VideoGame_Discussion

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.

Hogwarts Legacy

9/10

Well this was a game I didn’t think I was going to enjoy as much as I did due to the fact I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan but man this was such a delightfully refreshing experience through and through. From the immense attention to detail in all of the little nuances and caveats within the wizarding world and plethora of spells you can obtain to the sheer sense of wanderlust and exploration within Hogwarts castle itself, this game is truly immersive from start to finish. The combat takes cues from that of the Batman Arkham series and Spider-Man games and you can counter most spells and enemy attacks by pressing one of a couple of counter buttons and feels really fluid to execute. The graphics too powered by the Unreal 4 engine I think, were pretty darn good as well with minimal hiccups here and there in the framerate I noticed which did stutter and dip during explosive action segments. Upgrading and pumping out your fashionable character was fun as heck too. You could even breed and nurture animals to obtain upgrade materials from them to upgrade your gear and such. The story itself was of course a touch of the theatrics, having you take a deep dive into the underground seedy world of goblins and how the main goblin antagonist wants to end wizardkind. The side quests too are pretty detailed. I enjoyed some of the side quests more so than some story missions. And exploring the castle and neighboring villages and hamlets was a breeze one you unlock a series of mounts from a broomstick to a hippogriff and even a land mount which makes you travel quicker on the ground vs being airborne. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my 38ish hour journey within the world of witchcraft and wizardry and will stick around a bit more for some post game goodies.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I went through it on steam and loved it. I just got the ps5 version and I’m ready to jump back in already lol, it’s that good imo.

Yeah it just sucked it didn’t get more notoriety partially and probably due to the JK Rowling controversy.

TalonJedi87 wrote:

It's sold over 24 million copies, and was the number one selling game of 2023, beating Call of Duty, Madden 24, Spiderman 2, Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo 4, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

I don't know what more you could want from it.

It was a massive success. People who don't normally play video games played it cause it's Harry Potter.

Kommie wrote:

Clearly being the best selling game of the year must not be enough anymore, that's how bad the industry has gotten with the ballooning costs of development.

Anything less that 2 copies sold per person on earth (living and dead) is a massive failure.

Well I didn't play it. It must not have been good.

Kommie wrote:

And yet you have played games made by Quantic Dream.

So I don't think I can rely on "has Kommie played it?" as an indicator of quality.

I was tricked into playing that garbage, it was advertised and reviewed well so I played it. They're bad games. Harry Potter? Wizards? It's Satan worshipping at the core. Not gonna bother.

I like Satan so I tried Hogwarts legacy. It’s kiddie crap and wannabe devil worship at best.

A friend and I just finished up Aliens: Fireteam Elite, me on and her on
We had fun with this one. I don't get why it got so many mediocre reviews, but I'm glad we ignored them and played it anyway. I think there were 12 levels, each lasting around 30 minutes. We both had a lot more fun with this than we did when we played Back 4 Blood, which somehow reviewed better than this but we eventually gave up on because it just felt so repetitive and after a few hours just stopped being fun. Since this is a 3 player co-op game and there were only two of us, it stuck us with a CPU partner to fill the third spot. I am happy to say that he actually holds his own and is not as worthless as I expected

Ollie Ollie World

Back to getting through my backlog, 'Ollie Ollie World' oozes laid back charm and calm, but can be quite a challenge. I was cruising; beating each stage in a single go with no checkpoints, beating all three locals and getting most of the challenges until about halfway through. Then the game really steps it up. You have access to all the moves from the start, but the tutorials take place throughout the campaign, and the scores needed to beat the locals increases with them. Challenges also become multi-part, and because of branching paths (sometimes multiple paths by the end), it takes multiple runs to beat all the challenges. The game remains laid back though, since you don't need to complete any challenges nor beat the locals to progress through the story. Those only unlock cosmetics, and the game shows off other players' characters on loading screens, and additional stages. The great soundtrack is also playing at all times (like 'Tony Hawk 1+2'). But I went from cruising through the game to simply beating levels, for two major reasons:

First, this game demands dedication. The only way to compete with the locals' scores and finish challenges is by memorizing the stages. Fine, if one has the time and patience, but I was running out of patience. There are so many layers of moves by the end, and the game throws so many path variations at you, the only way to get through is to progress in a stage a little, learn what's next from dying, progress a little further, repeat. So later stages are a constant restart affair. It didn't help that I never quite got comfortable with the controls. Most actions are performed with the analog sticks, pressing "X" in tandem for manuals with a shoulder button thrown in for good measure. But 25+ years of paying 'Tony Hawk' is engrained in my muscle memory, and I would instinctively press "X" to jump, another face button to grab, etc. and I'd screw myself up. That's on me, mostly, and with time, stages can be learned. But that's not all.

Second, through my entire time playing, the game would pause/hitch for a second, then resume. This mostly happened when songs would change, but otherwise as well, not on all stages and seemingly randomly. Of course, this completely throws off what buttons are being pressed and placement of the sticks, and causes instant failure. Grinding, manuals, etc. all require holding something, so if you're transitioning to your next move, and the game just stops for a second, there's really no recovery. I even had the game pause as I plunged to my death where no buttons were responding, until I pressed Option and the game had paused without bringing up the pause screen. It doesn't help that, if you have a combo going, pass a checkpoint, then fail, the game rightfully registers a score of "0" at any passed checkpoint because the combo wasn't technically landed at those points. I was finishing levels with scores of only tens of thousands rather than the million plus needed for beating the top local. Between this, the exponential difficulty, and of course the random game stuttering, I was about done.

That said, after finishing single player, I oddly wanted to go back and play more. I didn't, I have to move on, but for anyone with the time and desire to master 'Ollie Ollie World,' there is a lot to do and I imagine it's highly rewarding.

Nirvana Pilot Yume on

I don't know why the heck I even bought this, I'm not a fan of VNs at all, and the racing game portion isn't fun either. The music, graphical aesthetic and art style are all going for an 80s sci-fi anime vibe but it just didn't do anything for me. It was deleted the minute it ended.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I guess you really were forced to wipe.

Been a while I beat Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. Wasn't going to kill all the brainiacs and found the story terrible along with the gameplay.

Beat Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Great Metroidvania but would have had preferred a level system. Took me a while to learn the importance of parrying versus dodging by jumping or dashing out of the way like I usually do in Castlevania..

Beat Mario vs Donkey Kong. It was actually pretty fun but I kept misjudging my jumps on enemies and dying for some reason. I felt I landed on top and failed. I feel the timing might have been off. It took around 5 hours. 8 Worlds to play and then replay their harder version after. This actually isn't a bad game. The puzzles ramp up in difficulty overtime and is fun to play.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

8/10

It was quite refreshing to play a recently released Assassin’s Creed title that wasn’t overwhelming in scope as the past several games in the series has been. The map is much smaller. The story is concise and focused. The combat is crisp and precise. The tactical stealth is in super abundance. I enjoyed my 15 hours with this entry and would happily return a second time around if it wasn’t for the performance issues I experienced throughout. The game suffers from a lot of screen tearing from what I noticed in crowded areas where it gives the GPU a workout. The framerate stutters as well during heavy trafficking areas. And the graphics are just not that well polished. I get it though. It’s a smaller game on presumably a tighter budget so it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles as a larger scale game. What it lacks in performance and graphical fidelity it sure as heck makes up for in gameplay though. The tools you get within your arsenal to carry out your stealthy like objectives are simple, yet effective and range from noisemakers to blow darts to the game breaking daggers. Yes daggers have an upgrade that allows you not only to recollect your dagger and essentially never run out of ammo but also allows you to completely dissolve your enemy it lands on by means of a corrosive like acidic application. Quite gnarly yet quite game breaking as once I unlocked those upgrades it was all I was using until the end of the game but man was it useful! You can also upgrade your attire and weapons too by finding upgrade materials and upgrade diagrams by completing missions. And lastly the story is quite interesting and even has a twist ending I didn’t really see coming. Overall it’s a return to form for the AC franchise and I only hope it can keep up the momentum of having that familiar yet fresh reinvigorating spirit with future installments.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink - 8.75/10

Loved this! An easy way to describe it is a cross between Monster Hunter and a Tales of game. But you don't have to bother with the Monster Hunter-style stuff if you don't care for it. You can focus solely on the story like you would in any JRPG and still get your money's worth. The story took me just over 17 hours which I know is short but I have zero complaints. It's all killer no filler with epic and I mean EPIC boss battles and a battle system that feels like a cross between Nier Automata and Tales of Arise. Once you get a hang of it and once you've leveled up and unlocked more skills, everything just flows. I honestly can't say enough about how good it feels. You have to really pay attention during boss fights to dodge enemy attacks while chaining together attacks and performing skills that function like artes do in the Tales of games. You can perform link attacks with party members once you've filled up an enemy's stun gauge and then pull off really stylish Skybound Arts where the whole party comes together to unleash a really powerful attack. And each character plays so differently. The combat is easily the highlight of the experience, imo.

On the story...it's not going to win any awards for its storytelling, but it's solid. It's standard fantasy anime fare, but the world, the overall presentation, the likeable characters and the great soundtrack made it enjoyable. The game is essentially a spinoff of the mobile game with tons of lore so you are kinda dropped right into things and you don't get to see the relationships between the characters develop. Not sure how others will feel about that, but I think the devs do a good job of making this feel like a standalone experience where you don't need much of the backstory to enjoy it. The end of the main story transitions really seamlessly into the endgame stuff where you go out on quests solo or in online co-op. I've played the endgame stuff for about an hour and I've had my fill for now, but I can see myself revisiting it in the future.

I can see people being split on this, but I may be wrong since user reviews on Steam, Amazon etc are very positive. I really enjoyed it, but I can see someone expecting a more traditional JRPG being a little disappointed. It's not often that a game that has been in development hell comes out and reviews and sells as well as this game has. It's far from perfect, but it's a game I'd wholeheartedly recommend. There's a PS5 demo that will give you a really good idea of what the main game has to offer.

GB Relink feels like a cross between FF XIV and monster hunter very light to me. I’m grinding the last few weapons that drop from final quest now. It becomes very much like boss fights in FF XIV but more arcade. The monster hunter elements are grinding for items to get gear / upgrade sigils -and launching the quests. It’s a very short game if you don’t enjoy the grind and work to kill the final quest bosses. There are some frustrating grinds- like having to launch an SBA / special move 30 times to open an early weapon upgrade and then requiring multiple end game boss kills for the next. If you like the anime everything from the music to the weirdness is here.

I just wrapped up Resident Evil 4 on 2

This was simply incredible. I take back what I said in the review thread, about wishing the graphics were better. The more I played the more I realized they're actually fine and by far the best looking VR game I've played. I might not have mentioned it in the review thread but the 3D audio is not just good throughout the game, but also was helpful for finding those collectible bobblehead things (I still missed a few though). Like you can tell not just what direction the sound is coming from, but I swear it made it easier to tell if it was going to be high up on a shelf somewhere or down on the ground.

Cruelty Squad - this game is weird. Level based, kill targets and if you did you start over. It's hard to explain but I doubt I'll go back to this.

Resident Evil 2 - 10/10

Can't believe it has been 5 years already.Time flies. I didn't even realize there was a free PS5 upgrade, but I figured I'd download it and maybe run around the RPD for a bit, but I ended up playing through all of Claire A...twice! The game holds up soooo well and with ray tracing it looks fantastic. I've played this game a ton but Mr. X still scares the crap out of me and overall it's still such an intense experience. I still think REmake is the best remake of a game I've ever played, but this is a very close second. It's definitely peak survival horror. I don't really have any other games I'm dying to play atm so I may just run through Leon's scenario as well.

RE2R is a gosh darn masterpiece and I will fight to the death and anyone who disagrees with me ha ha. I have beaten the remake like four times, and would gladly go back for a fifth. And yes Mr X always makes my pants in need for a desperate, washing, and scrubbing.

I thought Heavyd814life made a mistake I never realized they made an actual PS5 version until now. Came out 3 1/2 years after the PS4 version wow.

Yeah, I didn’t realize too that it had a current GEN upgrade. Perfect excuse for me to beat it a fifth time ha ha

Heavyd814life wrote:

RE4 (either of them) then REmake for me.

I just beat Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on

This was so good. I've missed about 5 trophies, but since I enjoyed the game so much and it doesn't look like they'll be difficult to get at all, I see no reason not to go for the platinum.

Arc the Lad 2 (PS1): 84 hours. On to Arc the Lad 3!

Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth (PS5): 9/10 (78 hours)

This is everything you want in a sequel. But it's not just a sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but the entire Yakuza series. If you ever played any of the Yakuza games you have to play this. And if you never have played the Yakuza series, you should.

Rocketbirds 2: Evolution

My backlog extends to the Vita for a few games. I took a look at my spreadsheet, and despite playing my Vita quite a bit the last few years, I haven't beaten a Vita game since 2021.

'Rocketbirds 2: Evolution' is a direct sequel to a game that was never on and I haven't played it. It's a side-scrolling shooter, slower than something like 'Contra,' but desperately trying to be a parody of its ilk. The game is well voice acted, and the early moments elicit a chuckle, but it never evolves to full parody beyond the bird motif and, as such, becomes cringe. This game might be too small for the Vita's screen. Sprites aren't very big, and bullets can be hard to see. That, and there can be significant slowdown when too much is on the screen.

It's an 8-way shooter, so expect to miss your target a lot. Levels are laid out ok, but it's often not clear which direction to continue, and the map is horrendous. There's a handful of standard weapons, but none have any impact and the enemies are bullet sponges allowing themselves to be juggled in the air for multiple seconds. One of the player character's special abilities is to take control of enemies through their cell phones (har har, our phones control us), but the process takes way too long. Hold Left or Right on the D-Pad, line up to the enemy with a wall bouncing line, wait for the bar to fill, the enemy phone buzzes, watch them take it out, they talk gibberish into it, then finally take control of them. This is the process every time. Thankfully the game is short, but a second campaign opens once the single player campaign is completed, the former of which can also be played in co-op. Great, except...

The final sequence of the game involves you running to an exit under a 90 second timer. I managed to do this on my first try. I was in the clear, the first cutscene played, then the screen went black for a minute. I looked up a video online, and it turns out there's a second cutscene that is supposed to play. Instead, the game sent me back to the beginning of the final chapter (there are six chapters), with none of my acquired weapons and no ammo for the starting weapon. I quit via the menu to the main screen, loaded my save, and it placed me halfway through the fourth chapter. Closing the game, restarting my Vita, nothing worked, it always puts me back at the middle of the fourth chapter, and I know my game had been saving along the way because the green check mark would come up in the bottom right corner. I also did not get the trophy for beating the game.

With this game being mediocre at best, needless to say I do not have the want to play through the remainder of the game again. No matter how short it is. Both this and the first game received physical copies for the Vita through LRG. That was the first time I heard of either game, and it piqued my interest, but I'm glad I didn't buy them. Uninstall.

Burly Men at Sea via

An interesting little "game." Quotation because this is more an interactive story than a game. Outside of moving left or right, and sometimes selecting something in the environment, there isn't much game here. That said, it's worth going through.

While simultaneously controlling three bearded men off to seek an answer to a mystery, there are very specific points in the story where the decision can completely change what happens. All told, there's 12 endings, and the game shouldn't be considered complete until then. Though, the game can be cryptic. The first playthrough should take about 30 mins, but subsequent playthroughs automatically skip some traversal sections after the first time to cut down on wandering. Because of this, even with 12 endings, the game can be platinumed in an afternoon. Writing is good, and the simplistic graphics are effective, but it's the music that takes center stage. Folksy yet punctuating, it drives the story almost as well as the story itself. Sadly, once all 12 endings have been seen, there's nothing to do. Still, it's a great little adventure while it lasts.

@DCGX I enjoyed Burly Men At Sea, too.

The one part I didn't find intuitive was how to succeed against the squid monster-island-thing.

Alaisiagae wrote:

Yeah the men move on their own. It's just a matter of dealing with the tentacles when they stop. I had issue with the seals in the bubble, because there was no indicator that you're doing anything right, wrong, or anything at all for some time.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze

8.5/10

Haven’t played this since the Wii U days and it looks so much better cleaned up on the Switch. I forgot how much fun it was too. And oh so damn challenging at times even with all the handicaps it gives you. Great tunes too. Only complaint really would be the length some of these bosses take to beat. Man they can feel like a slog. Overall I’d say it was my favorite DK game since the DK Country games. I liked DK Returns but don’t have too many fond memories of the 3DS game as it didn’t feel as smooth as Tropical Freeze did in regards to its performance and execution. Plus I enjoyed unlocking all the levels and bonus stages.

Super Mario Bros. via Online

As I just acquired Super Mario Bros. Wonder I’m going on an every Super Mario Bros 2D side scrolling game ever kick starting with the OG here. Beat this one in under 2 hours thanks to the infamous hidden warp pipes. Next stop, The Lost Levels game!

More than 25 years since its release, I've finally beaten Keith Courage in Alpha Zones for the TurboGrafx-16, thanks to a bug in the game that makes the final boss a cakewalk if you jump down from above and land close enough to it. It just sits there and let's you whale away on it without ever moving or attacking.

If you DO land on the wrong side of the trigger point and awaken it, well good luck.

image

I will most definitely be looking for the next Keith Courage adventure.

benstylus wrote:

The pack in game for original TG16 release in NA. Those TRU demo kiosks meant everyone who wanted to got to play it- and it was awesome. My best friends dad was a GM at TRU in Chattanooga back then- they had an all night lock-in party at the store and we played TG 16 all night. Good times.

Man, Keith Courage...that name is pinging nostalgia all over my brain but I don't remember much about it. I certainly never beat it...going to go youtube now but congrats!

I just finished up Farpoint on . I gave it an 8/10 in the review thread, but it's closer to a 9 if I wasn't dealing with some tracking issues.

The story, while not Oscar worthy or anything, was pretty good and made me realize that there seem to be so few VR games where I give a crap about the story. Well, this story drew me in, and the plot twist towards the end left me wanting answers that I'll probably never get. Maybe by ending the game the way they did, the developers thought for sure it'd leave people wanting a sequel and Sony would fund it, but here we are just about 7 years later and still not a peep.

Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels via Online

7/10

As my sidescrolling Mario-a-thon continues, I wrap up the The Lost Levels with a fair amount of relief because even with save states and rewind this one felt more of a chore and challenge than the first game. Some of the jumps needed to be timed so precisely that if you were even off by a hair, you’d fall to your demise. I played as Luigi and utilized his higher jumping ability to cover large gaps which helped a bit. Overall, I thought it was pretty solid, but prefer the original Mario Bros game over it any day. Some of these levels should have kinda stayed lost due to some of their more abstract designs.

Lies of P 10/10
I'm basically a Soulslike noob and how long it took me to beat that shows as much, but dang if this wasn't challenging and rewarding to beat. I opted to face the final fight and that took me many, many attempts and I got it with just a sliver of health left, so satisfying to beat the game.