VideoGame_Discussion

TMNT The Hyperstone Heist via Cowabunga Collection

7/10

My last game in the collection takes me to what is probably considered the poor man’s Turtles in Time coming out on the Sega Genesis back in 1992 and felt like a rushed port of Turtles in Time consisting of only 5 stages as opposed to Turtles in Time’s 8 stages. But for what it was worth I enjoyed it. I definitely prefer the SNES version and especially the Arcade version as the penultimate version of Turtles in Time though. The Genesis version did feel a bit stiffer though gameplay wise. Attacking felt sluggish and even stuttered a bit at times. The bosses also felt a lot easier than the other versions, all having 1or 2 main moves that are easily telegraphed and they all felt like they were moving in slow motion, but I guess that can be chocked up to this game likely being rushed out to coincide with the SNES counterpart. Overall, it’s more of the same beat em up TMNT action but not my choice delicacy in the selection of turtle titles from back in the day.

Ven VR Adventure on PSVR2.
It was a decent game, however there are many areas they can improve on in a potential sequel. I would've liked it a lot less if it was a non-VR 3D platformer.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

The fact that this is download only here sucks, because it's a meaty game. That said, I imported the English-Asian version (not just the English cover places like VGP and Play Asia have, but the actual full English release), and I'm glad I did. There's even a decent sized, English color manual inside!

Anyway, I just love these games. Yes, reused assets. Yes, this was originally DLC, so there's only a couple of locations and most of the time is spent in Osaka, but I don't care. Kiryu is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. The story is robust yet focused, and there's still a ton of activities to do outside the story (new arcade games!). There are only two fighting styles this time: Agent, more crowd control and gadget usage, and Yakuza, which is more traditional for the series. Agent is fun, and the gadgets do a good job to mix up the fighting. Side-stories are framed differently this time, but taking tasks from one of the new characters, Akame, and there's a story element to frame it all. The story is well done and fits right in to the events of 'Yakuza: Like a Dragon.' Just an FYI: the second to last scene is a major tear-jerker.

The game runs very well, but I did come up against one glitch where a couple was suppose to be sitting in a carriage, yet they were always sitting outside the carriage in the air. It's also nice to have the series back using the Dragon engine after experimenting with the Unreal engine in 'Ishin!'. Though, during one of the final scenes, it looked like the game was switching between the two somehow.

I honestly don't have much to complain about. This is a must for fans of the series. One oddity is that there is no stat screen after beating the game. Going off of my last save, this took me roughly 15 hours, but because of the shorter story length and amount of side-stories, I completed all but one side-story, and only because I tired a little before completing all but the final challenges in the Coliseum. There's quite a spike in difficulty at the end of the Coliseum fights, and the weaker enemies are more damage sponges than anything else.

I did check out the demo 'Infinite Wealth' after being 'LaDG,' and it took me a second to reacquaint myself to the turn-based gameplay, but this type of turn-based gameplay is so engaging. I won't get/play 'Infinite Wealth' right away (because I'm getting married on Saturday and am going on our honeymoon next week!), but I'm looking forward to it.

For anyone remotely interested in the 'Yakuza/Like a Dragon Series,' play 'Gaiden!'

Prodeus - 9/10 - I've known about this game for a while but didn't bother with it, but boy is it great. It's more or less an indie Doom-style boomer shooter, level-based, kinda like Mario where you move your guy around to the next level. After the disappointing Boltgun this was great.

Congrats on getting married!

DCGX wrote:

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

Thank you!

Silent Hope - why yes, I did enjoy the silence; thanks for asking/10

This is basically Diablo meets Rune Factory with none of the baggage. A band of seven heroes sets up a campsite in a fallen kingdom to explore an underground dungeon, solve its mysteries, and help the grief-stricken princess who locked herself inside of a crystal. She wants to be reunited with her father, the king. He disappeared along with the ability of the people (with the exception of the princess) to speak. She can't go after dad herself, so she asks the heroes to go into the dungeon in her stead.

You know the typical dungeon-crawling rigmarole - enter dungeon, slay monsters, gather loot. Lather, rinse, repeat. I didn't find this boring though. I think I can thank the characters for that. Each hero has their own special abilities that you can spend skill points to boost.

Some classes are better than others: my least favorite so far is the Fighter. She delivers some fierce blows, but her defense also kind of sucks. "Well, don't get hit" - benstylus, playing the role of Captain Obvious
The class I enjoyed playing the most is the Caster. Fully powered up, he is a force to be reckoned with. I completed the main story with him at level 41 thanks to the boons of his first class change. The others are all around level 33.

Also, everything in this game is cute, from the princess to the heroes, and yes, even the monsters. The Day One edition comes with an artbook and soundtrack (I'm a sucker for that stuff!), and I love the character designs. Some of the heroes' designs turn the RPG archetypes on their heads. The Rogue is not a shady black-clad thief but a maid who serves up a beating as well as she serves up tea and cookies. She's in charge of the woodworking when not in play.

It's not particularly difficult unless you decide to punch above your own weight too often. Then you will get your butt handed to you.

If you like dungeon crawlers and want a break from roguelikes, give this one a go.

sailorneorune wrote:

I was really hoping this would come to psn or physical ps4. I loved Trinity Trigger and 100% it on 2 versions. I guess I need to get a switch.

Travel The Words on 2

I like word search games. I like VR games. Put them together and what do you get? The realization that not everything needs to be VR.

Nah, but for real my biggest issue was just how little content there is. I think this normally costs $10 but I might've gotten it on sale. I like these types of games, so the game gave me what I wanted. The problem is it didn't give me nearly enough of what I wanted. There are only 12 levels/word searches and each one barely lasts 10 minutes, in fact a couple I managed to complete in 6 or 7 minutes and would have been even shorter if I had skipped the narrator giving fun facts about each word I found.

Told myself I'd actually beat the JRPGs I start this year. Starting off well with Star Ocean: Second Story R. The QOL stuff knocks out a lot of the slog, this is definitely a 10/10. I didn't do every single little thing, but I never do, and I couldn't put it down.

theyrhere wrote:

I’ve been working on this. It’s pretty great. I just hate that it makes me choose between party members / I miss out on others in a playthrough. The grinding is even addictive.

Feeb wrote:

I usually get anxious about party members, but having basically 3 physical attackers and one healer/spellcaster is all you need for battles to go well. I put my normal big cast JRPG fomo aside and just enjoyed playing it. I'll probably play again starting with Rena eventually.

Just finished Bug Fables. I really had mixed feelings on this one. I liked the paper Mario feel. However there were times when this game was extremely frustrating. The last chapter really lowered the final rating for me. First off I hate forced sneaking, I wanted to play a RPG not Splinter Cell. I also hate block type puzzles. Final score 7/10. I’d recommend it but it was frustrating and not fun at the end.

sa330206 wrote:

I agree, but I didn't like it as much as you. I know there's a trick to the combat system, which had to be researched, but I could never get it to fully execute. I had to brute force my way through half the game, and it wasn't fun.

Pixel Ripped 1995 on PSVR2.

I actually posted about this in the review thread a couple hours ago and mentioned some of my favorite parts from the first half of the game. Actually I think my favorite part overall just came in the second half of the game.

Ion Fury a modern made game on the 3D Realms Build Engine. Really good too.

Horizon Forbidden West

8/10

This one has been in my backlog for almost 2 years, since it launched back in 2022 so I figured it was time to bring the ol’ girl home and beat it. First off this is a gorgeous, breathtaking game. It superseded the visual fidelity of the first game tenfold thanks in part to its performance mode which makes it run at a fluid 60fps. The lighting is also breathtaking as is the character models. The Decima engine it’s running on is pretty astounding minus some hiccups here and there I’ve noticed such as some glitches with some enemies falling thru the environment and such but it’s such a minor inconvenience in comparison to the amount of eye candy present at mostly all times. Secondly as much as I enjoyed my 30 hours or so with the game it’s honestly just more of the same from the first installment with some minor tweaks here and there such as new mounts to override and weapons to craft but it’s basically an enhanced experience from the first game and that’s mostly fine to me. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it I typically say. But with that being said I just wish the game wasn’t so packed to the brim with tedious side quests and errands. It really is just mostly samey missions just to pad your skill points and experience and level up to hit the max level cap of 50 quicker. While I did most side missions and a few errands towards the latter half of the game I decided to focus on the story and finish it and I’m glad I did because it was starting to lose it’s focus for me doing every side quest and errand that I came across I mean. The only side quest that I really thought was fully fleshed out was overriding those Tallneck beasts like in the first game. Each of the 5 you get to override were unique in their own way and each Tallneck you override is done so in a different way which I truly appreciated. The acting was pretty solid as usual and the story was a bit more expansive this time around but of course it leaves an open ending which hints at a third and possibly final game in this would be trilogy. I just hope we see more diversity in mission variety in a 3rd game and perhaps they can flesh out the flying mounts a bit more. I’d love to have flying mounts with the ability to use my weapons while airborne. That would be wicked cool. Overall if you’re a fan of the series I say give this one a go, just try your best to stay focused and not get too overwhelmed by the expansive map and dense list of side missions they throw at you.

Max: The Curse Of Brotherhood on

This was a puzzle/platformer that reminded me a bit of Little Nightmares at times, but without the dark aesthetic and silent protagonist. Fun game, definitely recommend it on sale or GamePass.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

A few of the side stories may have trumped the core story imo. HFW didn’t feel nearly as bloated as most open world games- and the base story is really pretty short. The DLC is pretty good too- an epic boss fight.

Yeah I was impressed that I was able to do like 90% of the side missions and top off the story at a little over 30 hours. No way that would happen in other open world games like AC Valhalla for example. But it’s just mostly more of the same side stuff minus like one or two that stood out. Especially those errands which I gave up on halfway thru.

Valdis Story: Abyssal City 6/10

Pros: Art style was solid, music was good, story was interesting enough though not amazing

Cons: Will elaborate on most of these below - Controls were floaty; button choices, while customizable, weren't great; near complete lack of direction/info; too easy for multiple foes to stun-lock you and/or knock you off the platform and down into a prior room where foes respawn and you'll almost always get hit immediately; some sort of BS boss mechanics; bad UI/UX.

* Controls - you could way too easily jump over platforms when not even in icy or windy areas. Had to hold down RT to cast a spell, but you also wanted to hold LT a good bit in hectic fights to block, well when you hit both triggers at once you got a context like menu to change your spells, so instead of hitting RT+down on the dPad, if you hit RT+LT+down you'd open that menu and instantly change the down spell from what you wanted to the next option. Also my LT kept either flaking out or was somehow also triggering an escape from the main menu and that context menu at times - it was a mess.
* Custom buttons - there was no default or reset to in the menu, so if you started to change things you couldn't easily go back to what the game intended.
* No direction - I'm less complaining about a game of this type and more about what things you do collect and what they're for, like I got 4 pieces of armor, ok now what. Had to look that up, or I wanted the double-jump that I presumed was in the game, had to look that up too and you had to visit this optional area, talk to an NPC, then he'd show up at your base and offer some upgrades (including the jump) but you needed to provide things for him, and so I had to look up where those things might be - it was just lacking in really any meaningful flow of organically progressing, even the main tasks gave you almost nothing on where to potentially go next. With the double jump, it was basically optional, and therefore you could attempt to beat the game without it, but good luck there as the final part would've been VERY difficult without it and you really have no way of knowing that.
* Stun lock and statuses like getting frozen in ice or grabbed and held by a big foe all stunk, many couldn't be blocked and if you were in the air and hit you fell and couldn't recover which sucked when trying to climb a tall vertical room only to get knocked a long ways back down.
* Boss mechanics - Most bosses had a red health and blue 'shield' bar but you often didn't have a clue on what to do to take out the shield. - 1 boss had elements in the room you needed to attack, others used this shield bar as a countdown like mechanic until they unleashed a flurry of attacks, it was just crap I didn't care for, I guess the variety was good, I'm just grumpy about this game overall.
* UI/UX - already mentioned the lack of a default button assignment, but in the game you would visit shops and they would say 2 In Stock - leaving me to figure that's how many I owned, since my inventory screen wouldn't open for these screens - nope it was their inventory. I also mentioned the dumb spell context menu, that had a dedicated pause menu, but navigating that was a mess with the dpad b/c down from the 3rd assignment slot often took you to the left where the spells were just laid out instead of the 4th assignment slot. The map had no legend, no overall map, no markers you could put on and it gave a percentage value that was completely tied to visiting all room, not collecting stuff or whatnot. Item assignment was also bad since you didn't get a screen to compare how a new armor piece would alter your stats.

Overall I wanted to like this game, but almost hated it as it annoyed me a lot, but it did keep me coming back even after cursing it frequently. With some better explaining, better UI/UX in a few areas and improved controls it could've been a gem - sort of a shame that it missed the mark. It was challenging and I know my playstyle didn't help, but it felt more like the missteps of the game and design hurt more than my overall view. I mean the UI/UX stuff is things that this genre almost 100% have had since the near beginning and this game is only 10 years old, not 20+

Chop Goblins and Kill it With Fire

The Pony Factory

Shakedown: Hawaii on

By the end I started feeling like it was going on a little too long. I still enjoyed it overall but I'm not interested in any of the post-game stuff.

Astalon Tears of the Earth
EASY 10/10
The best metrodvania I've played in a while and it only makes Valdis that I beat and reviewed a little over a week ago (see 4 posts prior) look even worse.

Excellent 8-bit styling and music. Solid dialog with a splash of humor thrown in. Fantastic controls, good UI, great map and unlockable stuff.
I got 100% on the map, items and bestiary and put in 18+ hours.
Highly recommend this.

If I had to nit-pick I'd say that you respawning at the start of the dungeon stunk a little if you made good progress and hadn't found a good shortcut back to your death. This was worse a few times if you went to areas that you were maybe a little too weak for and/or you didn't focus on avoiding damage before upgrading your characters. However, there were a good number of short cuts and fast travel like things that once accessed and remembered the best ways to reach them, were very useful.

Finished the Tekken 8 story mode. What the fudge/10. Gameplay is great but I have much, much more to do. I’ll formally rate more when I finish the arcade mode with everyone.

Star Wars: Squadrons on

I will probably crown it as the most fun Star Wars game I've played.

Shantae and The Seven Sirens

7.5/10

This was the second Shantae game I experienced and the last one I played, Half Genie Hero, was nothing like this. That one was more platformer whereas Seven Sirens was straight up Metroidvania and it suited it well for the most part. While the combat is more on the simplistic side by just doing that hair toss, there was progression unlockable upgrades such as a quake, sparking and restorative abilities to unlock new areas and such. You also received character upgrades such as double and triple jumping alongside changing forms to better traverse the dungeons and interconnected map. And the story and characters were quite whimsical as always. This series typically reminds me of a morning cartoon show and it has some hits and misses in the dialogue but overall it’s a fun action adventure of the metroidvania genre.

Hogwarts legacy - 9/10

Wonderfully engaging, beautifully executed. Is what comes to mind. I think I was close to 30 hours when I defeated the final boss. The game is just a pleasure from start to finish. Environments, battle mechanics, exploration… all top notch. There’s a ton to do post game too if you wanted to continue the adventure. It definitely one I think I’ll come back to. Super fun game.

I’m playing Hogwarts now too and will likely score it the same as you. I am about 75% done and 20ish hours in and loving it! They did a fantastic job capturing that Harry Potter look and feel.

Disco elysium

Back to my backlog on , I knocked out a few 'Call of Duty' titles:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Remastered
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Remastered
Call of Duty: Block Ops: Cold War

I haven't played either of the first two 'Modern Warfare' titles since their first releases on 360. They both look good, though MW2 got more attention with HDR support and better textures. The campaigns for both hold up well, but the understated action of the first actually hits harder the bombastic nature of most, more recent entries, in my opinion. There were some weird bugs, like watching and subsequently getting hit by fire through objects. And the old COD staple of infinite spawning enemies until you physically move passed an invisible line is still annoying as ever. I only played these on the standard difficulty, but I did finished both on the hardest difficulty back on 360. Another bad bug that cropped up in MW2 was a crash that forced my PS4 to rebuild its database. It only happened once, but...

It happened three times during 'Cold War.' In fact, many times the game would seize up, automatically pause, then decide whether it would let me continue or not after a period of unresponsiveness. It kind of ruined the game for me, because I was actually enjoying the campaign quite a bit. Yes, it's still very linear, to the point where if you stray the smallest bit, the game will punish you with death. But it's obvious the devs were trying to do something different. There are dialog branches, though, to test the outcome, I would reload the checkpoint just before them, and the vast majority of the choices made zero difference. A couple do, but again, for the story as a whole, it didn't matter. I guess it can encourage replays. It's a very short game, so why not, but it's clear more time was needed to fully flesh the added concepts out. Like stealth. There's been stealth in COD games before this, like WWII, but here it's a good third of the game, but the gameplay still isn't designed for it. Unless someone really wants an achievement/trophy or is playing on the highest difficulty and wants to make things a little easier, it just wastes time. I played on Veteran difficulty, and still walked through the game. There's a couple side missions, which are tougher, but the series, at least up until this point, has gotten too hand-holding. Back to the bug, it's been a known issue since launch, and nothing has been done to fix it. It's a shame. I've exhausted the PS+ CODs now, and if I play any more, it might be on Xbox since they don't seem to have a database rebuild type glitch.


Amplitude

I chipped away at the "campaign" for a few years, but only just finished it. That's sad, because it's only 15 songs, but this game just didn't jive with me. I don't know. Maybe there's too many instruments/vocal paths to bounce between, maybe it's the music, but I just didn't care for it.


I've been playing the Mandalorian crossover in 'Rocket League' right now, but my goal is to play a few PS+ PSVR games this weekend.

Horizon Forbidden West - 9/10

Great game! I'm looking at my completion time here and I clocked in at 90 hours, but I never once felt the fatigue I almost always feel with open world games. I got a little worried once I hit the 40 hour mark and realized the game was much bigger than I expected, but that fatigue never hit and I'm about to jump straight into the DLC. That said, I do miss the tight 40 hour adventure that Zero Dawn was. It was the perfect length for me, but this is a sequel so you have to go bigger and I understand that. I didn't mind the length really because Aloy is easily one of my favorite modern protagonists and the gameplay is fantastic and right in my wheelhouse (makes me want to play a new Tomb Raider game now, actually). I played it on Very Hard (100% ranged) so you really have to use every tool at your disposal to get the job done. Combat can be pretty intense, but it's so satisfying! Taking down some of the late game enemies always felt so damn good and I ended up spending a few play sessions just hunting for machine parts to upgrade weapons/armor and not even bothering with the main quest. So many options in combat and I love that about this game.

The side quests here are also great (side content and characters are more fleshed out this time around) and there's great biodiversity so things never feel too samey (grasslands, deserts, tropical jungle, snowy mountains, the awesome westernmost part of the map etc). The main story is also really good and Ashly Burch is fantastic as Aloy. The game definitely has its issues: climbing can be annoying, Talanah is the only NPC I really felt much of a connection to, every settlement except Plainsong feels identical/is forgettable etc. But these things don't detract too much from what is a really awesome sequel! I would like to see Guerrilla Games maybe take a little break and work on something else so we don't get Horizon fatigue. Let the anticipation build for a third game because I think the stage is set for what could be a really great finale.

90 hours?! Well done, sir! I finished at around 40ish hours but only stuck to doing main story quests and about 85% of side quests and 50% of errands until I got my fill to finish the story.

Heavyd814life wrote:

I couldn't disagree more. My biggest issue with that game was the voice acting and lack of personality by the main character. The voice-work lacked emotion in nearly every conversation, with just a few moments that felt like the actor knew what was happening onscreen.

And I agree about the climbing being garbage. Even with the highlighting turned on to see what might be feasible to climb it was clumsy as hell. I liked most of the gameplay loop in this but I had to start skipping the cutscenes due to the monotone voice work.

Anxiouz wrote:

I get that. My brother feels the same way lol. What did you think of Beta? Because Ashly voices that character as well. I think it's more a reflection of the character and not really the quality of the voice acting. Aloy grew up isolated and is very closed off and very pragmatic and I think Ashly's performance is intentionally understated. There are moments where she shows a lot of emotion and those moments land more because she's so restrained most of the time.

I remember when people had the same complaints about Ali Hillis as Lightning in Final Fantasy 13. A lot of people said Lightning was boring and had no personality and said the voice acting was too one-note and lacked emotion. But that's just the character. At least that's the way I see it. And I see it similarly with Aloy.

And I love Lightning as well. So maybe I just have a thing for boring characters lol.

I thought Aloy HFW was a good character. She was often emotional- an absolute dog for most of the game- maybe not the attitude / emotion you’d expect but there is emotion. She did figure out she exists for one reason and took on an almost sociopathic role to achieve it. The story is about her growing up to accept help and learn to appreciate people. The DLC takes that further. She’s a female version of almost every male action hero out there.

I havent played thru the whole 2nd game as Im really burnt out on open world games, but overall I like the character Alloy. She does talk and look like she is bored of her life. I guess In my mind I just decided that was just part of her character (I do know people that are like that). I really like how she looks though, her character design is awesome. I bet without armor she is skinny asf, but her costumes are amazing.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores DLC - 8.5/10

Really enjoyed this. Great to see Aloy open up a little as well. Only real negative is that there isn't much incentive to explore the mini islands so I just focused on the story. I did do the story side quests and I also upgraded a couple of the legendary weapons. Final boss fight was seriously epic and Seyka is a pretty cool character. Kinda bummed that I'm done with this now, tbh.

I had a DCDigital put in my Dreamcast earlier this year, and finally got around to paying a couple of games:

Disney's Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers

I played part of the PS1 version more than 20 years ago at a third cousin's house in Germany off a poorly burned disc, but enjoyed it. Fast forward and I finally played through the whole game on Dreamcast. It doesn't take long; it took my less than 3 hours to 100%. Think of it as kid's first 'Crash Bandicoot,' because that's how it plays. The levels are well designed, the animation and music are excellent, and it plays really well. This is also one of the few Dreamcast games to natively support 16:9 widescreen. There are four zones with four levels each (two 2.5D and two linear 3D) with a single chase level to unlock a time attack for the four main levels and a boss level. Completing each time attack will get Donald a new outfit. It's all very easy, but fun. I wish there was more to do though.


4x4 Jam

A JoshProd port of a mobile game (that is also on PSP/Vita), you control an off-road vehicle through events like race, coin collection and gate passes. For the most part, the game is really easy because the AI is horrendous and it's quick to grind money to unlock the best truck. Not that there are stats to know the difference. There's 30+ single player events to complete. Along the way, areas, modes and vehicles are unlocked for Quick Play. There is, however, NO multiplayer. Despite how easy the campaign is, it can be frustrating, particularly for the gate pass event. It's easy to get caught in no-man's land between the next gate and the AI to where it's impossible to get to a gate before said AI. Also, the faster the vehicle, the worse it controls because there's hardly any flat terrain, so the vehicle is constantly bouncing. I don't get motion sick easily, but even I was getting a headache from the truck bounding about. The areas themselves can feel diverse, but it's like playing on a very tiny globe, or a 3D approximation of an old 2D game where exiting one side of the screen has the player reemerge on the opposite side. That means, in gate pass events, it's almost always better to keep driving forward if you're far from the next gate, because you'll end up being closer to it that way.

As is typically of (most) of JoshProd's Dreamcast releases, they ported the game without improvements. The graphics are ok, but the seems in the environment are constantly showing. There's also a short horizon and constant pop-in at close range. Even if they couldn't extend this for the DC release, some N64 style fog with objects fading in would've worked just fine. They just didn't do it. As stated, the AI saw zero improvements. There's no map, which is ok, but a mini-map with AI near the player would've been so helpful. The D-Pad goes completely unused, and I wish they had implemented a rear view. My setup simulates surround sound with stereo media, so I was able to tell where vehicles were in relation to myself when they were off-screen, but without it, there's no telling where they are.

And it's worth stating that adding multiplayer would've been huge! Games like this are made for it!

This was an early JoshProd release, so a little slack can be given, but they haven't really learned outside of release like 'Flashback' which actually saw positive and specific feature changes to the Dreamcast. As it is, for the $30-40 price of '4x4 Jam,' it is definitely not worth it. For the roughly $15 I paid for it, I had some fun. Sadly, the only other real off-road options there are on Dreamcast is '4 Wheel Thunder' (needlessly difficult),' '4x4' Evo (not a great port and a little sloppy in controls), and 'TNN Hardcore Heat' (a decent early racer). So that actually makes '4x4 Jam' appealing by comparison, but the lack of multiplayer means there's not much reason to return.