let down though.

It looks and sounds pretty good and the story wasnt bad. Id say this game is more similar to Hellblade than it is to Deadspace. You just walk through linear stages and fight monsters using your sword.

7/10 since it was free

I agree on Callisto Protocol. Not a bad game, nice to get it for free on PS+. It's not as good as Dead Space, but it's worth playing.

Same. I enjoyed my time with Callisto Protocol when not comparing it to Dead Space but yeah it’s still worth a play.

Archer wrote:

Yeah man I’m at the end now and they just chose to pad out the length of the game with pointless battles and recycled boss fights from earlier in the game. I guess they are trying to make it feel like a “final dungeon”? Who knows. I do enjoy the combat though for what it’s worth. I’m 40 hours in now and I definitely would have bailed by now if I didn’t like the combat. It feels more like a puzzle game than a tactics game sometimes because there are missions that you have to complete in a certain number of turns and you kinda have to figure out the best/most efficient route. I like it, but I don’t know how others will feel about that. It’s definitely a weird game. Especially since it feels like they cheaped out on the visuals and the overall style may not be for everyone. I was playing on Hard but then bumped it up to Merciless and it’s still too easy. I also think the story is incredibly generic, forgettable, shallow, boring etc but YMMV since it’s subjective. It’s just so poorly written, imo.

If you’ve already got it it’s worth trying out to see if it clicks. I definitely don’t regret playing it.

Currently playing through Immortals of Aveum. I know this game did not sell well at all and led to half the developer studio getting laid off but the game is actually not bad at all. I'm probably 8ish hours in and I'm having a good amount of fun with it so far

BJB wrote:

I think that was the "problem" with this game. With all the amazing games that came out in 2023, something that was just "good" never had much of a chance. When it hits EA whatever/Game Pass, I'd like to give it a go.

Playing Star Ocean: Second Story R. Not too far in (6-7 ish hours) but gosh darn I am in love

theyrhere wrote:

One of the greats!

Finished ys x nordics ps5 Japanese import. If you like Ys you’ll love this. I can honestly say it’s my favorite ys title at least out of the recent releases. The combat is refined to a more strategic fast paced / arcadey sekiro style. There are poise gauges and timed attacks / parries that knock it off and allow for damage multipliers. Lots easier to pull off than many games.

The boat stuff is extremely reminiscent of ACIV- it starts very slowly due to boat not having upgrades but once you get it up and running you zip around pretty fast- lots of fast travel too.

Music is excellent as usual per NIS / falcom stuff. Graphics are typical anime Ys stuff and I like it.

There are redundant and useless weapons and gear- tons of it. As usual.

The story is pretty good. I can understand quite a bit of spoken Japanese and some text- but Google translate / iPhone app makes it easy to get a more solid idea of anything I’m stumped on. It’s easy enough to play and understand once I got the systems down that I’m one trophy away from the platinum with very little outside help.

Super excited for this to be localized to do it again hopefully next year. Definitely grab this if you’re into the series and imports aren’t a turn off.

9/10

Feeb wrote:

No tower defense segments in this one then?

benstylus wrote:

There are about 10 base assault type scenarios that replace the tower defense and Grimwald nox of 8 and 9. They are almost all optional, you have to drive into them to start them so not linear or story related. You basically have to destroy 3-4 towers with your boat in multiple rounds to disable the shields around the island base- then you go inside and assault it 3-6 rounds of just small groups of enemies. The longest one takes about 10 minutes (entire scene boat battle and assault) Once you’re leveled most of the boat and assault rounds take you 2-4 minutes. Not something that feels like a chore as in the previous games. And the rewards are pretty crazy- very easy to S rank them.

This reminds me of another gripe- the boat controls switch axis if you head toward the player versus away- that’s a mess- I’m pretty sure there is an option to turn it off as there are tons of options and gameplay assist / accessibility toggles.

It feels like a half baked shmup and is pretty fun once you get geared and OP. Just crushing boats and bases.

Thanks. Putting this one on my watchist

Feeb wrote:

Nice. I love Ys games! Itll probably be a couple of years until we get it here though. Maybe late 2024 at best. I still have to play 8 so its all good.

Bluey PS4/PS5:
As far as kids games go I really liked it. It's short and probably should have been a cheaper game but its a pretty hot license right now so I suppose that's why. Graphically it feels like your playing the cartoon it's done like 4 TV episodes but it is a little buggy, nothing that really effects anything though. I do wish I would have got it on Switch though just because the of the Joy cons and the size of them would fit better in my 2 year old's hands. She loved watching me play it though and asks for me to play it again. I would highly recomend this game if you want an easy 4 player co-op game to play with your kid. The mini games are REALLY simple also but I think if you have some young ones that's a definite plus.

Dead Island 2

8.5/10

Easily the best FPS zombie game I’ve played in a years. Puts the likes of the Dying Light series to shame really. And I had such low expectations for it with all the delays and developer changes.

TMNT via Cowabunga Collection

7/10

Ya know this game really isn’t bad if you cheat (rewind + save states) plus the music is pretty good and catchy too. I’m finally gonna get revenge on childhood as I just made it past area 4B now. It even has a built in digital Nintendo Power strategy guide section in the collection.

I have like 3 more games to beat on that collection. I have the NES game, the third Game Boy game and that trash Genesis version of Tournament Fighters.

Nice. I wanted to start the collection with the hardest first the work my way backwards. Not sure if I’ll play that crappy version of Tournament Fighters tho.

That’s fair. I started with what I wanted to play. I’m finding it hard to play through the games now though haha

I'm about 7 hours into Signalis on the PS5 and i'm at a loss for words. You talk about a homage to those early survival horror games and I don't think any other game has done it better. And it does it without being derivative. It's very much its own game, but some of the callbacks legitimately give me chills. I just got to a "piano room" where Moonlight Sonata is playing and it takes me right back to the OG Resident Evil and REmake. I have to stop playing now because I have to head out for a couple of hours, but I'm jumping back in as soon as I get back home. I started playing it a while ago and bailed after less than 30 mins because it just wasn't clicking and I think @kommie had really positive things to say about it so I decided I'd give it another shot at some point. So glad I did. Honestly can't recommend this enough if you're a fan of survival horror games.

Heavyd814life wrote:

It's great.

Gollum (PS5) is only $5 at Gamefly (with free shipping) so I said why not. It's not as bad as it was made out to be, but yes it's terrible. If it released at $20 and presented itself as an indie or AA title I think it would still be a disappointment but at least be more reasonable. Full price lol.

The biggest issue is that it had this incredible IP to work with and did absolutely nothing with it. It's not even about Gollum's growth as a character, it's just him, cookie-cutter orcs as the only real enemy (but some wear helmets! ), and occasionally you see other characters in cutscenes. The graphics are poor but I haven't experienced any bugs. Just some clumsy "there is only 1 perfect way to get through this" situations.

Anxiouz wrote:

I haven't played this, and I don't doubt what you said, but I wonder, specifically when it comes to characters and even locales, how much the developer was allowed to use. With the way the Tolkien estate chops up and licenses out the property, they might've been limited in what they could use and/or reference. I really wish someone else was in charge of licensing the IP. The Tolkien estate just comes off as extremely greedy bastards.

Put almost 10 hrs into The Last Case of Benedict Fox and I'd give it a solid 8/10 I suppose.
Graphically it looks amazing for the art style it's going for, you're mainly in Limbo of the twisted mind/memories of 2 individuals and the backgrounds of those 2 places are just really great, lots of details and plenty of vibrant colors, though purple/magenta is a key color in the game. Controls are pretty good, at least moving around, combat isn't the best, BUT you don't fight too much and after a little bit you get used to it. I played mostly on my XSX, but went to the PC (playing via GPU) b/c there was this one door that I could NOT figure out how to open. The game is a bit of a puzzle-metroidvania with skills you unlock overtime allowing you access to more areas and this door I had the right skill to open it and had opened several others like it, but it was elevated and I couldn't get the controls right to interface with it to open it. I even got stuck a few times trying to jump and interface with it. So on PC I used the KB controls and it still took me a little while b/c they just didn't make sense, so there's some issues there.

After I got the door figured out I played a good 2 hrs more on the PC b/c it has that feeling of 'just one more' secret or story element then I'll stop (and go back to my XSX), but I had switched to a Xbox controller by then, so it was pretty similar anyhow. I've used a guide a tiny bit b/c of a few things like that door and there's some other 'dark' sections that I was confused on how to use another tool to navigate/survive in - so the controls or at least the instructions on how to do some things could be improved. The game has a lot of overlapping quests to complete and it really does not hold your hand. A few times I was looking at the map thinking, man what/where do I go next. That guide helped a little there.

Most of the puzzles and such are pretty good and I just did I rather cool looping bit that got a tiny bit stale, but the dialog btwn the main character and another person during this was really good. Plus the voice acting is top notch, one of the better voice acted games I've played, maybe since Guardians of the Galaxy. I will say that I started this in the summer and played like 1 session for maybe 45 mins and it didn't 'hook' me. But I wanted to give it another go and since doing that I've been hooked and played several sessions and am looking forward to seeing out the story.

TLDR - solid game, excellent art design and execution, solid writing and top notch voice acting, controls and/or explaining some skills could use some help, but overall it's been a good game that does take a good hour+ to get into.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR { 2} 8/10

I specifically wanted this to be the first game I play on my shiny new PSVR2 and I think that was the right call. I was a big fan of the original game on the previous PSVR and this game is pretty much an improvement in every way you can think of.

I played through half of the game and then restarted from the beginning. Then reached the halfway point again making different choices along the way this time...and then restarted from the beginning again. That is how much I just did not want this game to end. On my third restart is when I finally decided to play it through fully. I actually would have liked to have played through it in one sitting, but that is not going to be possible because of how the game uses the rumble features in the controller, the battery life won't last until the end unless I disable the rumble, but I'm not doing that because it makes good use of it. You don't just feel rumble when you fire a bullet like in every other game, there are some points where it is used to build up tension right before crap is about to go down. More developers need to realize that rumble can be useful for things like that and not just when something explodes.

Since I obviously just got my PSVR2 I cannot speak to the state the game was in when it released last March. Unfortunately Supermassive Games seems to be in the habit of rushing their games out more and more these past few years and just fixing them up in post-launch patches in what is basically the equivalent of flipping off day one buyers, and that seems to be the case with this game, too. I am satisfied with the game as it is now, but from my understanding not a lot of people were left satisfied at launch.

The graphics are one area people complained about at launch. I don't know how much they've been improved via patches since then, but I thought they were just fine (but then again maybe I'm just easily impressed since the only other VR I can compare it to being the original PSVR where games often looked low-res on the base model console). The 3D audio was good (the options menu has a setting for Pulse headset users instead of just giving it a generic "headphones" label) and the controls are good too, absolutely no re-callibrating needed unlike was the case with the original game. Also like the original game, this is a spin-off game of a series you don't really need to have played to be able to enjoy this.

A couple of months ago they added a horde mode as free DLC. It's typical horde mode stuff, but the coaster section moves at like 2x or 3x faster than it does in the story, and that's cool. I kinda get easily burned out on horde mode stuff though, so after about an hour I'm kinda done with it. However for the game itself, just like its predecessor Rush Of Blood, I intend to revisit this for a playthrough every couple of years, and definitely will use it to show off VR to family visiting.

-=-
Cactus Cowboy - Plants At War { 2} 3/10
Not only is this the worst VR game I've played, but it's a contender for one of the worst games I've played...period. It's a first-person shooter acting as a parody of WWII. I couldn't beat the first level, that's just how bad it is, and even the tutorial was a bit painful to get through. The characters are all voiced by AI bots, and it's sometimes difficult to listen to them because they mispronounce words so often. There's one NPC that tells you "this game was developed by one person and is free, so leave a nice review in the store!" and I'm just thinking...heck no. A bad game is a bad game regardless of if just one person made it or a hundred people worked on it together, and just because you didn't charge money for it doesn't mean you get a free pass and your game can't suck. It's like the dude had a funny idea and thought he should build a game around it, but with the finished product he failed miserably.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails- PS4

Just finished the platinum. This one is interesting- at first glance it’s a simple, janky psp port of a ho hum action RPG / platformer. After you get into it it’s a pretty deep, fast paced twitch / skill based top tier old school good time. The music is good, the story is typical overblown JRPG fare- the controls are tight and reminiscent of some of the great 16 bit era titles.

The levels are short and each has 3 gems and a treasure to find- along with a specific goal like only use a sword, don’t heal or kill 50 enemies before completing. It feels like a bunch of arcade levels put together to make a 50 hour epic. There are minimal Zelda, metroid, mega man influences in the form of earning a new move to reach new places, revisiting areas and getting a new spell that hurts a boss more. Speaking of bosses- there are lots of them. Each one has multiple phases and may require you to use one of your weapons / skills a’la the aforementioned standard setting opuses.

This one felt really satisfying to platinum. It really shines when you complete all the extra content- the credits roll then there is “after story” that continues the story and finishing it actually counts as “beating the game” trophy. Then there is NG+. It adds a whole new set of side quests and levels- eventually allowing you to use your points earned from achievements ( same as trophies) to buy upgrades such as new level cap, faster speed, new levels, infinite skills. Beating this mode is really the end.

Great fun. Recommend if it sounds even remotely interesting to you.

I only dabbled with the original release as it was Japan only- so I don’t know what’s new here- but this package would easily be a top 5 psp title.

9/10

LEGO 2K Drive {} 7/10

These graphics are nice and really make me want to see what the next Mario Kart title will look like in 4K. And I really dig the whole Car/ATV/Boat transitions, reminds me a bit of Sonic & All-stars Racing Transformed.

I dunno what it is exactly that is preventing it, but I really wanted to like this game a lot more than I am. I can admit this is actually one of the better recent kart racers out there, and I don't mean to imply that I'm not enjoying it at all, because I am, but I just intend to do the bare minimum to complete the story mode before I move on to a different game once the credits roll. If this were a Mario Kart game with an actual story mode you know I'd 100% that dog, but with this one I just don't feel like committing to it that way. In fact I haven't even done anything to upgrade my vehicles. I'm around 3 or 4 races from the end of the story and still using whatever they started me out with, without having made any changes other than paint job because I think they make you do that at one point. Once the story mode ends I might play a few rounds of online multiplayer before deleting it, which feels weird for me to say because that's where these games are most fun and I should be spending the most time playing.

TMNT Radical Rescue via COWABUNGA Collection

4/10

This one is just weird and poorly constructed I feel. I’m not gonna finish it because it’s basically a maze set up and you have to search rooms for keys and keycards to free turtles which have special abilities to allow you to search more rooms and unlock the maze further. However even when I unlocked all the turtles I still got stuck and frustrated so I moved onto TMNT Arcade game which is nostalgia city for me.

Narita Boy (PS5) - I don't usually post reviews of games I'm playing but I think I got this game on sale for like $1.99 and it is so awesome. It's a super solid metroidvania that isn't too challenging, but gets most of its difficulty from puzzling. It is important to read dialogue and keep a pen and paper handy to track wild symbols and codes to advance through the correct specific doors. HLTB has this game at around 8 hours to beat/complete so I'm about halfway through and I am really enjoying my time with this so far.

I loved Narita Boy too. Such a random but fun game. Narita…BOIIIIIIIII!!!

Songs For A Hero - Definitive Edition {} 7/10

Having not played the original version of this, I don't know what makes this the definitive version. But it's a 2D action/platformer where you select a hero in the beginning and set off to rescue a princess (what else are heroes good for?) all the while a narrator is singing along on your ass kicking journey. The songs are pretty funny at times. The problem is though that when I'm concentrating during a part with a lot of action or a boss fight, I can't easily pay attention to what he's even singing.

The game overall is pretty easy as far as the platforming goes. The most challenging parts for me were the boss fights, in particular trying to figure out when you're able to attack them. Some of the boss fights have multiple phases and if you die you will restart from phase one, which especially sucks because you also have to sit through all the dialog leading up to the fight and some of it was only funny the first time.