VideoGame_Discussion

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.

Super Mario Bros. 2 via Online

8/10

As my trip down side scrolling Mario lane continues, I find myself wrapping Super Mario Bros 2 feeling quite good like I have in the past. However I did notice some more annoyances this playthrough than the previous ones, even with save states, some of the platforming feels a little loose and a bit slippery and some of the levels feel a bit confusing figuring out where to go or what to do next. Granted this game was pretty much a cut/paste from Doki Doki Panic so it’s arguably not really an original Mario title outside of the characters and music, which to note is still as stellar as the original Mario Bros. And the boss music is pretty intense too. Overall it still holds up pretty well for the most part over 35 years later. Next stop, one of the best. Super Mario Bros. 3!

Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown (PS4)

Hosting the videogame room at Evillecon this weekend, and ran a Street Fighter 6 tournament. We also had Tekken 8 running in the open gaming section. People also got a lot of play out of Jojo All Star Battle, Skullgirls 2nd Encore, and Guilty Gear (which none of these should be a surprise at an anime convention).

I did put Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown running on my PS4 a couple times. The first time, someone saw it and started playing it right away, exclaiming "Virtua Fighter" in a satisfied voice.

The second time I set it up, another person saw it as they entered the room, and said "Look, Virtua Fighter!" Then the philistine who was getting ready to play on the system immediately went to the main menu and loaded Guilty Gear instead.

As closing time for the room approached, I saw the system was free, and most of the rest of the staff was also in the room, so I popped Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown on one more time, plugged in an arcade stick and began playing. With difficulty set to Normal, I managed to get through all 8 stages and beat Dural in best 2 of 3 matches.

It's been a long time since I played any Virtua Fighter, and even longer since I got a legitimate 1cc on standard difficulty on any Virtua Fighter game (I think I've only done it once before).

Pai's moveset was more than sufficient to get through every battle I had to face.

But I did not have to face JEFFRY MCWILD in my run through the game this time.

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benstylus wrote:

Based on my post in this thread from June 5, 2021, it's been nearly 3 years. Apparently I played as Pai for that run too.

Here is a picture of Jeffry McWild from the credits sequence. He's saved us all.
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JEFFRY MCWILD.

Just did a run through the game with him now. No one can stand in his way.

I beat Night in the Woods last night, and I'm gonna miss it. Obviously not a very hard game by any means, but it still took me a few months because I'd play off-and-on. It's really more of a story, there's very little in the way of true game play necessary for the plot other than walking around the main character's town, but somehow it works. The character work is great... some of the most relatable little anthropomorphic animals you'll ever meet. Super existential and it does make one think about life, surprisingly enough.

If I had one single criticism, it's that the game's ending feels like a natural spot for it to open up. In that, if it were a longer/larger game made by a bigger group of devs, I feel like the game would have been at least doubled once they introduce what ended up being the game's big reveal. Instead, it just sort of reveals what's been happening in the most ambiguous way and then ends. But still super charming, and given what came before that ending, I can't pretend like I'm upset that it was left so open-ended.

Good stuff, I'd like to find others like it.

My friend and I finished Sonic Superstars on

My biggest complaints with it were how the co-op doesn't feel like real co-op, and the final boss was lame. I'm okay with boss fights that go through multiple phases, but having to start from phase one after each death isn't fun. I can't even say there was a big feeling of accomplishment once I had landed the final blow, it was more like "I'm just glad that's finally over and we can start playing something else now." Once we beat him it unlocked a whole new story as a new character, except that one is not playable in co-op, so I'm not interested.

Evil West via

What a throwback to the seventh generation. To back up, you play as Jesse Rentier, a vampire hunter working for his father's hunting organization. His father is also the secretary of war. After killing a prominent vampire, the vampire's daughter rows revenge and unleashes a plot to take over the country. Needless to say, Jesse must stop her.

Jesse has a gauntlet infused with electricity that can be upgraded for some pretty cool moves. Add in effective melee, a flamethrower, shotgun, grenade, bow, chain gun and pistol, and Jesse is a force to be reckoned with. Each weapon can be upgraded multiple times, and some, like the pistol and bow, can gain electrical abilities too. The highlight of the game is definitely the combat. It starts basic, almost too basic, but by halfway through the game, it becomes so fun to chain melee with guns and the electricity. New moves and perks are constantly being added to Jesse's repertoire, and combat becomes a ballet of bullets and blood. Most of the enemy design is really good, with some standard designs too. Bosses are varied, though it uses the fallback of taking minor bosses and turning them into regular enemies after their first defeat. Some of the arenas you fight in are a little small for all the enemies and flash that happens, but with enough dodging and effectively utilizing each weapons' cooldowns, it's entirely manageable. You may have picked up on the term "arenas" that I used. While this is a heavily story-driven game, this is also where the throwback to the seventh gen is most apparent.

Linear is the most apt word to use to describe "Evil West." Jesse is on a set path, with maybe a small deviation for an item here and there, and he can never go back. These paths are narrow and devoid of enemies, and each path leads directly to a wide open, usually circular section where enemies are strictly fought. Often times the enemies are visible either in the arena, or around the arena because the devs didn't hide them properly (more of this later). Invisible walls are everywhere. Those said enemies, even in gun range, have force fields around them and don't even react to your attack unless you're in the arena. It takes a lot of mystery out of the game, despite the excellent art direction and atmosphere. Beyond a few, extremely easy puzzles, this makes the game predicable, and it doesn't matter how much fun the combat is if the game continually shows its hand. Jesse can only traverse the environment by way of set objects as well. Waist high barrier? Only the shimmering chain can be hurdled to move on. Same with vertical chains, wood barriers and everything else. If there isn't a shimmering silver object, Jesse can't interact or move on from it.

The presentation as a whole is really good. I mentioned the art direction and atmosphere already, but the graphics are very good as is the performance (probably better on PS5 and Series X). The writing is solid and the voice actors do a good job. If the game world design didn't give it away, it's clear this is a lower budget game, because key scenes are either voiced over or described on a loading screen. Seams in the game world let white light in. Textures might not load in the far distance. Towards the end, I had an entire cutscene out of sync with the audio. Nothing game breaking by any means. Though, after beating the game, there's New Game Plus and that's it.

'Evil West' is a focused throwback to a couple of generations ago, and while it's nothing surprising, it is a hell of a good time. I highly recommend this for any action game fan.


Dreams - Art's Dream via

As a palette cleanser, I decided to boot up 'Dreams' for the first time. It almost goes without saying that the variety of stuff on offer inside the game is mind blowing. What people can achieve with the same, relatively simple tools and have it be so much different to the point that it doesn't look like two games were made with 'Dreams' is astounding. I didn't make anything myself, and haven't messed with the VR projects yet, but the afternoon I did spend tooling around in what has been created was impressive.

'Art's Dream' is kind of like the official campaign of 'Dreams.' Art was shown at the first reveal, and this game acts as both a single-player story and tutorial of sorts. It's also the only Media Molecule produced 'Dreams' project that has trophies in the base game. Art left his band some time ago amidst struggling with his potential failure. His dream visualizes what he had and has been going through. It's very well made, extremely well acted, and fun. I'd say it's worth getting 'Dreams' just for this. It's not very long, I beat it in one sitting, maybe two hours, but excellent!

Dreams - Ancient Dangers: A Bat's Tale via

'Ancient Dangers' is technically a DLC campaign by Media Molecule, and is the only other project with trophies. It plays like an even more kid's version of 'Torchlight,' and is also short, maybe a couple of hours, but is also worth it. 'Ancient Dangers' is free, and was already within the game when I booted it up.

Often times 'Dreams' is on sale for $10, and it's more than worthy of the purchase price. Yes, creatives will get way more out of 'Dreams' than just players, but there's a ton of great stuff to play. I really wish Sony hadn't cancelled the PS5 port and release this on PC, because 'Dreams' might live on for a decade or more if so. But instead, Media Molecule migrated it to different servers and stopped active support last year. Everything is still available to play with and share, but whatever isn't downloaded once the servers shut down (whenever that might be), will just be gone.

Evil West was great. Too bad we don’t get many coop games like that anymore.

Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs on PSVR2
Short but sweet. Community levels are being uploaded constantly. Maybe I'll revisit it months down the line and play custom levels, but for now I'm done with it.


@DCGX
I still need to play Dreams one of these days. It's a damn shame it wasn't brought to PS5 or (especially) PC. This feels like it could've been kept alive by the community for many, many years. I will check it out for the VR stuff at some point, but I was always impressed with what I saw the community doing with it. There's a thread I have bookmarked on NeoGAF but as the posts are years old I have no idea if the stuff in it is still on the servers now.

Yeah I'm definitely going to dabble in it more. At least Media Molecule is keeping the servers up for the foreseeable future, and everything should be there.

Has anyone beat Alan Wake 2? I started it up but find this whole Mind Place segments really annoying. I know it's just a drag and drop, but it's just annoying.

Kommie wrote:

I started the first one and got to the first actual gameplay- not for me.

Not helpful. I was asking about Alan Wake 2.

Kommie wrote:

Wrong forum. You didn’t beat it loser.

Concrete Genie for

I was already enjoying the game, but the dark-ish turn it took at the end was really good. I feel like this could have made a good kids movie. I may go for the platinum, turns out I missed maybe 11 or 12 trophies that don't look like they'd be difficult to get.

Kommie wrote:

They help you understand the plot and where you are in it. It's kinda annoying but it is important.

Just a preference thing I suppose. I don't think I can say a single bad thing about Alan Wake 2. I absolutely loved it

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom by Capcom.

Certainly not the highlight of the Capcom + Disney legacy.

The two platforming levels (Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Carribean) are both pretty awful and unfair, there's a significant amount of blind luck with the Big Thunder Mountain railroad stage, the Autopia stage is fine except for the retracting bridges at the end that are pretty much guaranteed to get one of your lives the first time since you won't know about them, Space Mountain is one long QTE before those became the thing, and the walk around and answer obscure Disney trivia questions fetch quest is easy but dull.

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I think this one is going on my available list. I used to really like the variety as a kid, but a collection of 5 bad one-off minigames doesn't really grab my interest so much anymore.

benstylus wrote:

That game was hard as hell, right? I remember the pirates level. Awful.

Metal: Hellsinger on

This felt like the most boomerest of boomer shooters, with the most badass soundtrack your ears will have the pleasure of hearing. I like the whole rhythm/shooter mechanic and I'll be on board if they pump out a sequel. Final boss fight was pretty cool. Not only was it down to one little piece of health between the two of us, so basically sudden death, but there was added pressure because right when the battle started I had gotten the low battery warning from my controller ('tis the life of a PS5 gamer mirite?)
The game is so short though, clocking in at barely 5 hours for the story (there's more stuff to do but I'm not going to bother, the credits have rolled and now so will I). And while it is pretty cool feeling the controller rumble along to the music, that really zaps the battery life, so it comes at a cost.
This is currently in the PS+ Extra Game Catalog, so give it a chance.

Overall I rate this six hundred and sixty six sign of the horns emojis out of ten.

007 Nightfire

'007 Nightfire' and 'Everything or Nothing' are considered the best bond games of this generation. A few years ago I played 'Everything or Nothing' for the first time, and I was disappointed by the short mission length, chopped up story that always went back to the mission select screen upon mission completion, and general "fine" gameplay. After having played '007 Nightfire' for the first time this weekend, I feel like much of the same can be said about this game too.

To start, the story is the same as seemingly every Bond movie and video game from the late 90s to early 00s. There's a giant weapon in space, Bond must stop it...that's about it. Levels are small and short, though varied in location. Surprisingly, about half the missions are vehicle based, and they control well. The game does a good job of using gadgets. Sometimes a certain gadget is required, but mostly there's optional paths or hidden uses. Gadgets feel natural, and not forced. The game encourages stealth, but stealth is an afterthought as far as game mechanics, so it makes the most sense to go through guns blazing.

There's a variety of pre-set controller schemes to pick from, but the "Nightfire" setting is most like the original 'Halo' and in turn today's shooters. Weapons are also varied, but nothing stands out. The major downfall in the controls is the slow camera movement/looking. It's slugs along and there's no slider or other options to increase its speed. During the campaign the game enables a generous auto-aim/lock-on much like 'GoldenEye' by default, and this works for the most part. When enemies bunch up, the reticle might go a little crazy zeroing in on who needs to be dealt with first, and there's no way to turn this off, but each weapon has a manual aim. The downfall here is Bond can't move and manually aim at the same time, so he's a sitting duck. Multiplayer can be played entirely with bots, which is also great, but here auto-aim/lock-on is disabled. That makes sense, but it becomes painfully obvious real fast that the aiming is pretty bad, again mostly from the slow turning speed, and it's extremely hard to make small adjustments resulting in the reticle being just off the enemy most of the time.

Like 'Everything or Nothing,' the game goes back to the mission select upon completed a mission which keeps the story from maintaining a good flow. There's a lot to do in each mission to get the best medals, which in turn unlocks more options for multiplayer. A great incentive, if there weren't codes to unlock everything. Pre-Danial Craig Bond was always cringe to me, and this is no different. The voice actors do a good job, but some of the dialog, good lord. It's "classic Bond," for better or worst. With the exception of going for 007 moments and getting the best medal on each mission, the game is over quickly and there isn't a ton of reason to replay. I beat the game in two sittings.

Having no nostalgia for '007 Nightfire,' and with how much FPSs have moved forward, I was disappointed. There's a solidly "good" game here that's fun for a playthrough, maybe more for completionists, but the story is bog-standard Bond at the time (which is to say, uninteresting), the gameplay feels dated and the lack of faster aiming kills any fun the multiplayer might have. '007 Nightfire' feels more like an iteration of the original N64 'GoldenEye' than a 6th generation classic.

DCGX wrote:


I hardly remember anything about this game's story mode all these years later, but I do remember my biggest disappointment with the game was I rented it at launch on GameCube, brought it to my brother's house where me, him and two nephews were going to spend the weekend playing it multiplayer...except the game was incompatible with certain 3rd party brand controllers, so we never even got to play it multiplayer because that's all I had. Oddly I can't find anything about this problem when I Google it now, but I know at the time it just wouldn't detect my extra controllers and then in the next issue of GamePro magazine someone wrote in saying they had the same problem, and GamePro contacted EA on behalf of the dude writing in and they reported back what the problem was.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Interesting, I hadn't heard of that. There's a lot of multiplayer options in 'Nightfire' too. I imagine, at least after 'Halo' and maybe the first 'TimeSplitters,' this multiplayer would've be really great.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:


Of course a day after I beat this it gets announced for PSVR2. I would have just waited for that one if I knew there was even a small chance of it coming to VR.

Beat Sifu.

Amazing game. Im replaying it now trying to get the good ending. Id give it a 9/10, I think there is something keeping it from being perfect in my book but Im not sure what it its yet.

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor

9/10

I finally got around to playing this after it’s been in my queue for almost a year and man all I can say is what a journey. Adventurous and grounded yet emotional are a few words that come to mind after watching the credits roll. I’m definitely going to keep playing the post game to unlock the platinum by completing the rest of the rumors and bounties and such. My only complaint about this game and I can’t believe it’s come to me saying this about a really good Star Wars game, but there’s just too much miscellaneous content that doesn’t really seem worth tracking it all down at the end of the day. There’s only so many color swatches I care to use for my clothing and lightsabers. Besides that though the game is a delight. Rich with lore and lush vistas as well as even more massively interconnected environments than the first game in this series. Plus the visuals are pretty stunning. In cutscenes though the game’s frame rate can appear a little choppy so keep that in mind, but when it’s running at 60fps in game it’s smooth as butter. The new additions to combat are sleek to boot. I enjoyed the different lightsaber stances from duel wielding to double bladed and found myself sticking with those two switching back and forth. The story was pretty solid as well with a nice twist toward the latter half of the game and some cool surprises as well along the ride. At the time of the credits rolling I had about 38 hours in with still about another 10 to go I want to say after I mop up all the post game stuff. A near 50 hour single player Star Wars game I thought I would almost never see again outside of the classic Knights of the Old Republic titles. It’s more than double the length of Jedi Fallen Order and a lot of the time you’re just wandering off with that sense of wanderlust getting immersed into the game’s rich planets but other times it can feel a bit overwhelming with way too much stuff to collect. Overall I really enjoyed and am enjoying my time with Jedi Survivor and am excited to see where it goes next.

Unicorn Overlord

8.5/10

Completed all quests and side content in 103 hours. Fantastic game. This is one the SRPG community hasn't gotten a taste of since OB64. Games like Fire Emblem and FFT style games are in the same genre, but not real close in comparison. The use of a 'gambit' combat system like FFXII really works well here and the combinations are a plenty! I spent so many hours just toying with different combinations of units and abilities, where I was really just sitting in menus for hours upon hours tweaking. This is the real highlight of this game. It may be a turn off for some.

If we're comparing it solely to the games it's derived from (OB), I have some complaints.
- For one, there is no detriment to putting a fighter in the back row or a ranged one in the front. Attacks are the same no matter where you place a unit in your formation.

- While confusing/complex at times, the lack of a 'Chaos frame' system that drives your alignment as well as the story and characters you can recruit is a real disservice to Unicorn Overlord. Simply put, recruit every unit you come across, because there isn't any choice that bars you from obtaining anyone else, or changes the story in anyway.

- Speaking of story, UO is about as cookie cutter as it gets. Don't expect an enthralling story a la OB64 or FFT.

If there were more games that played like this, UO might be a 7.5 or 8, but since FE is going downhill and OB64 came out 25 years ago, this is deserving of a high score and high praise.

That's a bummer about the story. That's literally the only thing I had reservations about after playing the demo. But I was hopeful that it would maybe be a slow burn since Vanillaware did such a great job with the story in 13 Sentinels.

Cultic - This is a game I should have loved, but just didn't. You see all the enemy types fairly fast and it has some parts where you can't quick save. The graphics as well. Something about them just bothered me. Super drab and hard to find enemies sometimes.

I'm 22 hours in, and I agree that the overall story is pretty generic, but it hasn't detracted from my enjoyment of the game, and there are some interesting side stories with some of the recruitable characters.

Heavyd814life wrote:

Star Ocean: The Second Story R

I played a bit of the demo and was on the fence, but I’m glad I gave it a second chance. The classic JRPG format is what brought me back, and I was surprised to find some elements that felt really fresh. My favorite aspect of the game was the skill point system, which added a lot of depth and surprises. For example, adding a certain number of points to the animal skill unlocked an ability to ride a bunny on the world map, which avoids all enemies and lets you find secret places previously obstructed by terrain you can’t pass on foot.

There’s also a skill to control how often you encounter enemies, and another skill to sacrifice a percentage of strength to earn more experience. I spent a lot of time in the menus deciding how to spend points, crafting items and equipment, and exploring group skills.

The story was actually pretty interesting, but at times, convoluted. But, what do you expect from a classic JRPG?

I ended up with only 6 party members by the end of the game, but I went in blind. Looked up stuff after beating the game to see what I missed.

I’m feeling like an 8.75 overall. I think it does a great job of letting you play the game how you want to play it. It’s linear in its story (minus the 99 different endings), but it’s like comfort food in its experience.

thatfootballguy wrote:

Did you fight the Unlimited last boss? Wondering if its as bad as in the original. I remember having to grind for countless hours to finally beat him (via a cheese way).

I still have to finish playing the first Star Ocean Remaster.

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

Sigh. I may just wait for a sale then. I felt zero connection to Alain while playing the demo. He's dull as hell and all the other characters just seemed like shallow fantasy stereotypes. Really loved the core gameplay, though so I'll definitely get around to it at some point.

kevolones wrote:


I don’t think so? I guess you have to do two specific private actions to unlock the unlimited boss. That sounds frustrating!

thatfootballguy wrote:

Yeah I did those by coincidence and lived to regret it. I always wonder how other people kill that boss. Its kind of insane.

kevolones wrote:

For the double boss version at the coliseum I used the armor trick. Makes you invincible but you slowly die or something- then pop the healing sword move and other hard hitting spells - you can’t die.

Buckshot Roulette - So, I did beat this but will still be playing it for awhile. You basically play Russian Roulette with a shotgun against an AI. There is an endless mode, haven't tried it yet though. Pretty fun. And cheap.

Robocop: Rogue City (PS5) - It's a good AA title but not great. The shooting is really quite fun, the violence is awesome and you do feel like a powerful android. The skill upgrades do make a difference too so I enjoyed these aspects quite a bit.

But the story got a little too complex for its own good and the cutscenes and voice work are really quite dull mostly. But many times the NPC will ask you a question as part of the interaction so you kinda need to pay attention.

This was far longer than I expected so it's not a waste of money. I enjoyed it overall but would say that it makes a decent $30 game, not $60. Trophies/Achievements are super easy and I had to just reload an autosave checkpoint to get 1 missed trophy. I got everything else just by playing the game and being thorough with side missions.

LEGO DC Super Villains

The last LEGO game with a more diorama feel before 'The Skywalker Saga,' it definitely feels long in the tooth. I've always approached LEGO games more like puzzle games, but the puzzles are too easy. The game itself is solid, though the camera can still be really problematic in levels. The open world is better than LEGO Marvel 2, but not the city specific open-world LEGO games. There's a ton of characters, and the voice cast is impressive (Mark Hamill is back as Joker!). The story starts off pretty interesting, but then devolves into the similar story line most DC comics, games and movies were following at the time; the same McGuffins.

I stuck to the story missions after doing a few side missions at the beginning. I think my own personal issue is that I'm just not a fan of almost all of the DC heroes and villains, so nothing really stuck with me. It didn't help that the humor was more hit or miss than usual for a LEGO game either. Like I said, it's a solid game with a crap-ton to do, but after 'The Skywalker Saga,' I hope Travelers Tales continues in that direction.