Finished Any Games Lately?

I just finished Assassin's Creed 2 because I have a shameful backlog of Steam Sale games.

Still my favorite in the series (thus far at least- I’m up to Unity now).

BobbyOahu wrote:

I just finished Assassin's Creed 2 because I have a shameful backlog of Steam Sale games.

Hey, I just started that! That being because I've just finished Assassin's Creed 1, having been curious about the whole series for some time now, but recently spurred to action by having tried out the more recent Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Ubisoft's Lunar New Year sale.

Though a bit repetitive and short (ignoring insane flag collecting shenanigans), for the price (dirt cheap), I quite enjoyed it, and will probably end up playing all the Assassin's Creeds up to and including Assassin's Creed 3 (you know, all 5 of them...) because I got the third-actually-fifth game for free with the Odyssey season pass. Though not necessarily back to back; plenty of other games to play as palate cleansers.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I finished The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan last night. What a resounding disappointment...

On the plus side, your expectations are now so sufficiently lowered that you might enjoy the next installment!

I thought it was also an overall letdown, too, although I'm not going to throw vitriol on it - I think the innate cheesiness of Until Dawn's slasher-movie setting hid their writing flaws really well, or maybe the poor writing worked well with the expectations you'd have for something like that. I have to admit that I found the scenes on the boat, though, even with the eye-rollingly-bad-at-times dialog and jarring character whiplashes, had a real sense of tension. The only times I took a break from Until Dawn was when real life got in the way, but with Man of Medan I actually took a few breaks just because I could feel my whole body was strung tight as a sharp violin. That's not something I can say about things like Dead Space 1 or Alien: Isolation (I've taken breaks with RE7 in VR, but that's just a sign that I'm not a psychopath).

Technically the game looked better in screenshots (they switched from their previous, I believe in-house, engine to Unreal 4) than Until Dawn, but the hitches and pauses really took away from the immersion; I hope they'll be able to iron those out for the next iteration, if there is one. And I'll buy that, because I still find the style of game they're delivering has something that I really enjoy and can't really get from other games*. But I'll probably wait for a sale.

*I've tried to play Life Is Strange multiple times and keep noping out because I find their French-developers-trying-to-write-American-teenagers script cringe-inducing.

Finished A Bird Story. What a cute little tale.

It's not a game. You watch some pixelated art and listen to great simple piano cords while enjoying an adorable little yarn. You hit some buttons 10% of the time to progress the story. I enjoyed it, it was fast, and I'd recommend it for a couple of bucks to anyone who enjoyed To the Moon

Budo wrote:

You hit some buttons 10% of the time to progress the story.

It's a Naughty Dog game!

It was short, but I finished Stardrop today. It was basically a first-person exploratory puzzle game, one that left me emotionally exhausted at the end. Whereas a lot of games rely on action or battles or set pieces, this relied on writing, on character, on the relationships the characters had with each other, and that we had with them. It was surprisingly quiet yet ultimately effective, and I was very sad at the end, but it earned its emotional resonance.

Ooh, somehow that escaped my wish list. Adding it now.

Continuing my theme of finishing games that I stopped playing for no good reason* I finished Uncharted: Drake's Fortune over the weekend. And, which is also turning out to be a recurring theme, I was only a few hours from the end. I'd say the gameplay hasn't aged all that well, but the dialogue and banter were still pretty great. I immediately started up a game of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which I could have sworn I'd played most of the way through before, but I don't seem to have a savegame for it. Maybe it was so long ago that I last played it was on my old PS3?

*This is a lie. I know exactly why I stopped playing: a newer, shinier game came out that I had to play before finishing Uncharted

Ravanon wrote:

Hey, I just started that! That being because I've just finished Assassin's Creed 1, having been curious about the whole series for some time now, but recently spurred to action by having tried out the more recent Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Ubisoft's Lunar New Year sale.

Though a bit repetitive and short (ignoring insane flag collecting shenanigans), for the price (dirt cheap), I quite enjoyed it, and will probably end up playing all the Assassin's Creeds up to and including Assassin's Creed 3 (you know, all 5 of them...) because I got the third-actually-fifth game for free with the Odyssey season pass. Though not necessarily back to back; plenty of other games to play as palate cleansers.

I felt the same about AC1, and I really loved how much they fleshed out the concept with AC2.

I've still got (oh goodlord) six more unplayed AC games in my library, so it may be a while 'fore I get to Odyssey.

You're spot-on with doing a palate cleanser between games, though. I got a bit... testy at AC Bros, playing it right after AC2 (my review is linked in my signature).

Budo wrote:

Finished A Bird Story. What a cute little tale.

It's not a game. You watch some pixelated art and listen to great simple piano cords while enjoying an adorable little yarn. You hit some buttons 10% of the time to progress the story. I enjoyed it, it was fast, and I'd recommend it for a couple of bucks to anyone who enjoyed To the Moon

They're making a new game which should be out relatively soon!

Children of Morta is finished!

Liked it a LOT. It's rare that even a Rogue-lite hooks me but there is enough of a "between-run" upgrade system that i felt like i would eventually be able to overcome any challenge or difficulty spike, and the connecting tissue of the game (the family vignettes and encounters they have in the little side areas of the game) were both adorable and more than enough to keep me coming back to it. (And, inspiration for D&D campaign ideas!)

Yeah. This'll probably end up on my GOTY list I think.

Anyway... not sure exactly what i'll play next but i'm leaning towards Simulacra 2, or possibly Silence for the adventure game club thread.

Last night I finished Picross S3 - all puzzles, including all the Mega Picross, with no assists. 80 hours.

Now I need to find a new Picross game.

Aristophan wrote:

Last night I finished Picross S3 - all puzzles, including all the Mega Picross, with no assists. 80 hours.

Now I need to find a new Picross game.

I just started playing that last week. Well done! Those Mega Picrosses look quite intimidating.

I finished Heaven's Vault. I really loved this game, but I think it didn't quite stick the landing. Fortunately the rest of the game was great. It really nailed the balance between answering questions and raising new ones. And learning the games language was always entertaining.

There's a lot more I could say but I'll leave it at that otherwise this will be in danger of becoming an essay. This will almost definitely be on my GOTY list for 2020 and if I had have played it when it came out last year, it would've probably been in my top 5.

You can do a New Game + where you start with the full list of translated words you had at the end. That'll be really interesting to go back and see, but I think I need a decent break between runs.

I finished Katamari Damacy REROLL in January and Grim Fandango Remastered today. Both were pretty awesome and something I needed to experience. I'm so jazzed finishing these two gems that I might play something from 1999 or 2005 next. Bring on the new (after these games) years.

Just kidding, I think I'll continue System Shock 1. Or Freespace 2.

Please enjoy the following word dump on my recent completions.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Castlevania is back! Despite SoTN being one of my all-time favorites, I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy going back to this style of Metroidvania after all the great modern takes on the genre we've had in recent years. Thankfully, those concerns were mostly unfounded. I had a great time exploring the castle and collecting new toys to play with in Bloodstained. I thought I was much further along in this when I added it to my GOTY list for 2019, but I was actually only at the bad ending. I've finished it since then, and I like it more in some ways and less in others than before.

On the plus side, I greatly enjoyed the new exploratory abilities from the second half of the game. One in particular really changed my perspective on the castle in a way I was not anticipating. I managed to craft almost all of the food recipes, including all but one of the beverages, so my mana regeneration was sufficient enough to let me spam spells without much regard for my mana pool. That was fun.

On the minus side, I had to do a fair amount of grinding to get to that point, particularly for shards. Sure, I could have just used one of each kind of shard and focus on powering them up, but so much of the fun for me was in playing around with all the toys Bloodstained has to offer. Most new spells were not usable when I acquired them in the home stretch of the game. I would have had to grind ranks and find upgrade materials if I wanted to make them competitive with my other spells. Worse yet, I had to wait until the late game to even start grinding because that's when you gain access to most of the luck boosting recipes, equipment, and book rentals necessary to make it reasonable. Trying to grind out shards and materials without a boosted luck stat is extremely tedious. It's manageable with them, but it would have been much less grating if I could have peppered a few minutes of farming here and there throughout the game instead of backloading it all at the end. Better yet, they could have used a different system entirely, like trading earned XP to power up my favorite shards.

I fully realize that this complaint will not apply to people that find what works and stick with it, but that's not where the fun of this game came for me. The grinding necessary to find my fun was a big blemish on a game I otherwise enjoyed a great deal.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar - A western made Japanese-style RPG where story and dialogue is massively deemphasized in exchange for a focus on combat and dungeon crawling.

I enjoyed this game far more than expected. For starters, it's beautiful.
IMAGE(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/451020/extras/BCNW_kampf_628x183.jpg)
It has fantastic art and exaggerated, detailed animation. It's pretty rare for the basic attacks in a JRPG to convey the weight of an attack the way that a big-budget action game might, but this game does exactly that. Even after watching the combat animations for over 30 hours, and I still found them impressive each time.

Thankfully, the game doesn't rely solely on flashy visuals to hold your attention. Combat is the heart and soul of the experience. It is one of the most enjoyable turn-based battle system I have played with in quite some time. At first glance, it looks like basic JRPG combat, but there are several additional systems and smart tweaks to the formula that help it stand out. If you don't care about the specifics of combat, skip the spoiler.

Spoiler:

Overdrive - Overdrive is mana generated in combat that expires at the end of combat. Every character has access to a few basic actions that do not cost mana. Gully, your main tank, has a basic punch, a taunt, and a team wide guard. All of these actions generate some overcharge. So rather than relying entirely on basic attacks and saving all of your precious mana for difficult boss fights, you are encouraged to build up overdrive and use it to power your mana-fuled abilities before combat ends. Your characters will eventually get access to perks or benefits that reward them for building and using overdrive over mana. For instance, Garrison has an ability that does damage and then extra damage per point of overdrive used. Gully has a perk that gives her a damage shield for every 10 points of overdrive she uses during a turn.

Burst Meter - This the equivalent of a limit break meter that builds over time in battle. It has 3 levels, and each character has a 1, 2, and 3 cost burst move. These are your strongest abilities, but the meter is shared by the entire party, so you have to think about how to best allocate your burst in tough fights.

Status - This is one of my favorite tweaks from traditional JRPG combat. Status effects work on everything, including bosses, and they are extremely powerful. Part of this is because the damage and debuff values of status are balanced in a way that makes them relevant, but a bigger part is how abilities play off of statuses. Garrison's Rupture ability is a weak damaging ability on it's own, but if used against a target that is either Sundered or Poisoned (two statuses that Garrison cannot inflict himself), Rupture also adds a powerful bleed that deals heavy damage over 5 turns. Rupture bleed and many other statuses are stackable to a point, so with the right perks, you can easily make a character build that is entirely focused on killing with status conditions alone instead of brute strength. This also factors into party composition. If Garrison is in a party without someone that can inflict poison or sunder, Rupture is useless. Likewise, his bleeds set up opportunities for other characters to play off.

Perks - Each character gets two skill trees to play with. Skill points can be redistributed at any time to either tree. As you progress, you're able to mix and match from the two trees to customize your character build. I would often spec Garrison for powerful multi-enemy damage while plowing through a dungeon, and then switch him over to a heavy bleed focused build just before fighting a boss.

All of these systems combine to make a battle system where every element of the combat plays off each other. Attack to build overcharge, use overcharge to fuel powerful abilities, use powerful abilities to take out the enemy and keep your team healthy, and supplement damage, healing, and crowd control with burst abilities whenever things start to look dire. Because of the synergy between all of these mechanics and the presence of overcharge, you are encouraged to use every facet of your arsenal against normal enemies.

Aside from combat, other elements aren't quite as impressive. The story is a very standard stop-the-big-bad. The writing is fine for the simple story being told, but the voice acting is surprisingly good. Most of your exploration outside of combat is done on a large overworld map when you move along set paths that branch out, kind of like of a more elaborate Super Mario World overworld map. You have a hub town where you take care of crafting, alchemy, and inn resting. Crafting elements are very lackluster. I never found a good reason to mess with alchemy, and I can count on one hand the number of times I was able to craft a piece of equipment that was better than what I found in the world. In true JRPG fashion, there's also a fishing mini game that provides you with currency for a valuable optional shop.

My biggest gripe is one common to JRPGs. Your party members that don't participate in combat don't gain experience. This is a big problem in Battlechasers because levels seem to work closer to an MMO than a traditional JRPG. If your party is level 12 and you fight a level 15 opponent, they're probably going to destroy you. If you're ok picking a core team of three and sticking with them, this won't be a problem. You can get through the entire game without worrying about your experience gain, but if you want to level up and use all 6 party members, you're going to have to do some occasional grinding to keep them competitive. I did for a while, but I eventually settled on a core team of three and pushed to the end because I didn't feel like rerunning a dungeon that I had just finished to catch up my lagging teammates.

Despite those issues, I enjoyed the combat enough to finish this one out. Recommended to those looking for a fun turn-based combat system to mess around with.

Outer Wilds - I wrote about why I love this game in my 2019 GOTY post and my Games of the Decade post, but I haven’t seen too much discussion around GWJ about what it is or how to approach it.

Describing Outer Wilds is tough because I don't think I've ever played anything quite like it. I've seen it referred to it as a “knowledge Metroidvania” in a few places. That isn't quite accurate, but it's an okay start. In a traditional Metroidvania, you explore wherever you want until you hit an obstacle that requires a certain tool or ability to make further progress. Then you explore somewhere else and come back when you find that tool. Outer Wilds works similarly, but instead of acquiring tools or abilities, you acquire knowledge. Your keys to discovery lie entirely in learning the rules of the universe. Instead of asking "What do I need to open that door?", the question becomes, "What do I need to know to open that door?" That may seem like a subtle distinction, but in practice, discovering that answer feels rewarding in a way that finding a simple key or ability never could.

Knowledge is primarily shared through text that you find and decode from an ancient alien race. These aliens have left notes scattered across the solar system. The notes are segmented into strands that are decoded one by one, and each strand contains a line of dialogue from one of the aliens to others. Every time you decode a text board, you are learning more about their history, but you are also getting to know them as individuals. Each line of dialogue is preceded by the name of who is speaking. Some of the aliens are goofy. Some are absent minded. Some have crushes on their colleagues. The writing is succinct but very effective at bringing the aliens to life and helping you to connect to them.

As you find these notes, you learn what happened to the aliens, what they were working on, what they learned about the major planets that comprise this solar system, and scientific principles that govern the laws of the universe. You read about black holes, comets, disintegrating planets, and all kinds of other galactic phenomena, and then you use that information to Pepe Silvia it all together back on your ship log.

The ship log will quickly become your best friend. Every time you discovery a new piece of information, it is automatically filled into your log. There are two methods for viewing your log that you can switch between at any time, Map mode and Rumor mode. Map mode groups all of your information by planet. Rumor mode groups and color-codes your information according to the game's central mysteries, Crazy Wall style. Data points that have been fully investigated will be in white text, while ones that still have more to discover will be listed in orange text. If you want to see what's left to explore on a particular planet, use map mode. If you want to dive further into one of the story's central mysteries, use Rumor mode. As you build out your rumor board, you slowly realize how the seemingly disparate pieces of information you’ve been collecting from different areas tie together into the overarching narrative.

That ship log is the only thing that carries over into your next life, which is important because you will die often in Outer Wilds. Many of your deaths will be from silly physics mishaps or accidentally auto piloting into the sun, but most of the time, you will die when the sun explodes up after 22 minutes of real time have elapsed. This happens every 22 minutes on the dot. This cycle has huge implications for how you explore and the mystery you seek to unravel. Since the entire game abides by this restriction, everything works on a predictable schedule. Visiting a planet at minute 3 rather than minute 16 can lead you to entirely different discoveries, so knowing when to go is often just as important as knowing where to go.

One of the major gripes from players trying to get into Outer Wilds is navigational issues. The controls can definitely feel a little floaty, but I never found them to be frustrating. Here are a few general navigation tips to make for an easier learning curve:

  • Use the "match velocity" button (aka, the brake) liberally both in your ship and in your suit when you're trying to land somewhere. Don’t just tap it, hold it. Start velocity matching earlier than you think you need to, or just let auto pilot do it for you. Once you have completely matched velocity with your target, you can figure out how to approach from there.
  • After lining yourself up with a planet and matching velocity once you’re close, hit the landing camera button. As the perspective shifts, it should automatically rotate you to the correct orientation for landing. From there, it's easy to control your descent with left stick and right trigger.
  • Jetpack 101.
    • Use your jetpack boost as your primary jump button. The game suggests that you jump and activate your jetpack at maximum height to get the most out of your fuel, but aside from one planet with heavy gravity, this is unnecessary and more complicated than it needs to be. Just feather the jetpack thrust button instead.
    • Change the setting for your jetpack from manual to automatic when jumping. This makes it so holding the jump button automatically activates your jet pack to slow your fall when descending.
    • Down thrust is just as important as up thrust. There are many planets with low gravity. You can very easily float away into space if you don’t learn when to force yourself back down to the surface.

The other major criticism I've seen of Outer Wilds is how aimless it can feel. This is totally valid, particularly in the first couple hours of play. You can go anywhere, but why? The ship log offers breadcrumbs to guide you, but to what end? Why is this planet collapsing into a black hole? Why is there a giant bramble coming out of my home planet? Why didn’t those explorers ever return? Why is the sun exploding? Why is this Groundhog’s Day? While I had some fun exploring somewhat aimlessly for the first couple hours, the game didn’t truly hook me until I made a few discoveries and tied them together with the story bits I had stumbled across to that point. Once I crossed that line for the first time, nothing else in the game felt aimless. I had one to several mystery threads that I wanted to investigate every new loop until the last.

Outer Wilds does many things well, from the clockwork construction of the universe within the confines of a time loop, to the charismatic characters you discover, to the awe-inspiring galactic phenomena that will make your stomach sink and your heartbeat race, but the way it’s able to use an open-ended structure to tell a compelling narrative really sticks with me. It seems implausible that a game that lets you go anywhere and do anything at any time could tell such a gripping story, but that’s exactly what it does, and it concludes in spectacular fashion. Outer Wilds is one of those rare games that I would encourage everyone to try at least once.

Dyni wrote:

Battle Chasers: Nightwar - A western made Japanese-style RPG where story and dialogue is massively deemphasized in exchange for a focus on combat and dungeon crawling.

Very interesting word dump, Dyni!

I have a question regarding Battle Chasers. I love the comic book, and because of that I've been interested in this game since the Kickstarter campaign launched a few years ago. That said, "turn-based combat" is like kryptonite to me... despite having never played a turn-based combat RPG. My only turn-based combat experience is Worms, which I know is completely different to this, but I've spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours playing that game over the years... and I do like the combat system. So, even though there is no way for you to know, do you think I'd be turned off by the combat in Battle Chasers? I keep thinking maybe my love for the franchise would carry me through, and I might even find out I like this kind of combat, even though it doesn't seem all that appealing, but I haven't convinced myself to pull the trigger yet. Any thoughts on this are welcome!

What doesn't appeal to you about it? If you put that much time into Worms, I'm surprised the very idea of turn-based games is a turn-off for you. Still, a love of the concept/theme can make a big difference in any game, so liking Battle Chasers might be enough to get you over the hump.

For others with a lower time investment, you could try Costume Quest and/or its sequel. They're another western made game with traditional turn based JRPG combat, with a TON of charm to go along with it. There's not too much depth there, but the premise carries it pretty far.

Something like slay the spire might work also.
(Operencia is fantastic just so you know)

Mario_Alba wrote:

That said, "turn-based combat" is like kryptonite to me... despite having never played a turn-based combat RPG.

Why? Like, what's the fundamental objection that makes you dislike the entire concept without having ever experienced it?

Mario_Alba wrote:

So, even though there is no way for you to know, do you think I'd be turned off by the combat in Battle Chasers? I keep thinking maybe my love for the franchise would carry me through, and I might even find out I like this kind of combat, even though it doesn't seem all that appealing, but I haven't convinced myself to pull the trigger yet. Any thoughts on this are welcome!

As others have mentioned, that's pretty tough to say without knowing why you're averse to the concept as a whole. While Battle Chasers has a great turn-based combat system, I don't think anything about it is going to appeal to someone that doesn't like turn-based combat on principle.

If you have access to XBox Game Pass on PC or console, you could try it there for cheap. On that note, it's worth mentioning that all three of the games I wrote about were played on Game Pass.

Thanks for your input, everyone! Let's see...

beanman101283 wrote:

What doesn't appeal to you about it? If you put that much time into Worms, I'm surprised the very idea of turn-based games is a turn-off for you.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Why? Like, what's the fundamental objection that makes you dislike the entire concept without having ever experienced it?

I have no explanation other than it looks boring to me, even though Worms 2 is without a doubt one of my favorite games of all time. But maybe I'm just mistaken and it's one of those things you don't really know you really like until you try it. I think I've said this somewhere else, but that's why I haven't touched Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Persona 5, even though I think they look amazing. I'm just afraid I'll be wasting my money.

Part of it might be I tend to be a little impatient when it comes to combat in games, and I confess (A) I find button mashing very satisfying, and (B) I love intense twin-shooter action. To me, turn-based combat seems to be the exact opposite of that, and maybe that's why my stupid old brain says "naaaaah" without even trying it.

beanman101283 wrote:

For others with a lower time investment, you could try Costume Quest and/or its sequel. They're another western made game with traditional turn based JRPG combat, with a TON of charm to go along with it. There's not too much depth there, but the premise carries it pretty far.

That's not a bad idea. I actually tried the Children of Light demo (gorgeous game!) a few years ago, and the first combat left me confused and a little upset, but maybe that was because the demo threw you into the midst of things and assumed you knew how to do turn-based combat and didn't explain a thing. At least, that's my recollection. I know I exed out of the demo and deleted it immediately.

Dyni wrote:

If you have access to XBox Game Pass on PC or console, you could try it there for cheap. On that note, it's worth mentioning that all three of the games I wrote about were played on Game Pass.

I have a PS4... and a Macbook Air from "early 2015," according to said Mac.

Over the last few years I've generally had an MMO or 'game as a service' type game on the go, and I've become increasingly aware that they aren't a good use of my time. I always regret getting to the end of the year and realising that I still have nice games sitting on the pile while I spent hours chasing some veteran rank or leveling up yet another alt, essentially doing the same thing all over again. Partly because I enjoy building up my characters over time, and partly because when I'm tired after work it's often easier to start up the same game rather than start on something new. I'm a creature of habit sometimes.

Such games don't lend themselves to being finished, but I'm finished with them. Guild Wars 2, Elite Dangerous, Elder Scrolls Online, Warframe, Destiny 2, and a few more I'm not remembering right now. Games that are great at first but eventually give you 5 hours of new content, but demand you play that content for 50 hours for reasons that have everything to do with profits and metrics and nothing much to do with fun or respecting my time.

Yeah, I came to the same conclusion about 2-3 years ago. I still sometimes read about games like Warframe or the latest WOW expansion wistfully, but I need a game I can definitively finish and check off the list. I never feel satisfied when my playing a "games as service" game just slowly peters off. Also don't like the feeling of missing out on end game content because it's usually geared toward the hard core.

After 90+ hours, I finally finished Trails of Cold Steel! I looked through the JRPG club thread from last year, and don't have much to say beyond that. I just wanted to record this important life goal somewhere

Definitely in for the second chapter... eventually.

Finished Life is Strange 2 a week or so is good. I talked about it more in the LiS thread, but it is good and you should check it out.

Spoiler:

Especially if you have ever wanted to turn a 10 year old into a Sith Lord.

Finished up Ni No Kuni 2 last night. Pretty enjoyable, especially the parts where you’re building up your kingdom and recruiting citizens to fill different roles for researching upgrades. Of the JRPGs I’ve played that feature real-time combat in a circular arena, this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most. I’m still not crazy about the format, but I can see how it could theoretically be fun. I’m just wondering if there are any other JRPG series with better combat in that format.

The story was interesting and kind of funny. A boy king is deposed by a coup, and decides to start his own kingdom “where everyone can live happily ever after.” He also decides to end all war by getting the other nations to sign a treaty of peace and interdependence. He and his friends journey to each of these kingdoms, each of which (surprise!) have some kind of problem that needs solving before they agree to join.

To its credit, it’s a surprisingly political game. One kingdom is basically a nation-sized tech company with labor unrest. Another deals with tax policies and debt imposed by the state. Side quests even deal with what lifelong soldiers do when peace is breaking out and they’re not sure what to do with their lives anymore. It’s still a fairy tale story at the end of the day, but it’s self-aware and approaches the premise with seriousness and charm.

There are a lot of systems and optional aspects of the game that you aren’t really required to engage with if you don’t want. They patched in harder difficulties after people complained it was too easy. I personally enjoyed the more relaxed approach. You can spend 50-70 Hours being a completionist, but you can finish the story in a relatively breezy 35-40 hours if you want.

beanman101283 wrote:

Finished up Ni No Kuni 2 last night. Pretty enjoyable, especially the parts where you’re building up your kingdom and recruiting citizens to fill different roles for researching upgrades. Of the JRPGs I’ve played that feature real-time combat in a circular arena, this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most. I’m still not crazy about the format, but I can see how it could theoretically be fun. I’m just wondering if there are any other JRPG series with better combat in that format.

The story was interesting and kind of funny. A boy king is deposed by a coup, and decides to start his own kingdom “where everyone can live happily ever after.” He also decides to end all war by getting the other nations to sign a treaty of peace and interdependence. He and his friends journey to each of these kingdoms, each of which (surprise!) have some kind of problem that needs solving before they agree to join.

To its credit, it’s a surprisingly political game. One kingdom is basically a nation-sized tech company with labor unrest. Another deals with tax policies and debt imposed by the state. Side quests even deal with what lifelong soldiers do when peace is breaking out and they’re not sure what to do with their lives anymore. It’s still a fairy tale story at the end of the day, but it’s self-aware and approaches the premise with seriousness and charm.

There are a lot of systems and optional aspects of the game that you aren’t really required to engage with if you don’t want. They patched in harder difficulties after people complained it was too easy. I personally enjoyed the more relaxed approach. You can spend 50-70 Hours being a completionist, but you can finish the story in a relatively breezy 35-40 hours if you want.

I played Ni No Kuni 2 last year and had a great time with it. Building my kingdom was the part I enjoyed the most, but I thought everything was very good (except the tactical battles, which were not my strong suit).

Agreed with above. As big as the pile is, I never should have started Warframe. And I could have used those hundreds of hours for a lot of other fun things.