Finished Any Games Lately?

Finished up TMNT: Shredder's Revenge! Imagine an old school beat 'em up (like Turtles In Time), with modern conveniences. It's just easy enough to almost button mash your way through, but also has enough depth (and optional challenges) to test a skilled player. Yes, it's quite short and quite simple, but it's a bucket-load of fun.

Also worth mentioning how good it looks. The pixel art is gorgeous. Amazing character work and very little repetition in background art. And great animation.

Got all the Cheevos on Creeper World 4. I'm proud!

Wow, nice!

I enjoyed that game up to a point. The battles keep getting longer and longer after you start getting tidal waves of creep and missiles thrown at you.

Well I still love the game. I just stopped playing because it passed a patience/time ratio.

I finished Final Fantasy VII Remake intermission! Loved it. What a crazy thing to exist. Also finally got to finish Donut County since it is on PS5. Super fun.

I also just beat FFVIIR: Intermission! Enjoyed the Fort Condor minigame especially. Also beat Panzer Dragoon on Switch for like 2 bucks, and it was like a fever dream version of Star Fox which I thought was awesome. Short and sweet.

Edit: Also beat Shredder's Revenge! Loving all these short games

I beat Triangle Strategy a second time, getting the golden ending. Two playthroughs put me at 77 hours total. First review is in spoilers.

Spoiler:
Sundown wrote:

I beat Triangle Strategy (Benedict Ending), and although I plan to play through one more time for the Golden Ending, I figured after 42 hours I could put down a review for it.

I’ll start with the story. It’s good! I like when these types of games handle politics and power and plotting, and of a handful of these games with similar themes that I’ve played (FFT, Tactics Ogre: LUCT), this one probably does the story the best. I like how the choices often break out into various paths, and although they come back together after every few chapters, there’s still a lot of variability in how it can play out. I can do the game a second time and see new content on probably more than half of the chapters. The writing was fine; nothing too Shakespearean or poetic, but it got the job done. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that the villain seems to be the Darkness in the Heart of Man, and not just Demons Did It. The Golden Ending may change that, but this managed to stay remarkably grounded for a fantasy game.

The characters are also reasonably good. They’re not particularity deep, but they all come off as fairly grounded individuals, and not as one note caricatures like some games (looking at you, Fire Emblem). They make good vessels for the Liberty/Morality/Utility triangle the game sells on, and there are plenty of people’s whose motivations are to right the failures of their past, for loyalty, for pride, etc. And there are a number of skits that let you learn a bit about them. Nowhere close to the Fire Emblem support conversations, but still demonstrably more than most TRPGs with there create-a-characters will have.

And speaking of TRPGs, the tactical maps are generally really good. There are lots of custom maps, with traps, barriers, and elevation changes that give you a lot to consider. The actual encounters are varied, and while most are just “kill all the enemies,” there is enough to consider to keep things interesting, and enemies generally take several hits to go down, and I generally found most to provide a good challenge. I only wiped a small handful of times on Normal so it wasn’t oppressive or anything, but you can’t play carelessly and expect to win, either. This made it satisfying. The other thing I think I can say is that there really isn’t any character customization, so everyone basically stays as what they are; you have the sword guy, the tank, the mobile healer, the stationary healer, the pyro lady who can set tiles on fire, the ice guy who can make ice walls, the sneaky spy who can turn invisible, etc. They get new abilities through leveling and promoting classes, but it’s not like someone gets a horse after promotion, nor is there any class mixing and matching. It works in the context of the game, and allows for the encounters to be geared towards what the game knows you will have so you will never be totally outclassed, but it really does feel like the lack of real customization option hurts it some. So while I think the tactical maps in this are much better than in Fire Emblem: Three Houses (my GOTY a couple of years ago), I think I ultimately liked that one better since the character customization goes a long way in the enjoyment of the game.

Also, the voice acting is varying degrees of bad. The main character is the worst of it, though. Definitely sound like someone reading lines off a page and not actually talking to a person.

Anyway, I liked this game overall. I’ll be interested to see how different things are when I go with totally different choices the second time around, since many of the chapters I will play through will be different from what I did the first time, even if certain key story beats remain the same. I feel confident it will by on my GOTY list, but I’d really like to see what they could do with a follow-up with a bit more character flexibility and some additional polish.

I'll call it a solid 8.5/10. Playing a second full time really helped me see a lot more of the game, since most of the choices I made the first run through were not on the golden path. This was well done, and the variability of the game was good to see. The golden ending was satisfying as well. But on the other hand, the seams showed as well. There are certain people who must live or die at certain points no matter what you choose, and there are set discussions that take place as a universal on all routes which make more sense if you made one prior choice or another. Like people saying things that made sense if they knew something from a different route that they didn’t find out on this one. Just small things like this, but they add up.

Still, I think it does a better job of story than others in this space (better politics and plotting than FFT, better multiple routes than Tactics Ogre: LUCT, and FE Three Houses is different enough I won’t compare it here). I think there’s a lot of good here, but part of the joy of these games is the character builds, and the lack of that (plus a real limit on how many attacks or abilities everyone has) sort of puts a ceiling on the options in the game. Like I said at the top, solid game, and I can recommend it to anyone who likes the genre, but it could use a bit more.

I finished Children of Morta in online coop. I had found the game to be quite tough in single player and it felt a lot more accessible in coop. I'm not sure how the difficulty scales or if the ability to revive a friend makes a huge difference, or maybe levelling up multiple characters at the same time, but for whatever reason it was a lot easier to get through it with a friend of about the same skill level as me. The game has a great way to intertwine a roguelite loop with a linear storyline. Super enjoyable.

Finished Final Fantasy XV. Bugs aplenty with the final dungeon, including one where any time I had to restart due to one bug, I had to go through all the cutscenes again in order or I couldn't get past a certain point, and the game would stop on a black screen any time I saw one out of order. What I thought would take me one evening it took me 3 nights and a day with the kids out of the house. Some great quality stuff, but man there felt like a million corners were cut, the plot was bloated through chapter 9, and man I wanted chapter 10-12 to be the mid-point, but not take so long to get there. I thoroughly enjoyed realizing I hadn't been engaging with the combat very well in the final chapter. I really enjoyed parts of the game, but I couldn't shake the thought that bloat / rushed story combo have plagued FF XII, XIII, & XV (didn't play X, Xi, or XIV) so maybe it's just a series hallmark at this point.

Pink Stripes wrote:

I finished Children of Morta in online coop. I had found the game to be quite tough in single player and it felt a lot more accessible in coop. I'm not sure how the difficulty scales or if the ability to revive a friend makes a huge difference, or maybe levelling up multiple characters at the same time, but for whatever reason it was a lot easier to get through it with a friend of about the same skill level as me. The game has a great way to intertwine a roguelite loop with a linear storyline. Super enjoyable.

Interesting. I've been chipping away at it for 2 months alone. Maybe co-op is what I need.

I finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which is the first Zelda game I have put a significant amount of time into since Minish Cap (via emulator in like 2013) and the first I have completed since Ocarina of Time in 1999 (N64 was the newest Nintendo console I owned until I got a N3DSXL last year and a Switch in April).

Great game but I am suffering from more than a bit of open world game fatigue after playing it. In many ways Zelda is the original open world game, but never has the world been quite so sprawling. Other than that my only complaint about this game would be the durability of your weapons and equipment. Everything felt like it broke about two to three times faster than it should have and it was just super annoying.

Finished the main story of Miles Morales, my first PS++ game. If you played the previous Spiderman game, you know what to expect here. Actually I think I enjoyed it more, since they removed some of the bloat from the previous game, and it runs beautifully on the PS5. I hope we get more of these bite sized AAA productions in future, they are perfect for subscription services.

I just finished Assassin's Creed: Syndicate and all of the DLC. 100% sync. This is not even remotely a source of pride for me. In fact, I look at it almost like a sign of a character defect or something.

I'd have been done with the series at Black Flag if it weren't for the change in direction with Origins and the high praise Odyssey got. A sensible person would have just skipped ahead to the good games. Not me though. I've played every one of them. Fine. That's not too extreme, I think. But 100% completion is just a sign of compulsion. If I die in a year, or 50 years, or whenever, do I really want to say I played through every AC game but never got around to Elden Ring? Or God of War, etc? It's just dumb.

So anyway, this was the low point of the series for me. There were some modest improvements over Unity. The twin protagonists were my favorites since Ezio. They wisely relegated the modern day stuff to just a handful of brief cutscenes (hard to believe the modern stuff was once a highlight for me). The grappling hook was nice, and pretty much mandatory with the growing height of the buildings. Still paled in comparison to the grappling hook/glide travel in the Batman games, for example.

The biggest problem is obviously how tired the formula has gotten. Disjointed, undercooked plot with numerous historical figures shoehorned in? Check. Map filled with chests and other collectible icons to spend hours on end gathering? Check. Or if you don't want to bother, upgrade your gear with microtransactions? Of course that's a check! I'm pretty sure that's the main reason they started emphasizing weapon and gear upgrades compared to the earlier games.

The other big problem is that 19th century London just felt so bland and unvaried compared to most of the previous games. I prefer the combination of wilderness and big cities.

Despite all this, part of me wanted to immediately install AC: Origins right after finishing. Something's definitely wrong with me.

On a somewhat related note, since Ubisoft has decided to cease online services for some of their older games, including locking customers out of accessing already purchased single-player DLC, I don't see myself buying anything from them going forward, unless it's something I really want. That will probably put an end to my Assassin's Creed journey, which may be for the best.

gewy wrote:

On a somewhat related note, since Ubisoft has decided to cease online services for some of their older games, including locking customers out of accessing already purchased single-player DLC, I don't see myself buying anything from them going forward, unless it's something I really want. That will probably put an end to my Assassin's Creed journey, which may be for the best.

Continuing this over on the Great Video Game Business thread.

Sayonara Wild Hearts

Usually when I post in this thread, I write a mini-review. However, I finished Sayonara Wild Hearts a few days ago and have been struggling to articulate my thoughts and feelings about the game. So... I'm not going to say anything except that it's amazing and needs to be experienced by as many people as possible.

I finished Neon White tonight on the Switch. Overall, the game does an excellent job teaching you its mechanics and making you feel smart for figuring things out. Usually the levels are very short and manageable. However, there are three boss fights which are much longer and consequentially more stressful. I was literally sweating as I played the final level again and again.

I am reminded of Elden Ring, which is a game that begins very generously and eventually narrows into a traditional Dark Souls game. In both games I was a better player by the time I got to the end, but I was at my skill limit.

Perhaps I'll go back later and work on the side missions I haven't finished, due to them feeling really hard. Meanwhile, I Youtubed the "true ending" so I'm happy with that.

gewy wrote:

I just finished Assassin's Creed: Syndicate and all of the DLC. 100% sync. This is not even remotely a source of pride for me. In fact, I look at it almost like a sign of a character defect or something.

I'd have been done with the series at Black Flag if it weren't for the change in direction with Origins and the high praise Odyssey got. A sensible person would have just skipped ahead to the good games. Not me though. I've played every one of them. Fine. That's not too extreme, I think. But 100% completion is just a sign of compulsion. If I die in a year, or 50 years, or whenever, do I really want to say I played through every AC game but never got around to Elden Ring? Or God of War, etc? It's just dumb.

So anyway, this was the low point of the series for me. There were some modest improvements over Unity. The twin protagonists were my favorites since Ezio. They wisely relegated the modern day stuff to just a handful of brief cutscenes (hard to believe the modern stuff was once a highlight for me). The grappling hook was nice, and pretty much mandatory with the growing height of the buildings. Still paled in comparison to the grappling hook/glide travel in the Batman games, for example.

The biggest problem is obviously how tired the formula has gotten. Disjointed, undercooked plot with numerous historical figures shoehorned in? Check. Map filled with chests and other collectible icons to spend hours on end gathering? Check. Or if you don't want to bother, upgrade your gear with microtransactions? Of course that's a check! I'm pretty sure that's the main reason they started emphasizing weapon and gear upgrades compared to the earlier games.

The other big problem is that 19th century London just felt so bland and unvaried compared to most of the previous games. I prefer the combination of wilderness and big cities.

Despite all this, part of me wanted to immediately install AC: Origins right after finishing. Something's definitely wrong with me.

On a somewhat related note, since Ubisoft has decided to cease online services for some of their older games, including locking customers out of accessing already purchased single-player DLC, I don't see myself buying anything from them going forward, unless it's something I really want. That will probably put an end to my Assassin's Creed journey, which may be for the best.

If you enjoyed your time than it was worth it. I can tell you I'm playing through Odyssey right now and it's my unquestioned favorite in the series. I've never felt the compulsion to 100% any game but the sense of just flat out adventure in the series is intoxicating. Syndicate was an interesting experiment and yes it was fun to explore London but overall I found it quite bland. Odyssey, however, is in the running for my GOTY at this point and Cassandra is the best protagonist in the series since Ezio (and in a few ways even better).

Funny how personal preference plays a role, because Syndicate is still my favorite setting of the series. I loved running around the moody Victorian London and using the grapple hook to zip around the roof tops. Evie is one of the series' best protagonists (I could do without her brother).

I finished Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy last night. Pretty great linear single player shooter, with some interesting elemental and team-based abilities. Combat felt pretty chaotic, and the reliance on lock-on targeting made some fights harder than I felt they should be. But they managed to pull off a surprisingly emotional story, and I had a good time getting to know this version of the team. It has some incredibly strange and beautiful environments, and I like that they seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted when it came to level design and enemy types. I'm not inclined to chase the few trophies I missed, but as the first game I've completed since upgrading to the new PS+ Extra service, it's a great one.

Nice! I'm thinking about playing this next since it's on PS+. Would you recommend GotG for someone with no clue about Marvel or the MCU movies?

Yeah GotG is very much it's own thing, with no reference of the movie needed. They give a different origin story for Star Lord, so you're not missing anything.

Sounds like Midnight Suns coming up is going to do similar. Marvel Games is not MCU and that's probably a good thing.

ComfortZone wrote:

Nice! I'm thinking about playing this next since it's on PS+. Would you recommend GotG for someone with no clue about Marvel or the MCU movies?

Yeah, it establishes its own world building pretty well. I’ve only seen the movie, have no familiarity with the comics, and it’s definitely doing its own thing.

Great I'm going in, sounds like just my kind of game except for the whole Marvel thing Thanks guys.

Midnight Suns is a lock, I would follow the XCOM team anywhere.

EDIT: wrong thread lol

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FW-yz_qaIAEzRJ3?format=png&name=360x360)

Finished. And I mean finished.

What a game! Genuinely one of the best I've played. Going for the 100% clear took me to so many interesting locations/bosses I'd not have seen otherwise. This game is truly massive. Even after the 100 hours this took, I want to play it more. I've never had that experience before.

While it's probably the best game From Software have made, I don't think it's my favourite. Because it's so huge, balance is very uneven. Some dungeons will be an absolute slog and you'll breeze through others. You're never quite sure if a boss is beating you because you need to get better, or because you're underlevelled.

I appreciated the freedom to do whatever I want, but I think I often veered towards overlevelling tough encounters. This is fun in it's own way, but their previous more focussed games suited me a little better.

Still as close to a 10/10 I've ever seen, just some personal feelings really. Going to start again and really try to soak up the lore, because I had ZERO clue what was happening my first time through.

I still need to get the 3rd ending. I stopped after save scum for the 2nd one. Then I just couldn't decide about the last few achievements. Only 6 more after that... maybe...

I took a really long break on my road to 100%, and came back pretty refreshed.

It's a big one, you don't want to make it a chore for yourself.

Finished Surviving the Aftermath. The game's tutorial is well, not that helpful, but if you have played similar games (Surviving Mars) you should be able to make it through without too much issue. The settlement building and scavenging has echoes of Frostpunk and the theme really lends itself to the city survival genre(?). It goes on for a bit too long for the little amount of story it contains, but was fun and challenging through the first 30 hours.

Forbes wrote:

Finished Surviving the Aftermath. The game's tutorial is well, not that helpful, but if you have played similar games (Surviving Mars) you should be able to make it through without too much issue. The settlement building and scavenging has echoes of Frostpunk and the theme really lends itself to the city survival genre(?). It goes on for a bit too long for the little amount of story it contains, but was fun and challenging through the first 30 hours.

That’s been on my radar for a while now. I know Surviving Mars has its flaws - many of them - but it’s been a game I’ve gone back to several times since release. There aren’t that many games that can do that for me.

Sorbicol wrote:

That’s been on my radar for a while now. I know Surviving Mars has its flaws - many of them - but it’s been a game I’ve gone back to several times since release. There aren’t that many games that can do that for me.

I can see going back to Surviving Mars (I played Aftermath only a couple of months after Mars) and Aftermath, but I don't think I'd paly either again to the "end". You can customize your experience in Aftermath to change the difficulty, it's not just one slider, you can vary different parameters (resources, disasters, etc.) that could really change the type of challenge. The one thing that Aftermath has over Mars for me is it does have a fair amount of random encounter events where you have to make a choice. What you chose is highly dependent on how your colony/city is doing at the time. They do repeat after awhile so it eventually gets mundane.

Yesterday and this morning, I rolled credits on a pair of games.

Yesterday: Super Mario Odyssey, which I bought during the recent Switch sale. It was AMAZING. Loved all of the worlds, the tight movement, the way the game rewarded exploration. Each of the worlds was dense with so many great ideas and challenges, and the pacing was spot on -- you'd do a bit in each world, then get rushed to the next, but you can also spend as much time as you want in each and luxuriate in the settings. I can truly see why it got the accolades that it did.

This morning: Shin Megami Tensei V. It's great, a very nice refinement of the SMT formula, but frankly too long. I clocked in at just over 60 hours, and it easily could have been 40. The last "quarter" of the game involves multiple different times when the difficulty spikes and you essentially have to hit a new level plateau to be competitive. Plus once I optimized the main character, all boss battles were very similar for the rest of the game. Felt like a grind.

But on the plus side: what a compelling presentation of a desolate world, torn apart by a war between the Abrahamic God, Lucifer, and other gods. And for a world as ravaged as it was, it was also so interesting, and rewarded exploration so well. If it had been a bit tighter, it easily could have been a GOTY contender for me.

Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time. Does a good job of recreating settings and characters from the cartoon. It's very much like a PS2 3rd person brawler, but updated so none of the weird jank other than it asks you to replay levels to grind out resources. I enjoyed it and it didn't try to make some story that would change too much from the cartoons.

Unexpectantly played and finished Call of the Sea. It's a walking simulator with puzzles - ala Myst genre. Takes place in the 30's where you're dropped off on an odd island your husband has been doing an archeological exploration on. There's a bunch of puzzles to solve along with some nice Lovecraftian set pieces.

Almost stopped playing after finishing the first areas since they were so plain looking. But things got a lot more interesting soon after, so I stuck with it to the end.

Puzzles ranged from pretty damn easy to somewhat difficult. There is a very helpful notebook that takes some wonderfully drawn art and notation to help you solve the puzzles - you'll need to be checking those notes on quite a few of the later puzzles.

Game was 5.3 hours and got stuck on two puzzles. One I was able to solve after stepping away for an hour then coming back to find a clue I was missing. The other I had all the puzzle pieces but no clue how to solve it. Tried again the next morning and was dumbfounded when I came up with the working solution. It felt good.

Game looks really nice with its own cartoonish style. The island starts by looking plain but gets much more wonderous as you progress further, Great voice acting and music bits to go along with it. The length of the game means it doesn't overstay it's welcome. So was quite happy with it overall. Was a great weekend distraction.