VideoGame_Discussion

Goodbye Volcano High - 8/10

Another really unique adventure game. It's a narrative adventure/rhythm game set in world of anthropomorphic dinosaurs and it focuses on the last days of high school for the main character Fang and their friends. The main character is part of a band and that's where the rhythm portion of the game comes in. The music is really great and rhythm minigames offer the perfect level of challenge. I'm listening to the soundtrack on Spotify while I write this. Easily the highlight of the experience.

The animation is also really great. As are the voice performances. Fang is an awesome character and you get the usual coming of age stuff with teenagers coming to important crossroads in their lives as they try to figure out where they fit in the world. And I think that was my biggest issue with the game. You have a lot of interesting plot points that aren't fully explored. There is so much potential with the story, but it just kinda drags and loses a lot of steam towards the end. And it's a bummer because early on I thought it had a shot to be one of my favorite games of the year. But in the end, I think the only thing I'll remember is the killer soundtrack. Definitely a game I'd still recommend to folks who enjoyed games like Night in the Woods, Life is Strange, the Telltale games etc.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me - 6.5/10

Solid slasher story that ramps up well and has a few intense moments towards the end. Movement still feels clunky as hell and there is far too much walking around at an annoyingly slow pace. The facial animations are also pretty awful and the characters are, again, really unlikable for the most part, though they do work well together towards the end. Overall it's a pretty average/forgettable experience and it's wild to me how much of an issue Supermassive has had replicating the success they had with Until Dawn. I actually enjoyed House of Ashes so I had high hopes for this one, but it's about in line with Man of Medan, Little Hope and even The Quarry which were all pretty mediocre. I think they may need to focus on making one great game instead of rushing out a bunch of mediocre ones.

I’m playing Devil Within Me now myself and even though they finally added a sprint option finally yeah it’s still awkward and clunky to move as well. I’m also having a hard time liking any of the characters in this one so I think I may slaughter them all haha

I've liked all the games, some more than others, but last year's game was really buggy at launch. I'm still looking forward to the next game, which seems to have gone in a new, more sci-fi direction. Unfortunately it seems to have been put on hold while Supermassive finishes up Little Nightmares 3.

I picked up several of thr Atari Recharged titles on Xbox when they were half off last week. I beat Centipede Recharged today. It's a remake with vector style graphics, generic electronic music, some power ups, and a ton of challenge missions.

Some of the challenges are stupid easy, some are excruciatingly boring, some seem like you win if you get the right random powerups, otherwise you lose, and some are pretty fun regardless.

I had it crash on me once, which was disappointing. I think one of the missions had a programming bug in it as well thst made it last way longer than it should have.

Overall it's not terrible but I honestly think the original (or even the Atari 2600 version) is a better game. The biggest problem is the slow pace of the game compared to the original.

The spider is no longer really a threat, it just crawls along leisurely. Spiders are also where you get the power ups so they are more of a help than a hindrance now. Gone is the classic spider sound effect too. In fact, gone are all the classic sound effects.

It was also a missed opportunity for Atari to not include the original as part of this game. They have a classic mode where you can play without the powerups but it's not the same frantic action.

So far this series kind of reminds me of the early Sega Ages 2500 Series on PS2. Budget remakes from B or C tier developers, and some turned out much better than others. (I have also played Yar's Recharged as well and had quite a bit of fun with that one so far.)

I think the $5 i spent was a good price for this one for me. At the regular price of $10, it would be a stretch but the mission mode might enough content to maybe justify it. There is also co-op but i only played single player. (If they had included the original Arcade version, then I would definitely say it was worth $10, even though I already have it a few times over on other collections).

The Touryst on
Pretty fun little adventure/platformer/puzzle game. I recommend it, it's on Switch, Steam, Xbox and PlayStation as well (which kinda surprised me because for the most part this little dev has mainly stayed loyal to Nintendo) so you have plenty of options to check it out on.

RE3 Remake (PS5) - 6.5/10 - I think this was good but it's such a weird game. I haven't played it since it originally came out so I didn't remember too much besides a Nemesis chasing you. Which I have disliked in all of the RE's that use this mechanic.

It's definitely a short game and wasn't all that satisfying to beat. It took me about 5 hours and I was diligent with turning the maps all blue and not leaving anything red. There's a trophy for beating this in under 2 hours, and that feels awfully tight but I believe it can be done.

Being out on city streets or in a hospital with so many blocked paths felt odd and basic after playing things like Last of Us. I enjoyed the 2-3 nights with this but it doesn't have the same lasting appeal as RE2 remake which is a far better game in all respects.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil Within Me

6.5/10

As season 1 wraps of the anthology series about twisted horror tropes I found myself rather enjoying the last installment this season for what it was worth. A Saw like plot with the works. A masked Jigsaw like killer, death traps and seemingly impossible choices. My complaints would be the cast of characters wasn’t really that likable for me and I ended up killing a couple of them without caring too much about it. Especially the older British chap who really irked me. But the atmosphere of this installment was pretty creepy starting off in a murder hotel and then circling around to an island towards the end of the game. And finally they added a dedicated true sprinting option in this installment. It only took them 4 tries to get it right but it did feel awkward to move still and a bit shaky at times. I also experienced a couple of crashes while playing in the bigger open areas too. But of all the Dark Pictures games I’d say this one is my 3rd overall fave with my first being the previous installment, House of Ashes, which felt like it had Alien/Predator vibes. But if you want a Saw like video game experience check this one out. Just don’t expect to like any of the one dimensional characters in this one.

Beat Robocop Rogue City. It is about 10 hours long and not worth $60 in my opinion. It wasn't the greatest game but made me feel like a tank. I could take so much damage without dying. The bosses which aren't many are damage sponges and are to few in number. Your base gun can be upgraded. Armored enemies are a pain to deal with resulting in me mostly using leg shots in certain sections and headshots in others. For example the first section of the game body and crotch shots are a lot better for armored helmet enemies. Finding evidence and finding health or in this case energy pickups to heal was tedious like finding side quests. The dialogue is excellent but the overall story wasn't the greatest to me. Also some voice actors aren't great to. You get XP for additional bonuses but leveling is difficult. Going to play Alan Wake 2.

Sigi - A Fart for Melusina

This was recommended by youtuber Crazy Burger, and it was on sale for $2 in the eshop. It's 20 relatively short platforming levels with a boss every fifth stage.

The bosses are cheap, though you accrue a ton of extra lives during the game so it's not difficult at all.

A bit of childish humor but well put together. Feels more like a demo than a full game.

NSMBW - 7/10

Cute colorful and I did like the inclusion of elephant/wubba Mario.

I prefer a 3D Mario. While there were a handful of levels that I liked better than others, to me this was more of the same. I really had to push myself to finish. Played mostly with Mario. Although I tried yoshi and princess peach. I had hoped her floating ability would be present. I’m just glad it’s over and I can uninstall.

Life is Strange 2 - All the feels/10

The final episode hits hard. Damn! What a game. I could definitely point out some of the issues I had with it, but when I look back at the journey through all 5 episodes and how the second half of episode 5 hits all the right emotional notes and made me feel like all the choices I made along the way really mattered, all those issues just don't matter at all. My girlfriend watched me play through this and we were both emotional wrecks at the end of it lol. This is a must play for fans of these choice-driven adventure games. Definitely one for my collection!

Glad to hear it’s good! Life is Strange and Before the Storm were great, but, for some reason, I never got around to playing the others. I should do that at some point.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I played through Before The Storm, LiS2 and True Colors all this year. Have they announced they are working on anything new?

They have a few interesting games in development at https://dont-nod.com/en/

Banishers looks pretty good.

I have my eye on Banishers too. Look interesting.

Yeah, Banishers does look pretty good. I'll keep an eye on that one.
Did they not develop Life is Strange: True Colors and LiS: Before The Storm? They're not listed on their website alongside the other games in the series.

edit: Just looked it up, those two had totally different developers. I liked both games, but Before The Storm is probably the weakest in the series. I felt like it didn't start to get good until towards the end.

Resistance Fall of Man PS3 8/10

I've now beaten two Insomniac games in a row. They make good stuff. This was a launch title for the PS3 I've already beaten Resistance 2 and my favorite was Resistance Retribution on the PSP. This was actually the toughest Resistance game I've beaten. It's one of those games you will die a lot and there's around 35 stages pretty good length.

My top 3 on my list to beat next right now in which I've made progress in all 3 are #1 Like a Dragon Ishin for PS4, #2 Persona 3 FES for PS2 and #3 Halo Infinite for PC. But sometimes I'll pick up a different game and get hooked on it instead.

Star Trek: Resurgence - 7.5/10

I enjoyed this. It was made by a bunch of ex-Telltale devs and the Telltale-style storytelling, decision-making, and action sequences are the highlights of the experience. The game does a wonderful job of capturing what makes Star Trek so awesome. If they had just stuck to the Telltale model, I think this would have been better received and I would definitely have enjoyed it even more. But for some reason - I guess in an attempt to make it feel more like a "game" - they added a bunch of really stupid and overly complicated puzzles and minigames to pad out the length of the game. It took me 10 hours to beat it, but really 3 of those hours are wasted on these terrible sections that really detract from the overall experience. All that said, this was still a really enjoyable experience and one I think Star Trek fans and fans of these narrative adventure games will enjoy.

Beat Expanse Archangel, it is about 1 hour long and is more dialogue and story driven with some puzzles mixed in. It has a new set of characters. Not much to say other then that. Playing Star Ocean 2 but finding it to be a slog to playthrough. Hoping Alan Wake 2, Super Mario RPG Remake or Walking Dead Destinies breaks my game slump after the glory of Super Mario Wonder.

Found The Order 1886 (PS4) at the library and replayed that and got the Platinum trophy. I just missed a few collectables 7-8 years ago apparently. It still holds up ok but there is a TON of cutscenes and they are not skipable. That's not acceptable in 2023. So if you're in for the story it's still good, but some scenes go on for 10-15 mins so I had to fiddle on my laptop quite a bit while waiting.

I also just beat the Dragon's Lair Trilogy getting all of the trophies (PS4/5). I appreciated the settings that make them more forgiving but it was a lot of fun to revisit these and re-learn the moves. Dragon's Lair 2 is just absurd though...long ass scenes and you also need to go against the normal moves to grab the treasures to be able to beat the game. This prob generated millions in quarters.

Anxiouz wrote:


This is something I have been meaning to replay for the past few years but just never get around to it (I will usually prioritize playing a game for the first time over revisiting something I've already played). I don't remember a whole lot about it other than like you said about some of the cutscenes being too long, the game itself being fairly short, and that the graphics were probably the best I'd ever seen in 2015, not sure how they hold up now though. I do recall people complaining about it being in letterbox mode or something, and that if you removed all of the cutscenes the game would only be like 5 hours long, so maybe that's why they don't let you skip them.

The Order 1886 let me down so much. I mean for what it was is okay but they hyped it up way too much in the marketing. Even had that cliffhanger like ending thinking it was gonna be a mother lovin’ franchise but nope. Just turned out to shoot a bunch a crazies for a few hours and an on occasion beastie. I think it would have done better as a TV series.

Remnant 2

TalonJedi87 wrote:

Yeah man, The Order is the last time I got swept up in the marketing campaign for a game. I still remember that reveal trailer like it was yesterday. It looked soo good. And I was rooting so hard for Ready at Dawn because they had made those fantastic portable God of War games. It’s just such a shame that the end product wasn’t what anyone expected it to be. The game was like 5 hours long and half of that time was spent watching these 10 min cutscenes that you couldn’t skip. The stories, characters, game world etc were actually really good, but the brain dead AI and stupid QTEs just ruined the rest of the experience for me. That said, It’s one of the rare times where I’ve been disappointed with a game but hoped it’d get a sequel because there was so much unfulfilled potential.

The Order 1886 is a perfect example of why graphics aren't everything in games.

I loved that game. The characters and plot left me wanting more by the end. The graphics still look amazing to this day.

That said I know it wouldve pissed me off if I had payed full price for it. 5 hours long without any replay value is pretty bad for a $60 game. I gameshared it back then and bough it when it was $5 on PSN. I would pay $25 today for an upscaled 60fps release and would love a full fledged sequel.

I was one of those tools who spent $60 at launch for The Order 1886 only to get burned hard. Never again and yeah Ready at Dawn did such a good job on the God of War portable titles that I thought they would be a sure fire success with creating their own IP.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

With the exception of the abrupt ending, I really like 'The Order 1886.' But I also spent only $6 on it.

Interesting takes about The Order, it was one of the PS4 exclusives I wanted, but took about the longest to acquire after I finally got my PS4 a few years ago. I got it cheap and gave it a go ~3 months ago and only got 1 session in. I wasn't turned off from it, but had other, higher priorities and haven't gamed much recently. I do want to get back to it and finish it off.

10-15 min cutscenes don't sound fun though, especially if the gameplay is pretty short. BUT that actually sounds a TON like the last game I beat, The Bouncer on the PS2. It was hyped, from a big name studio/publisher, was an early system game and was otherwise pretty bad.
I left a longer 'review' of it on the 'Beat a Game 2023' thread, but the game was not good. The story was pretty dumb and there was more cutscenes vs. gameplay which also was completely mediocre and crazy short. But it too was sold for $60 (I'm pretty sure) just after the launch of the and sold well thanks to the pedigree of prior titles.

Beat Star Ocean 2. Okay first thing to do is get the SP decrease skill and get endurance and resilience to level up quicker as well as enemy encounters being increased. You'll level up super fast and have a ton more SP and BP. After that just beat the game and turn off training if you have trouble or if you max level. Should of went Rena as I found Claude's portion more predictable. It is 18 hours long if done my way. Was level 50 by the 5 hour mark. Honestly wasn't the longest game spent 5 4 hour sessions and finished it. Onto Alan Wake 2 then either Super Mario RPG or Walking Dead Destinies.

ued222 wrote:

Is that the new remastered version?

Love the original, but I wish they would balance the final fight somehow. Definitely buying it again once it drops a bit.

kevolones wrote:
Ya, the remastered version being able to fast-forward during cutscenes when people are walking and from what I understand autorun really helps cut down on playtime. Didn't care to go backtrack for PAs though.

I just beat Persona 3 FES The Journey PS2 which is like saying I beat Persona 3 vanilla version. I give it a 9/10. FES added The Answer which I just started but I'm having fatigue from playing this game plus without major spoilers I can't mention why but I almost feel it shouldn't have happened. However I am going to play through it anyway.

On February 2nd they will release Persona 3 Reload which is an updated version of Persona 3 but they are not including The Answer. There also was recently a re-release of Persona 3 Portable which also didn't include The Answer. FES is the only version to include The Answer.

While I don't have any current plans to play through 1 or 2 I have now beaten 3, 4 and 5 (and Strikers). This is one of the greatest series of rpgs of all time in terms of story, gameplay and everything else. I can't wait until Persona 6.

justin_credible wrote:

Persona is life! If you aren’t feeling The Answer, you may want to skip it and just watch the cutscenes on YouTube. I still haven’t met anyone who enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s a solid 20 hours and it’s a lot of dungeon crawling. It’s basically Tartarus 2.0 with no social links/school stuff. But I loved it, personally.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I guess I'm a little frustrated by the character change I'm sure you know what I mean. Are you going to buy Persona 3 Reload?

It's sad that my cousin is somewhat of a hardcore gamer like myself loves rpgs but I can't get him to play the Persona games. It's because we briefly tried 2 back in the day and we both didn't care for it. I tried to tell him they revamped the series starting with 3 and the social links but he's still yet to touch any of them but if it's a Final Fantasy he buys it day one and plays through it without stopping. To me after FF 10 Persona has surpassed FF easily but I haven't played 16 and didn't finish 15 or play through the 13s.

@justin_credible I agree. I think P4, P5, and Strikers are better than any modern Final Fantasy game, and I absolutely loved the FF series growing up. I bet if your cousin finished the first dungeon of P5 he would be hooked.

I cannot wait for P3 Reloaded. Literally a day 1 purchase for me.

P3 is pinnacle for me. Just too much going on in the games after that. Solid jrpgs but overstay the welcome due to length- and the pet / demon as well as social stuff is tired. I’d like to see it reigned in a bit.

Resident Evil 6 on
Started this around a year and a half ago with a friend from Japan. Due to the time zone differences it took way too long to complete this one, but we finally got around to it.

justin_credible wrote:

Yeah man. Definitely grabbing P3 Reload day 1! P3 is my favorite JRPG ever and I still can't believe how big the series has become. I'm sure they'll remake 4 at some point. And maybe they'll get around to remaking 1 and 2 because I'd love to finally play those.