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.

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.

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.

image

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.
image

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.

image

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.

Super Mario World via Switch Online

10/10

I guess the old expression never dies or falters when they say something ages like fine wine. Super Mario World is a testament to that statement and the test of time and then some to still be probably the greatest Super Mario sidesscrolling game that I’ve ever played and like many of you I’ve played them all. Simple yet effective and leaves a long lasting impression that will be with you until the very end and beyond. From the music to the gameplay, everything was and is just sensational no matter how many times I experience it.

Dragon's Dogma 2 - 9/10

What a game! Just completed the endgame stuff. Spent a total of 80 hours with it. DD2 is a weird, wonderful, insanely addictive, incredibly fun, and deeply flawed masterpiece. Just like the original. There is literally nothing else like it on the market and the things it does well it does SO well. This makes it easy to overlook its flaws, and trust me it has flaws. It won't be for everyone. It's not a modern RPG that'll hold your hand. It's very old school in its sensibilities and goes against many modern conventions, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It helps it stand out in a sea of open world RPGs that feel like you're just ticking things off a checklist. DD2 in comparison feels like a real adventure and it is at its very best when you're out exploring, experimenting with vocations/party composition, getting completely distracted and discovering things off the beaten path, and coming up against ogres, and cyclopes, dragons etc. I couldn't get enough of the gameplay loop and I honestly want to start up NG+, but I think I'll hold out until we get an expansion/DLC hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

Tails of Iron

I did not start this game with the intention of playing it all in one day, but I ended up 100% it with all trophies except the hardest difficulty trophy.

In a medieval world ruled by rodents, an old king falls to their centuries-long enemies, the toads. It's up to his son, Redgi, to prove himself to lead, rebuild the kingdom and forge new alliances. Despite some claiming this is a Souls-like, it isn't. It's a 2D Metroidvania with combat. The game is gorgeous and the parallax is impressive. That's a good thing, because about half the fast travel points only work one way, so there's a lot of back and forth traversal. The opening of the game can definitely feel like one fetch quest after another, and that doesn't really change, but the story and foes keep things interesting. Redgi regularly gets new armor, and armor types can be extremely resistant to certain enemies, so switching armor is a constant. It's not too bad, and it's easy to see what armor and/or weapon will work best, but it's a lot of time in the menus too.

Combat is designed around blocking and dodging more than direct attacks, though sometimes those are essential. The dodge roll works well, and there's a parry, but in the late game, it's easy to get juggled or blocked from moving, which can feel cheap. There's no stamina bar, however, and as long as the appropriate armor is equipped, the game is very manageable. Outside of a few collectibles for more fights, and some side quests for more fights, the story is the only draw. That said, and the game is well regarded, it kept me engaged way more than I thought. Though the well-paced missions and upgrades really helped. A definite recommendation.

Heavyd814life wrote:

Id be playing this if I wasnt so slow to play the recent games. Ive barely scratched the surface of FF7Rebirth so I reaally shouldnt buy this yet. If Stellar Blade ends up being good Ill want to buy that as well. 2024 started with heavy hitters.

Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League

4/10

I truly disliked this experience. Not as a whole but the live service aspect gave me such a sour taste for this game as to what it could have been that I’m forever going to be salty because of it as I once held the developer Rocksteady in such high regard. Now that they have been consumed by the dark side all we have left to do is roll with the punches in a hollow game that’s filled with repetitive missions, combat and loot to an extent of insanity. The only thing holding this game somewhat together is the interesting story that adds some levity and depth to what’s otherwise a very poorly constructed game. Even the controls are bonkers at times, asking you to hit a random combo of buttons to weaken certain enemy types or bosses that just feels manic and unnatural. But getting back to the only saving grace of this game for me. The story is pretty good for what it’s worth and the team had kind of had a Guardians of the Galaxy like feel and humor surrounding the Suicide Squad. I did enjoy their banter and chemistry and felt that they achieved decent character development by the time the game’s story wrapped. Braniac is an intriguing villain to boot and I thought was a good choice for this type of story and setting. However with that being said it’s just a shame this is how the late, great Kevin Conroy had to be remembered as The Batman before he passed on. I’m sure this is not how he wanted his legacy of Batman to end, going out in such an underwhelming fashion. In fact this game and story is not considered canon to me in the Arkham-verse. Arkham Knight was his last great video game role as far as I’m concerned. This was Earth-2 Batman and friends in a sloppily crafted world. And speaking of world I did not think Metropolis could be so boring and dull even with the highly chaotic things transpiring. It just felt like all I was doing was going from point A to B and ignoring the silly side missions which were just copy/paste wash, rinse and repeat even with some of the familiar Riddler challenges scattered throughout which just felt tacked on with an all too familiar, been there done that with numerous repetitive riddles to undertake. And lastly but certainly not least, it is HIGHLY laughable that the devs think anyone in their right minds would continue this game after the credits roll and go on to defeat Braniac a total of 12 more times in this type of utterly tedious environment. Shame on you Rocksteady and even more shame on you WB Games. You have deeply failed this city.

image

I beat another Yu Suzuki masterpiece.

Sonic the Fighters (PS3 port).

It's certainly something. Don't quite know what yet. I feel like I didn't know what I was doing most of the time. It's not as clear cut as Virtua Fighter that's for sure.

Maybe I should put some lab time in to figure thr game out a little better

Warhammer 40k Boltgun 7/10
Played on medium difficulty

As a retro Boomer Shooter it's pretty solid but it almost felt like 2 games in 1. The levels were decently designed with a good bit of looping back over one another, but you could get a little lost or turned around at times trying to relocate a keyed door that you now have said key to. So exploring was decent, leading you to run into frequent but very easy to dispatch enemies - the titular boltgun was very good at 1-hit kills on the basic enemies - which left that part feeling pretty easy. Then there were 'purge' events where you'd get locked into an arena and the screen would get a red tinge and foes would spawn in a LOT in waves and it got very hectic, those sections, as well as some of the boss sections were really the only challenges and caused that 2nd feeling of the game. I wouldn't say it was poorly paced, but it did feel rather different. Then the final boss fight was crazy.

Pros were the feeling of the weight of being a Space Marine, you felt heavy and substantial which was good. The overall atmosphere was decent and it was overall enjoyable to play.
Cons were the too accurate aim assist, the story gets lost b/c you have this floating head that goes with you and talks, but it's not comprehendible so you need to read the dialog if you care or can focus on it, since it will talk during firefights. The levels could've used a means to get a directional assist as I got turned around a few times and annoyed with not finding the way forward. Enemy variety could've helped some too. There are 2-3 human enemies but they felt nearly identical, there are 3 enemies much like yourself, they acted differently with a normal one, a stronger but slower one and a fast one that rushed you and would often respawn once (he royally sucked). Then there were 2 versions of hopping little imp-like things, and 2 sizes of a spitting toad. But the bigger letdown was the bosses. A huge winged thing, a huge imp that would spawn lots of the normal imps from himself and a larger, golden form of this relatively rare ape-like enemy that would bum rush you. That was basically it for bosses beyond an overpowered version or the similar version of you. Then you fought these bosses at least 3 times each with the final fight having the winged and marine, then imp-spawner and marine and lastly a third marine - crazy fight. Some additional variety would've helped a lot with the bosses, but also with the hundreds of enemies that you mowed down. I killed a LOT of imps and cultist humans.

I recently got into the newer boomer shooter games and Boltgun was disappointing. Some levels I had to look up a guide and where to go next and a lot of it was very un fun waves followed by the same sort of boss from a precious level. If you want a really good modern Boomer Shooter, go for Dusk, Ion Fury, Postal Brain Damaged. Not sure if they're on console though.

Kommie wrote:

Thanks, I'm not fully focused on Boomer shooters yet, but have a few on my Steam wishlist and almost pulled the trigger on a humble bundle with 5 from said list. Ion Fury is in my library already as is Project Warlock so I might get to them soon.
I could've played Boltgun on PC thanks to GPU, also used a YT Let's Play a few times when lost. I got away from playing fps games on PC b/c they wrecked my left hand with WASD for a while, but that's not an issue anymore apparently, I beat Trepang^2 on PC last month and my hand was fine.

The current humble bundle with all those Games, Prodeus, Ultrakill, Turbo Overkill and what not is totally worth it.

Kommie wrote:

That's the HB I was referring to, might snag it, was on the fence and already beat Quake 2 and Prodeus in the past 6 months or so.

Only 5+ hours left on that HB as of now, so ends around 9pm tonight Eastern.

I'd buy it but I have everything in it but two games, and I'm not really interested in them anyway

I snagged it, not interested in the Quake 2 nor Prodeus codes, so if someone wants them, LMK.

I'll still be playing this for awhile, bit I finally beat Nuclear Throne which is apparently hard, given the low percent of people who've beaten it:

image

I bought this 2 years ago but didn't realize it had a 60FPS mod of sorts, cause default it's 30 FPS. Super fun, if you do beat it, it can take 20-30 minutes but after you beat it, you "loop" and go back to the beginning and start over. So, really you technically can't "beat" it in a traditional sense. I've unlocked all but one character.

Pistol Whip on 2

I kinda almost skipped playing this today because my shoulder was kinda sore from playing it yesterday. This game can be quite the workout. Like Metal: Hellsinger this is a first-person shooter where you're shooting enemies to the beat of the music, but also having to dodge enemy fire and obstacles. There are two campaign stories and they only last around 35-40 minutes each (not counting the time you'll spend dying and retrying on the boss fights), but there is still more to the game to keep you busy than just the campaigns.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I almost got this for PSVR 1 when it was on sale. I don't think it ever drops below $20. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

Beat Final Fantasy VII Rebirth it is around 30 hours to beat. The mini games to 100% the game make it extremely unfun to me. This game needed better mini games and other activities that are fun. Combat and the open world portion are the highlights.

Alone in the Dark is okay 6-8 hours long but the story made little sense to me somewhat despite reading the files. Spoiler heavy if I mention the story. The weapon count is lacking 4 guns + melee weapons that are the same and the combat isn't the greatest. It needed a better story

Princess Peach: Showtime!. Playing as the pastry maker was annoying. The rest of them are fun but swordfighter felt bland to me and the mermaid one was interesting but not that enjoyable. Extremely short and not going to 100% it. Around 5 hours long.

Gave up on Rise of the Rōnin. The system for equipment is terrible even with options to make it better and the game isn't that fun.

Dragon's Dogma 2 was lost in the mail and is the only game in my backlog. Hopefully it is enjoyable.

South Park: Snow Day! was okay. The ranged combat was terrible and the random "bullcrap" wasn't fun at all. The lack of checkpoint system and other issues are present but it is okay. Even at the lower price point it wasn't worth it at all.

Sandland and Stellar Blade demo aren't games for me. Didn't care for the gameplay for both and the lack of story for Sandland was a big drawback for me.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is the next game I know I am buying so I am pretty much waiting for customer support to fix my issue with Dragon's Dogma 2 being lost and then my backlog is once again empty.

Super Mario World Yoshi’s Island via Online

8.5/10

I haven’t played this one in about 5 years or so and it still holds and stands the test of time. Especially with some of the more clever platforming puzzles and creative boss fights. You can definitely see how it translated into modern day Yoshi titles. Some of the controls though I felt need to be tightened up a bit back in the day as Yoshi sometimes moves a little bit too fast and feels a tad too slippery. And also keeping baby Mario from getting kidnapped always irked me a bit. Other than that it’s still a grand old time.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown

9/10

What a breath of fresh air this experience was. When I first heard the series was getting a new entry I was very excited but also a tad disappointed seeing as though the Sands of Time remake was put on hold in favor of returning to the roots of the series as seen here but low and behold it was worth it and then some. I thought it was going to be yet another simple Metroidvania, but it turned into having elements from other game franchises like Dark Souls like shortcuts and even some boss encounters in tandem with the treacherous platforming and puzzles of, well, the original Prince of Persia games! Man, some of the puzzles and platforming challenges in this game was so damn clever and even a little frustrating but in a good way. No challenge ever felt too tough although I will say some of the more several minute long gauntlet infused challenges could have used better payoffs than simple colored character skins. But besides that little minor gripe and the fact that some of the side quests leave a little to be desired, the game is a delight. Air tight traversal controls and a pinpoint precise combat system makes for quite the delicacy. The sense of wanderlust believe it or not is quite immense as well in the massive interconnected map. Countless times I found myself just going off the beaten path just to see what was around the corner only to find myself rewarded with slews of treasures, upgrades or optional boss battles. The story is pretty cool too about a tale of betrayal and redemption that has some twists, turns and revelations along the way with a cast of interesting memorable characters. I didn’t like Sargon’s overall look though and the character models graphics wise are a little rough. You can tell the budget did not go deep into rendering those models to their fullest potential. The visuals within the environment though are a different story entirely. Gorgeous vistas and saturated portraits of a ruined yet mystical place within and surrounding Persia await you as you soak in all of the vibrant and vivacious color palates. In regards to your arsenal you are equipped with two swords and a bow which can be upgraded 4 times and you get amulets that work as perks to enhance your skills in combat. You can also possess special abilities called surges that you can equip 2 at a time that unleash a variety of overpowered attacks to either counter or do massive explosive damage to foes. And lastly the numerous boss fights in the game range from quick and simple to quick, fast and furious. There’s one boss in the game that took me so many tries to beat all because of his nimble nature and how hard he was to catch. Seriously this game pulls no punches when it comes to it’s fluidly fast nature. Jedi reflexes preferred. Overall, I loved this game and would gladly replay it on a new game plus. I just hope the Sands of Time remake is around the corner too because this game got me jonesin’ more for it.

LEGO 2K Drive via

This game throws a lot at the player pretty quickly, and I wasn't enjoying it at the beginning. Eventually I came around and started to have fun, but I stuck to the story missions and only a few side quests.

The world is fun and not overly big. There's a lot to collect. This being LEGO, you're free to drive into and destroy just about anything with no consequence, as whatever is destroyed will get rebuilt. Everything is bright and colorful, though I turned off the motion blur. I think this was attributing to my early dislike, as it was actually giving me a headache. I didn't bother with any of the actual building. In fact, I stuck mainly with the starter vehicles since vehicles that are unlocked typically have too big of drawbacks that the three allotted perks can never offset.

Racing for the most part is fun, but it has weird rubberbanding. It's more like all the other racers stay close to you, and then drop off the later in the race you go, which leads to almost exclusively tight wins. It's very strange, and races are so short, it's impossible to gain any sort of lead. Like 'The Crew 2,' your vehicles change based on the terrain. A racer for roads, something off road for...of road, and a boat for water. Changes are quick, and there can be multiple loadouts.

Ultimately, I had more fun driving around outside of races, enjoying the world than racing in it. And yes, there is a battle pass. It's mostly for cosmetics to build with, and any vehicles and characters unlock for free, but arguably, this being a LEGO game, the cosmetics are the better rewards. Other items can be won and collected through regularly play, but there was no need for a battle pass especially one tied to single player.

So I do recommend this game, but I don't see myself going back or picking this up outside of * (it's also currently on Game Pass).

Ichidant-R GG

One of the fun aspects from when I ran SegaFans 15ish years ago was discovering all the treasures in their back catalog. One series in particular that I fell in love with is the Puzzle & Action series. I first played Ichidant-R, then later discovered Tant-R (the original game in the series) and finally Sand-R when I was getting into Saturn imports. Never got a chance to play the arcade only 4th game in the series.

It wasn't until recently that I discovered the Game Gear ports! Now that i've picked them up, I can say they are almost as good as the originals!

They did Warioware minigame collections before it was cool.

Spider-Man Miles Morales

8.5/10

Pregamed before diving head first into Spider-Man 2 which is next and it was still for lack of a better word, amazing 3.5 years later. Short sweet and to the point with cool new Spidey abilities and some clever mini-games and lite environmental puzzles. The story was a bit expected here and there to the Spider-Man cliche storylines but overall, graphics, gameplay and presentation were just as awesome as the first Insimniac installment back in 2018. Can’t wait to dive into the sequel next.

Super Death Game SHOW! on PSVR2...I guess? I mean I survived through 10 mini-games and "won" more than once. I noticed the second time I did it the end screen had different text to it, so they at least did try to come up with a story, but failed to make a compelling game around it that I'd want to keep playing to find out the rest of it.

New Super Mario Bros via

8.5/10

As my replay of the Mario 2D sidescrolling games continue, I have now finished the 2006 entry and man I guess I'm just getting too old for this stuff because I do not remember this game being as challenging as it was in some parts back when I was playing it years ago. But nevertheless it's still a damn fun time. I think the controls feel a bit too slippery though because I could have sworn my timing was correct in some parts but it didn't register on my DS. Maybe my DS is just old like me hah. Anyways, next stop, New Super Mario Bros. 2!

TalonJedi87 wrote:

I would recommend taking a short break between the two. Spiderman 2 is incredible but coming right off replaying MM beforehand it felt so similar. And it's a big game so I would advise cleansing the palette with something different between the two games to make Spiderman 2 more enjoyable.

Good idea. I might just play one of the other FPS I have in my backlog to switch it up. Just picked up that indie game Trepang2 on sale. Looks like FEAR and I’m about it.

Just beat Hogwarts Legacy on the Switch. I think either Breath of the Wild (Wii U) or Fallout 4 (Steam) were my last previous last games beaten. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Some of the side quests feel a bit like busy work, but the main quest was pretty solid. I especially enjoyed the battle system. It was almost a bit like a modern Beat'em Up. You can bash buttons and it's going to do something cool, but chaining together long combos really pays off. I'll give it an 8.5 / 10.

Affected: The Manor on PSVR2
This, that rollercoaster game and the kayak game (maybe?) might be the only "VR experiences" PSVR2 has so far. I wish there was more to this one.

I just now finished the fourth Trails of Cold Steel. kinda sad now, gonna miss those guys. But moving on to play even more Trails games!!

New Super Mario Bros 2

9/10

My 2D Mario-A-Thon is almost over as I round the corner at watching the credits roll for this one and no real complaints here on this revisit other than it being far too generous in lives, coins and power ups which is not necessarily a bad thing. Although I watched a DYKG video the other day that explicitly said the sequel to NSMB was going to have a focus on coin collecting so that makes sense here why it has such a heavy focus on coins. Overall though it felt like it wanted to emulate Super Mario World in almost every sense outside of having Yoshi in it which was fine by me! Next stop the U Deluxe!

Dragon quest VIII via Anbernic rg405v.

Been in the backlog list for quite some time. Originally played near release. Have bought/sold/traded this game multiple times. Own it on the 3ds still. DQ is and always will be a favorite. I love the classic RPG adventure the series is known for. DQ8 is no slouch. I finished it near 60 hrs or so. Lots of loot, lots of exploration. The game is rather grindy tho; patience is key. At 60 hours the game does start to feel like it’s wearing out it’s welcome. There is post end game. I read some walkthroughs and didn’t seem to add anything to the story ala DQ11 so I think I’ll skip it. Over all fun and visually stunning for its age. I’d give it 8/10.

Final Fantasy XVI - via PS Portal

This game is not for me. I finished it but it felt like such a chore from Act III on. This game is 80% cut scenes followed by the same boring redundant battle formula that doesn’t deviate in the slightest for 3 chapters until the credits role. You can pretty much guarantee each quest will end with an area battle followed by “new enemy approaches” area boss/mid boss/ story boss, cut scene rince and repeat for houuuurs. I found most of the loot was crafting items and you can’t sprint unless the game allows you to sprint (there’s no sprint button it just occurs when cranking on the thumb stick), even when entering open areas. The presentation is top notch tho. The environments and many of the bosses are crazy cool looking. At the end of the day that didn’t impress me enough to score this release more than a 6/10.

Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League - 7/10 - This game was fun, repetitive but it felt like Crackdown with superheroes/supervillains. I enjoyed the humor, the visuals were good, some good boss battles and some disappointing but overall, I enjoyed the time I put into it. I'm done with it for now though, the added live-service content for season 1 doesn't sound significant. If they don't expand on the story more in the future, I doubt I'll start it up again just to play as new characters.

Bugsnax on

Didn't expect that twist at the end, and I don't just mean with

Strawbby?

Beat Dragon's Dogma 2. The gear system was okay but having to pick up drops from enemies bodies was tedious. Also accidently destroying bridges and towns learning mechanics like Dragon's Curse was annoying. You literally have to resurrect NPCs for quests if you make that mistake. The traveling system is also terrible. I highly do not recommend this game simply due to travel and other mechanics dragging this game down. Oh and the quests are terrible for the most part. Go here, slay or collect that, go back. Rinse and repeat 100s of times minus some interesting boss fights.

ued222 wrote:

If you don’t enjoy the travel of dragons dogma it’s likely not going to be a game you’d enjoy. For myself- encounters are the meat and the more the merrier. Personally I never destroyed a bridge nor did I notice the loot system to a degree it irked me. There really is no GOOD loot aside from mats except for chests. I do see lots of complaints about both- but I also played dark arisen for hundreds of hours so I knew what I was getting into a bit.

For what it is- more of a redo of DD- DD2 hit all the sweet spots for me. It’s my GotY currently. I can definitely feel the pain of those who grabbed it as it went mainstream not really knowing what it was always going to be. It’s a janky, more old school arcade like action game with RPG elements. It’s definitely not a super polished contemporary RPG.

Super Mario RPG

I never played the SNES original, but I can only imagine being blown away by it upon release. After all the 'Paper Mario' and 'Mario & Luigi' games, 'Super Mario RPG' seems quant with its tiny screen to screen progression.

Overall I enjoyed my first playthrough though. The story was simple, but it kept things fresh and moving. Combat is fun, though I had trouble with the timing which never caused an issue for me in the other two series. I know it's not a platformer, but the platform jumping is atrocious. This is still a Mario game. It shouldn't be this bad. Most of my failures by far came from the stupid diagonal jumping. Yeah, Mario has a shadow, but it doesn't appear until right before he lands. I played on Normal, and the game is really easy. I only got a Game Over once in battle, and due to a succession of unblockable attacks. My only real gripe with combat.

I think I prefer the 2D art, but the game does look really good. The CGI looks fantastic (I played entirely in handheld mode on a trip) and the music is also extremely good and catchy.

I didn't do everything or find all the hidden chests, and I'm good on this game for some years, but the nice thing is it's relatively short for an RPG, so repeats playthroughs won't take long but will still be enjoyable.

Turbo Overkill - 9.5/10 ---------- Do you think Doom Eternal is too slow? I sure did, and also didn't much like the "trapped in a room and kill everything to proceed" vibe of it. But Turbo Overkill is super fast, not violent at all and only suffers from minor issues. The game has some kind of story, IDK you're a dude who was killed and you come back to kill bad guys. There is a chainsaw on your leg that you can slide and hug enemies with. It's good, non violent fun. Kinda long though, but still fun. If you upgrade your leg you can just hug enemies till they fall asleep pretty quickly. Same with bosses. No idea if it's on console but definitely a great FPS.

@Kommie how does Turbo Overkill compare to Deadlink - I got both in that recent Humble Bundle and Deadlink caught my attention first, though I've not installed any of those games yet. I got started on Sprawl and don't like playing more than 1 game of a given genre at a time.

Crisis VRigade 2 on PSVR2.
Fun...for the brief time it lasts.

Slickriven wrote:

Nothing like Deadlink really. Deadlink is a Roguelike fps, Turbo is a traditional FPS style game.

I enjoyed Turbo Overkill a lot, but I agree, it was way too long. The last 3rd of the game I was basically waiting for it to be over.