Rate the last game you finished!

[---]

Kirby 64

Probably my favorite of the Dark Matter trilogy. It really felt like it was back to the basics of Adventure/Super Star in a lot of ways; No Animal Friends! The game does feel a tad slower compared to those two games, I assume part of it's the hardware, but the level design I feel is solid enough that it doesn't feel too noticeable outside of when you're trying to fly in the air. The music is also the best it's been for the Trilogy. I could listen to the Butter Building remix for hours.

The combining Copy Abilities mechanic is something that I'm surprised hasn't returned in a subsequent Kirby game outside of Elemental Bombs/Swords in Squeak Squad. It's definitely a mixed bag in terms of the ability you get, quite a few are outright useless, if not detrimental to use, but the experimentation is fun nonetheless.

The only real issue I feel is that a lot of the Shards you have to gather, while not nearly as frustrating as the previous two games, are still a bit of a drag. Quite of a few shards require you to backtrack for the proper Copy Ability combo and basically playing through an entire stage without losing it. It wouldn't be too bad, if it wasn't for the developers basically choosing the least fun combos to use.


Kirby's Dream Collection (Wii)

Definitely one of the best Retro Complications ever made. Considering what Super Mario Bros. got just two years prior when this came out, HAL Laboratories puts Nintendo to shame. It's worth owning even if you have the original cartridges.

 

[AAchillin]

Played A Link to the Past for the first time recently and I can safely say that I see the appeal. It really is 2D Zelda at its purest and holds up well to this day.

 

[---]

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier (PC Engine Super CD)

The last true Valis game (don't look up what came after NSFW), and it's definitely the most polished. The presentation is very impressive for it's era: awesome music, sprite work, and solidly animated fully voiced cutscenes. Considering how late but early it was, I'm surprised it didn't get a port to the Sega CD.

The gameplay is solid for the most part, but occasionally relies on purposely cheap or unavoidable hits. There are several instances of enemies instantly spawning in front and behind you whenever reach a certain set point. Unless you use magic (which the game is modestly stingy about), you can't attack fast enough nor can you run away as the enemies will re-spawn. You have unlimited continues, but continuing/using a life does not refill your HP or Magic and your weapon level goes back down to zero. You don't even get a full HP bar when starting the first level or clearing a level. It really feels like the developers realized at the last minute that the game was too easy and panicked.

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier (Genesis)

I also played the Genesis version. Technically came out before the PC Engine version, and it really shows. It doesn't feel cheap like the subsequent version, your health is restored after each level, but it is just flat out boring. Attacks don't feel good to land, enemies have zero AI, and most bosses can be beaten by coming in with a full HP bar and spamming your attacks. When you do get hit, it also causes you suddenly face backwards, making hitstun states awkward. The music is solid enough, but everything else about the presentation is poor.

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier (MSX)

Not much to say other than it's a Kusoge. It's neat that the original game was included in the Switch Collection, MSX games rarely get ported anywhere, but it really shouldn't be played. I gave it 5 minutes, and my eyes hurt from the strain of all of the sprite flickering. I kept getting soft-locked into a wall until I died by never-ending enemy projectiles. The music is okay, but that's the only positive thing about it.

 

[Jaro235]

Fire Emblem Blazing Sword/Blade for the GBA

I have been on a Fire Emblem binge for the past month. I have jumped back and forth between Engage and this game, but I decided to focus on the classic Fire Emblem game first. As a casual player of Fire Emblem who just wants to enjoy the story and combat, I really enjoyed this game. Yes, it is not as difficult as other Fire Emblem games, but the story, characters and gameplay are all fantastic. I love how you jump from battle to battle without a world map or hub world. It feels more like a war where there are few breaks or opportunities to train so each decision I made to deploy certain units counted. The tutorial is a bit lengthy, but the game becomes extremely addicting when you get to the main story. The music and sound effects are great and hold up to this day and the combat animations are awesome, especially the critical hit animations. This game just made me feel at ease at a time where I was stressing out about work and other issues coming up. For me, this game was the escapism that I needed. The gameplay is simplistic enough for newcomers while there is plenty of challenge and secrets for veterans. If you enjoy Fire Emblem, I am certain you will enjoy this game!

8.5/10

 

[---]

Valis II (PC Engine CD)

A solid entry, in what is still overall an unremarkable series. Being the first console game of the series, it more closely resembles the PC originals than what would come after in that the energy beams you fire deal damage as opposed to the sword swing itself; so it leans more Mega Man than Castlevania. The level design is standard action platforming affair, that aside from the difficult spike in Level 4, feels like it has the most fair challenge of the series.

The presentation is very gritty but I feel has it's own charm given the era of it's release and how the story itself plays out. Not that the story is amazing, the ending is at least worth playing towards for the slightly sympathetic plot twist with the main villain, and Yuko herself looking like a legit badass in cutscenes. The music isn't as memorable as the other entries, but I did find myself loving Level 3's music.

Syd of Valis (Genesis)

Friends don't let friends play Syd of Valis. Another kusoge title. While the original releases of first game can be respected for their ambition, there's nothing redeemable about this game. Bad level design, poor collision detection, slippery controls, broken hitboxes, awful music, etc. The bosses can only be beaten by going in with full health or figuring out where to stand so that the AI can't hit you; there is zero-strategy, pattern recognition, and most have attacks you cannot dodge. One of the worst games I've ever played. Only positive things I can say is are that it's not a glitchy mess and that the artwork in the JP manual is fun.

Ironically the Collection uses the JP versions of the game, but even when subtitles are turned on, they kept in the bad transactions of the original English release. lol

 

[---]

Valis III (PC Engine CD)

The first traditional action-platformer in the series; the base of your sword actually deals damage. It's definitely a step up visually from the previous game, having a lot more color and sprite animation. The story, what little is there, does finally add some world building and feels like a modest send off for the original protagonist. The music is solid, but like the previous entry, doesn't quite match the original game in the series. The first level is definitely catchy though.

It might be the most ambitious yet in the series in terms of gameplay, but it doesn't ever feel like it does much with those ideas or outright stumbles. Three separate playable characters, but they all mostly play the same in the majority of situations. You can alter your jump height slightly by holding up, but it adds nothing as the way platforms are spaced, you still have to be directly underneath (not jumping in an arc) to clear them. Sliding is also a mechanic, but it feels more like it's used for sliding on air to reach a nearby platform than in combat as it has some weight to it. Magic has secondary uses, such as freezing enemies to create platforms, but as magic ammo is limited and your attacks can destroy the frozen enemy while standing on it, it feels half-baked.

Attack strength is determined by a meter; the longer you wait to attack, the stronger your next attack will be. While in theory this works as a mechanic, the game isn't balanced around it unlike some other series that have used this. Enemies are balanced around the maximum power and not the minimum power, so you get situations where minor enemies gang up on you and you can't fight back fast enough, or if you have to attack while moving/platforming, an attack you thought would kill an airborne enemy didn't and now you've fallen into a pit. You also have the Weapon Level mechanics of the previous games, so if you die, you're back down to zero in the middle of a boss fight.

This tends to be the most talked about game of the series, but I don't quite see it. I definitely want to like more, but the innovations that are often cited, I feel half-baked. Also the last two bosses are completely broken and full of attacks I have no idea how you can reasonably dodge. Ex. The second to last boss attacks you like the Yellow Devil, but with no set pattern, larger hitboxes, takes more hits, etc.

Valis IV (PC Engine CD)

In terms of gameplay, this is probably the most sound of the series and feels the most put together. Three separate characters, but they each have their own attributes and attacking strengths. The level design is dynamic, varied, and rewards you for experimenting with characters. Controlling characters feel like they have just about the right amount of weight (except for Amu's second jump, which has incredibility strict timing). While you still have to deal with Weapon Levels (that sadly determines HP size), Magic has a meter that charges on it's own (though getting hit by an enemy resets it to zero).

On a base gameplay perspective, I think this is the best of the series. The story and presentation is also pretty solid; I honestly think I like Lena's journey more than any of Yuko's. The music is also hard early 90s, with a lot of electronic instruments and guitar solos. The caveat unfortunately is just how long and hard the game is. It's the hardest of the series by a fair margin with enemies ganging up on you constantly and appearing out of nowhere. The levels themselves are also twice as long as previous entries, and the final boss feels almost impossible even with Save States/Rewind. The game, somehow though, has a secret hard mode (requiring a 2nd controller to access/cannot be accessed on the Debug Menu) with hidden extra levels after the end-credits with a new boss as well. My goodness.

Valis Collections - Only Volume 1 is really worth anyone's time, if curious about the series or if you want to see what the PC Engine has to offer, it's probably worth it if it goes on sale. For whatever reason, even though only 1.5 of the games are good to decent, Volume 2 costs $5 more than Volume 1. Definitely only buy it if you're a diehard collector or if it's on sale for $15 or under (which is how much Valis IV costs by itself on the eShop).

Valis I/Valis IV > Valis II/Valis III >> Valis 1 (Genesis) >>>> Valis (MSX)/Syd of Valis IMO

 

[Megadoomer]

Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax (played on Switch)

I didn't touch the game's online mode, and I only did one run of arcade mode, but I beat the four story modes 100%.

The game's fun to play, and it's well written (especially by the normal standards of fighting games), with the various stories giving us insight into the mindsets of the various Persona characters. However, the stories can be a little repetitive at times, especially Episode P4A which covers the events of Persona 4 Arena, this game's predecessor.

However, the story modes outside of Episode P4A spoil major twists in Persona 3 and 4, and even some of the P4A stories heavily imply major spoilers for those games (mainly Persona 3). This means that a pair of 80 hour RPGs are almost required to play through before playing this game, making it hard to recommend for newcomers to the series who want to ease in with a fighting game spin-off.

The gameplay's accessible, with relatively simple controls and a story mode that's fairly easy to complete. (Though trying to 100% complete the Persona 4 story almost requires a guide) There are still some modes that I only scratched the surface of, but all in all, it's a fun game, though definitely not one that I'd recommend for beginners to the franchise.

DuckTales Remastered (played on Steam)

Life is like a hurricane here in Duckburg. Racecars, lasers, aeroplanes - it's a duck blur!

I decided to play the game after having it in my Steam library for a while, and I've been hooked for the past day or so. I played through the game on Normal difficulty, and it's generally been a fun experience, with fairly short levels and a reasonable difficulty for the most part.

The music is a highlight - the Moon theme is a standout, but all of the levels are great in that regard. The gameplay is smooth, with Scrooge's pogo jumps feeling satisfying, and the animations are great. Plus, they brought back the surviving voice cast, which makes the whole experience feel like a controllable cartoon episode.

My only problem is the final level, where the difficulty takes a massive leap upwards. I haven't played the NES game, so maybe that whole game was like this originally, but while earlier levels had a few instant death obstacles, the final level is filled to the brim with them, while you only get three lives to beat the level with. (Which, in addition to those instant death obstacles, includes a race where losing it costs you a life and an escape sequence that requires fast, accurate platforming over a rising lava pit when the game was previously much more forgiving) I'm guessing it's even more difficult on Hard or Extreme, but even on Normal, it was a frustrating experience.

Still, I enjoyed the game and I'm glad that I gave it a try. It's impressive to see how well the game holds up considering that it's a remastered version of an NES licensed game, which (from what I've seen) usually aren't held in high regard.

 

[Megadoomer]

Super Mario Bros. (played through Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES Online app on the Switch)

Full disclosure, I abused the rewind system. I only kept track of my deaths in the final two worlds, but in those cases, I died 35 times, which feels like a lot given how few lives you get.

I had fun with the game - it's a classic for a reason, and the controls are pretty smooth, though I had trouble with getting the timing down for the springs. Most of the time, my deaths felt like my fault rather than the game being cheap, though there were some cases where I died repeatedly to Hammer Bros. the flame pillars in Bowser's castle, or a cannon firing two Bullet Bills back to back.

A highlight was World 8-2, where it honestly felt like Bowser was throwing his whole army at me at once, which is impressive for an NES game. The game's tough, and there are some odd bits that only seem to be included in order to ramp up the difficulty (such as Mario turning back into small Mario when he's hit in any form), but I enjoyed my playthrough.

Streets of Rage 4 (played on Switch)

I beat the game, but I feel like I've only scratched the surface. It's a fun beat-em-up, though I'm lacking the history with the franchise, so I might be missing out on some of the excitement, but the gameplay feels smooth, nothing really felt cheap, and there's a TON of unlockable content (every version of every playable character from the past three Streets of Rage games can be unlocked here, even the boxing kangaroo). The game would likely be even better in co-op, though I didn't get the chance to try that out.

Lego Batman 2 (played on Xbox 360)

I've never really gotten into the Lego games, but I gave this one a shot and I loved it. The gameplay's straightforward, but the open world is big enough that there's plenty to explore but not so big that it's overwhelming, going for 100% completion felt natural rather than seeming like a chore, and being able to patrol the city with the Danny Elfman theme playing in the background or fly through the city as Superman with John Williams's theme at full volume elevates the whole experience tremendously.

Perfect Dark (played on Xbox 360)

This was one of the Rare games that I missed out on in the Nintendo 64 days; I had Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Diddy Kong Racing, but I didn't get Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, or Conker's Bad Fur Day. This makes the Xbox 360 version my first experience with the game, and it's nearly perfect. (my only issue is that sometimes, the objectives are unclear, leading to a lot of confusion on my part when I first played through some levels)

Joanna Dark is a fun protagonist, and it's a shame that we haven't gotten more games in that series (aside from Perfect Dark Zero, which was poorly received compared to the original, though I'm still going to give it a chance). The other characters aren't as memorable (aside from Elvis - no, not that one), but it's still a fun spy-themed romp with a lot of twists and turns in the plot.

I don't play many first person shooters (I tried Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, hearing that it was one of the best in the series, but a mission in Brazil was frustrating enough that I stopped playing the game), but Perfect Dark had great level design, with the auto aim making it a lot easier for me to get into. Also, the enemies generally stood out from the environment, and you can take enough damage that the game never really feels unfair, at least from what I've played of the Agent and Secret Agent difficulties.

The multiplayer has a lot of options - aside from split-screen death matches (or matches with bots, which is a nice inclusion), there are challenges that can be completed in solo or co-op, along with being able to play through the entire campaign in co-op mode or what the game calls "counter-op mode". (though I'm not sure if if the campaign playthroughs are limited to two players or not) In addition, as you play through the campaign or challenges and find weapons, you can use those weapons in multiplayer, allowing for a wide variety of gameplay types.

The game has a wide variety of achievements (20 in total, which seems like a lot for an Xbox Live Arcade game, in addition to in-game awards where you need to collect most of them for one of those achievements), though unlike the similar ports of Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, I'm not going to aim for all of the achievements. Some of them require impossibly precise coordination in co-op mode, while others require you to beat AI that outright cheat at the game.

Also, as a heads up: this game has some bonuses that you can get by having played Crackdown 2 and Perfect Dark Zero on the same account (a multiplayer character for Crackdown 2, and unlocking some cheats early/easily for Perfect Dark Zero), but for Perfect Dark Zero, your PDZ save file needs to have been created before your Perfect Dark save file in order to unlock the cheats. For some reason, they won't unlock if you play Perfect Dark Zero after playing Perfect Dark.

 

[Rizen]

Legend of Zelda Tears of The Kingdom

The Good
In many ways this is an incredible game. It takes what was great about Breath of the Wild and expands upon it in every way. They basically made a physics sandbox full of contraptions that you can glue together like planes, boats and cars and filled it full of little puzzles. It also scratches the open world itch really well with tons of ingredients to collect and cook for different effects, upgrade materials, and parts to improve your weapons with. Huge world with a sky and underground section that weren't present in the first game and tons of stuff to do. You have an enormous amount of freedom as most walls in the overworld can be climbed. You're not boxed in by mountains like a lot of games.

The Bad
Unfortunately there are several things holding TotK back from a perfect score. Little Nintendoisms where Nintendo refuses to enter the 2020s.

The most predominant is that you are constantly micromanaging your inventory. Weapons break so quickly and although there is a new fusing mechanic where you can fuse monster parts and other weapons together it doesn't solve the issue. If anything it makes it worse as you can't do this from the menu. This means every new weapon, you must pick out a part from your inventory, toss it on the ground, and use the fuse rune to make a weapon worth using. This sucks if you need a new weapon during a battle and it's realistic to go through three weapons on a single group of enemies. In caves you need to make hammers by fusing a rock to a weapon to break down stone walls but you can easily go through six to a dozen weapons in a single area. You can also fuse parts to arrows for various effects. The issue with this is that you have to scroll through all your items, and there are hundreds, to find the part you want. You'll never fuse a fish or an apple to an arrow so why give you the option to do it?

You can make a lot of cool machines but they break after about a minute and a half so that really dampens the extent of what you can do. Would it be so horrible to just let you fly around the map?

The upgrade materials for armors are the same things you use to cook and improve weapons with. This means that you can easily waste a rare resource needed for armor. Or sell it for money. I never ended up making the most powerful weapons from monster parts because I was afraid I'd need them for upgrading. And on that note, monsters have rare drops which are too rare. If you want to upgrade the best armor you need 15 lynol guts but that can easily mean having to hunt 30-45 lynols because guts have bad drop rates. In my experience.

The voice acting is done really half-assed. Cutscenes are fully voice acted but everything else is written text with grunts. Also they didn't hire the best actors, notably Zelda doesn't give a very realistic performance.

Story

Spoiler

The story is the same damn story as EVERY SINGLE LoZ GAME. Yes it has a little twist but come up with a new story FFS Nintendo. Ganon's the bad guy despite being the bad guy in the last game (which is never explained) and he's so 2-dimensional and stale. I've complained before about Nintendo being against unique characters and fresh stories.

And a minor complaint, the game looks good but not amazing. There are some games like Horizon where I think 'damn this looks gorgeous' and this is not one of them. They decided to go with a cell shading art style that dates back to the game cube era.

The Verdict
Ultimately the game's strength are incredibly strong, it's a huge game full of creativity and fun. I really want to give this a perfect score but there are just too many flaws that make it not as good as games like Horizon or Elden Ring.

9.5/10

 

[Megadoomer]

Sam & Max Save The World (a.k.a. season 1 - played on Xbox 360)

I wasn't sure if I'd played through season 1 before, but I had a great time with it. It's a humorous point-and-click adventure game in the style of older LucasArts games like Monkey Island, and I find it a bit of a shame that Telltale seemingly never went back to this style after the success of The Walking Dead. (it's understandable, but variety is the spice of life)

Out of the six episodes, the highlight for me was definitely episode 4, or "Abe Lincoln Must Die!" The puzzles all felt natural, whereas there were some cases in other episodes where I needed to look up what to do. (the results made sense in hindsight, like putting a bug into a virtual world in order to mess up some aspect of it or using a coathanger to unlock a vehicle door that had its window slightly rolled down, but the game never gave any indication that these were even possible)

The writing was stellar and downright hilarious, with it easily being the main reason to play these games. The achievements were easy enough to get, though a bonus achievement in the last episode (where you have to show ten characters an item) can be kind of tricky given that you have certain limited windows of opportunity to make progress with it. It was funny, relaxing, and overall, I enjoyed myself immensely. (though I won't jump straight into season two - I learned from Fire Emblem that playing two games of the same genre/series really close together can lead to burn-out)

Lego Batman 3 (played on Xbox 360)

I enjoyed this game, though not as much as Lego Batman 2. The open world aspect is gone, and replaced with a hub world. The hub world can still be fun to explore, but I preferred the open world from the last game since it allowed for lots of exploration without being so big that it was overwhelming.

This game has more of a focus on the Justice League, particularly with the Green Lantern side of things. (five of the last six levels deal with the Green Lantern mythos) It's good, and I love the added focus on Adam West's Batman, though I'd recommend the second one over this.

Yoshi's Story (played on Wii U)

It's a fun, short, simple game. Aiming the eggs on the Wii U can be a little clunky (you have to move the right analog stick to activate egg-aiming mode, but you have to actually aim it with the left analog stick), but it's charming, even if the level ending music can be more than a little grating on the ears.

There's a difficulty spike in the last level, but it was still enjoyable, and I liked the underwater level, which could get pretty tense at times given that you're limited in terms of being able to defend yourself. (unless there was something that I missed) The platforming was fun, and it seems like there's a good amount of level variety, though there's the kind-of odd decision to make it so you can only play one level (of a max of four) per chapter/area before it moves on. (so, for example, you have access to levels 1 and 2 in chapter 2 - if you pick level 1 and beat it, it moves on to chapter 3)

The Yoshi series isn't one that I've gotten too deep into outside of Yoshi's Story (I have Yoshi's Woolly World on the Wii U, but I haven't beaten it), but I'll look into other games some time and try them out.

 

[Rizen]

Horizon Forbidden West DLC Burning Shores

Let me start by saying that the main game is as close to a perfect games as it can get. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is top of the line. Amazing graphics, huge open world full of fun stuff, great story, fully voice acted, it's all just amazing. The Horizon series is a must play for any open world fan.

Burning Shores does not disappoint. It adds about 30 hours of gameplay in a gorgeous volcanic island paradise. There are 4 new machines, including an epic final boss fight and tons of end-game level weapons and armors to collect. Sure, it's more of the same from the main game but when a game's this good, that ain't bad.

10/10 -if you're not playing this game, you should be!

 

[Rizen]

KaBUMP!

Sonic Frontiers

It's an open world Sonic game, although technically divided into islands. They do this by requiring the player to find certain things to progress the story. You beat bosses on the map to get gears, use gears to enter virtual reality, which acts like traditional Sonic stages, beat those to get keys and use keys to unlock chaos emeralds from vaults. Turn into Super Sonic, beat the world boss then repeat on the next island.

You also can do little platforming challenges to get memory tokens to interact with characters and progress the story. These structures look very out of place and don't match the world's aesthetics at all. It really looks like a bunch or springs, rails and crap put there for you to platform on. Once you get a knack for what they game expects of you these become fairly easy although very fail and retry oriented. They want you to press specific buttons to overcome specific obstacles and if you fail there's a good chance Sonic will shoot off into the ocean at high speeds. This happens all the time; the game has the traditional Sonic jank you'd expect. Ultimately these can get repetitive as there's only so many contraptions just arranged differently across all the islands.

The bosses mostly act like little minigames more than enemies and are a breath of fresh air. They have enough variety you'll be seeing something new up until the end. The Titans or world bosses are epic and fun. The only issue with bosses is they knock a certain amount of rings out of you depending on your defense. You can easily gain rings by creating cyloops aka running in little circles. You waste a lot of time doing this getting ready for the next boss and it would have been nice if you acquired more rings per loop.

Ultimately the story is what you'd expect from a Sonic game: nothing to write home about. The game looks and runs good. The PS5 version had minimal pop-in of objects but I've heard that can be a problem with the switch version.

That pretty well sums it up. Fun if you like platforming but can get repetitive. This game has a nice Sonic spin on open world gaming but doesn't do it as well as other games in the genre. One final complaint is the final boss and ending were extremely anticlimactic.

8/10 Solid but not fantastic.

 

[Rizen]

Why am I the only person who posts here?

Well, I beat Subnautica Below Zero. It's a fun, mostly underwater open world game. It's not real long or big but I spent a good 43 hours on it. It's very survival oriented. You have a hunger, thirst and oxygen meter that need constant attention and when you're not in water you're freezing to death. Not to mention there are giant sea monsters who want to eat you. Overall it does the open world thing well. You collect materials and scan blueprints of wrecks to make new gear and expand your exploration capabilities. Eventually you have your own submarine or Seatruck and Prawn Suit. As you go you piece together the story of what happened to your dead sister and help an alien return to his homeworld. It's very addicting. My only complaints come from the fact that save-scumming is by far the easiest thing to do if your vehicles get wrecked or stuck. Otherwise you must painstakingly gather up all the materials you used to craft a new one and its plethora of upgrades. I had to do this 4 times for stupid reasons like my seatruck getting wedged between 2 icebergs and not being able to move or once my game simply crashed. Overall it's a pretty good game but nothing phenomenal.
8/10

 

[detective_fox]

Cod 3
9/10

 

[Megadoomer]

I've been playing Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam lately (it's been an ongoing thing since about August) - Halo 1, 2, and ODST were my first time through those games, at least from what I remember (going by my Xbox 360 achievements, I beat Halo 3 ODST, but I don't recall doing that at all), while I've played through Halo 3, Reach, and 4 before.

I'm currently replaying Halo 4, but as for my thoughts on the others (briefly)...

Halo 1: kind of bare-bones, but still a well-made first person shooter, albeit with some level design that can get confusing/unclear at times. Wasn't a fan of the Medpack/shield system, and I'm glad that they changed it for the sequels. (though it came back in ODST)

Halo 2: I like how it fleshed out the Covenant beyond just being "the bad guys", and the production value took a huge step up from Halo 1, at least going by the MCC version. The game was infamous for its cliffhanger ending, and playing it, it definitely felt like it ended midway through the climax. (it would be like if Avengers Endgame ended with Steve saying "Avengers... assemble" before the big charge, and then the movie ends and you needed to see part 3 to finish the story) The Arbiter was a welcome addition.

Halo 3: ODST: the open world hub that Bungie tried to incorporate didn't work all that well for me; it wasn't until I got a vehicle that I was actually enjoying it, and even then, areas are gated off, forcing me to get off of the vehicle, open the door, and get back on again. The ODST squad was more fleshed out than many characters in Halo, though Buck is the only memorable one for me.

Halo 3: I was surprised at how much of the game I had forgotten, so while I'd played through the game about a decade ago, moments like fighting two Scarabs at once felt fresh to me. Bonuses like Skulls felt easier to find this time around, and it was a fitting conclusion to the trilogy

Halo Reach: it felt like the best of the series to me - good story, good gameplay variety, great atmosphere... Some levels dragged a bit, but most were breezy and felt quick enough to complete.

If I had to rank them, I'd probably go Reach > 2 > 3 > 1 > ODST, though 2 and 3 are interchangeable and they're all good.

 

[Megadoomer]

It's been a week or two since my last post, so I figure I'd make a new one since this game doesn't tie in with the ones from my previous post.

Super Mario RPG (Switch)

Super Mario RPG on the SNES was one of the first games that I played, and the Switch version shows that it still holds up. The gameplay is almost identical, though some features like splash damage upon timed hits, indicators of when to use timed hits/timed blocks, and Triple Attacks do make the game easier than the original. (however, the challenge is ramped up quite a bit in the post-game boss rematches)

It's a nice, short RPG - it took me roughly 15 hours to beat the game, and by the time that I beat the post-game bosses, my in-game timer was 17 and a half hours. (I didn't aim for 100% completion, since that felt like it would be frustrating - among other things, it would require me to get 100 Super Jumps in a row when I couldn't manage 30, climb up the Paratroopa wall in 12 seconds when it took me about 24, and get a perfect run of Midas River - but I completely filled out all of the entries in the Monster List and as far as I'm concerned, that's good enough)

The gameplay remains as solid as ever, blending platforming and RPG elements with its Action Commands, and the writing is generally faithful to the SNES original. (there are only a few smaller changes, like a handful of enemy names) The music is a definite highlight - Yoko Shimomura (who also did the music for Street Fighter II and the Kingdom Hearts series) returned for this remake, and it's such a joy to listen to.

I could keep going, but I'd likely wind up posting the whole soundtrack - it's that good.

Being able to switch between party members mid-battle definitely makes the game easier (even if your entire team gets killed by an attack, your reserve members will automatically jump in afterwards), but I found it was a welcome change that encouraged me to use everyone. (from what I recall of my original playthrough of the SNES version, I generally stuck with Mario-Bowser-Peach because Bowser's a powerhouse and Peach with the Lazy Shell is pretty much invincible, but this time around, my most-used party member was Mallow - his Psychopath/Thought Peek ability being useful for filling out the Monster List likely helped)

All in all, I had a ton of fun with the game and I'd highly recommend it, though I'd recognize that I'm biased since it's a remake of one of the first games that I ever played. Still, if you're a fan of Mario games and/or RPGs, this seems like a no-brainer to pick up.

 

[Perkilator]

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: 9/10

I just finished all of the cups in the base game and DLC on 50cc and I enjoyed nearly all of it!

 

[Megadoomer]

Halo 4 (Steam)

I finished the Master Chief Collection with Halo 4. I hadn't played it in over a decade (back when it was on the Xbox 360), and when I had played it, the only game in the series I had played going into it was Halo 3, so my perspective is very different now.

It kind of reminds me of the Matrix sequels, in that it throws around terms like "The Didact", "The Mantle", and "The Librarian" without giving context for what they mean. (the hidden in-game terminals help, but they only do so much) Also, it felt like there was some kind of retcon where they establish that humanity was a space-faring race thousands of years beforehand, back when the Halo rings were originally activated.

It felt like I was expected to read a series of tie-in novels going into this game in order to have context for what's going on. The bond between Master Chief and Cortana was nice, but it feels kind of abrupt (they have borderline romantic feelings for each other that weren't really present in previous games, unless there's something that I missed). There's a new villain this time around, the Didact (a Forerunner who was imprisoned for trying to kill humanity, put their consciousness into robots, and use them as anti-Flood weapons, as far as I can tell), but he's kind of forgettable and takes a backseat to Cortana's AI deteriorating and Master Chief trying to get back to Earth in order to save her.

Gameplay's good - doesn't change much from the previous games, but it doesn't have to; it's a solid foundation. There's a good amount of weapon variety, and the vehicles are nice, though they didn't feel quite as common as the other games. The new enemies are a little forgettable, since there's really only three of them - knights (humanoid robots), dogs, and drones.

All in all, I'd put it below 2, 3, and Reach, but above 1 and ODST.

 

[Rizen]

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Every once in a while you find a game that's truly magical, Majora's Mask, Lost in Shadow... Kena is one of them. The developers who made it were originally an animation studio and it shows. The game is like playing through a Pixar movie. Everything about the presentation is top notch. The game is gorgeous and the sparkle effects and great music really make you feel like you're in an enchanted forest full of spirits. There are plenty of great cutscenes and they tell a simple yet surprisingly deep story.

But just because it looks like a children's movie, don't think it's easy. The combat is surprisingly challenging. I had to retry several encounters and bosses several times but never frustratingly so. It's not the kind of game where you'll be forced to grind bosses for several hours (think Sekiro). You start off with just a staff then gradually gain abilities for combat and travel. There is an enormous variety to the enemies that keeps the game fresh right up until the end. Some enemies you can R1 spam, others will counter attack, some you must shoot from afar and other have tough armor which you must remove with bombs to target their weak spots. When you get 5 different enemies all attacking you at once it gets pretty hectic.

The world is on the smaller side yet brimming with puzzles and secrets. You clear corruption out of the village and surrounding forest, fields and mountains. It starts off full of dead grass, cursed flowers and poison rivers, then as you progress you transform the land back to its natural wonder. Along the way you'll find and collect adorable little spirits, ironically called rot. Each one gives you a little smile when you find it. Rot can move objects, clear corruption and power up your attacks. You can find hats and masks to dress them up in. This can be a downside though; about half of all collectibles are purely cosmetic and it can be frustrating to beat a challenging encounter only to be rewarded with a crappy rot hat.

Overall the game was amazing yet on the shorter side. I did most of the stuff and it took about 30 hours. My only real complaint is the game could stand to be greatly expanded. It was a good length but left me wanting much more. I have a tough time justifying giving it a perfect score when games as expansive as Horizon, Elden Ring and Tears of the kingdom exist which give you well over a hundred hours of gameplay.

9.5/10 I would love a sequel.

 

[Rizen]

Tears of the Kingdom: All lightroots and shrines.

I already left my TotK review but recently went back to complete the afore mentioned objectives. Although there is still a large amount to do, this review focuses on a more completionist view of the game. I also upgraded a ton of armor, which will be covered. There are 152 shrines and 120 lightroots in the game. Getting them all does get repetitive, especially for the lightroots, but I have always said it's better to have too much to do than too little, as far as open world games are concerned. TotK is HUGE and that's a good thing. And the majority of the shrines are clever little physics or device puzzles. There is a lot of diversity. Although there definitely are more "defeat the grunts without your equipment" and "find the crystal" shrines than there need to be. Overall they're fairly easy but finding creative ways to cheese puzzles can make you feel big brained. One thing I found quite ingenious was that the ground level shrines are always right above a lightroot so you can find one and use it to locate the other. This is great when there are so many shrines hidden in caves that are easily missed. All this is on top of 6 regular dungeons and the final gauntlet, which are where the game really shines.

The weapon, armor and upgrade system falls a bit short though. Really short. Frankly the costs need to be seriously nerfed. You can make ultimate weapons with several diamonds and other materials but they just break so easily that it's not even worth it. If your Hylian shield breaks for example you can buy another one for 3000 freaking rupees! It's outrageous. Diamonds are so valuable in this game and upgrading armor costs a fortune in both money and materials. This leads to several pain in the ass issues for completionists. 1 rare materials are too rare. Lynal guts for example drop from about one out of three Lynals. I needed 9 to upgrade my full armor set and had to hunt over 30 Lynals. Even simple things like Lizalfos tails are hard to come by. 2 Unlike in Breath of the Wild, the dragons which give you key materials can't be spawn camped and once you get 1 material from them you can't get another for 10 real world minutes. This makes farming them a huge pain. 3 you have to jump through a long series of elaborate hoops just to access the faries who will upgrade your armor. 4 Armors take a lot of materials that are very easy to accidently use (or sell) without even realizing it. Everything from cooking ingrediants to weapon buffs. If you want to make the strongest weapons with the fuse system, too bad: you need to save those materials to upgrade armor sets! It's a flawed system that pumps the breaks on your fun.

I might as well mention Koroks too. These little tree spirits appear when you complete a little puzzel and let you expand your inventory space. This was a really clever idea that gets you exploring every inch of the map. My only complaint is there are only so many puzzles and they get repetitive after a while. Frankly the korok that you have to bring to his friend was grossly overdone and you kind of hate seeing him because it means dropping what you were doing to do his quest.

In addition to all this there are a ton of mostly usless armor sets to collect.

Overall TotK has a massive amount of content that could take you well over a hundred hours to complete. It's a great way to expand a great game although with some tweeking needed. Still this is far more conent than most games offer and helps justify the heafty $70 price tag. I continue to rate the game 9.5 out of 10: extrordanary but with just enough flaws to keep from getting a perfect score.

 

[Rizen]

Dragon's Dogma (originally for PS3)

This game is like planting the bulb of an orchid then marketing it as a flower before it has even sprouted: it has the seeds of a great Dungeons and Dragons style open world game but sadly falls massively short in a plethora of key areas. You play as the Arizen in a medieval quest to slay a dragon. The main gimmick of this game is the pawn system. You have the ability to summon up to 3 other characters to fight for and serve you in your quest. While this sounds good in theory, it has a lot of poorly designed issues around it. I could write an entire page on how the menus, maps, combat, quests, etc all are poorly designed but I'll focus on what I found were the biggest issues. Starting at the top, the stamina system paired with the encumbrance system. You have very little stamina and are constantly over-encumbered, which makes stamina regen slow to a crawl. The idea is that you have 4 characters worth of inventory space. The issue with this is that you're the main one to pick up items so your character's inventory gets clogged incredibly fast. This means that you must manually open the menu and give items to your pawns to carry. The issue with this is you can't use a pawn's item. It's constant micromanaging of inventory. It's frequent that you switch 2 of your pawns out for new ones as they don't level up; if you do this without removing the items from their inventory, you lose them without warning. Pair this with the poor stamina system. You are forced to slowly walk everywhere because your stamina regens so slowly. You need stamina for special attacks and if you run up to enemies you won't have any. A simple solution to this would be to not consume stamina while not in battle but that's not the case. It's just a very poorly thought out system. Pair this with another issue: the enemy spam is ridiculous! You literally fight hundreds of enemies on any given journey from A to B. And did I mention the game doesn't even have a dodge button for its Dark Souls style combat? Given how much you're forced to back track due to a poorly implemented fast travel system, you spend an enormous amount of time walking slowly forward into huge packs of grunt enemies. To make matters worse, there's no "flee" command for your party. Your pawns will keep fighting when you try to run away and if one dies you must backtrack and resurrect them or lose them. See what I mean? It's a hot mess. In addition, the plot is poor and quests frequently are vague and sometimes broken. I had a crucial NPC simply not load and I ran around for an hour before looking it up online and reloading the area to finally get it to work.

Sorry for the big block of negativity but this game was fully of incredibly boneheaded decisions from the devs. I didn't even finish it. I will say, it has elements that are very fun. It's a shame they didn't play out better. 5/10 Don't recommend.

 

[Khaoticnoize187]

another code recollection 4/5

 

[Deleted member]

TMNT Turtles In Time (arcade version in Cowabunga Collection).

Judging It with the thought It was an arcade Game from the 90s, and being aware that I have played It with infinite lifes, I gotta say that the game is extremely addictive and fun even if the controls are weird to get a hand of first.

The visuals are quite fun and silly for the time, the voiceovers help bring It life, and the bosses are quite enjoyable. Also helps that as a beat em up game It feels satisfying to beat up hordes of enemies.

A 7/10.

 

[Megadoomer]

Alan Wake (played through Steam)

I decided to play this game as a result of the character's inclusion in Dead By Daylight, and I'm glad that I did. It's a solid third person shooter with some thriller elements (I hesitate to call it "survival horror", since it's not particularly gruesome and ammunition is plentiful), but where the game really shines (no pun intended) is the writing. It feels like something out of a Stephen King novel (which is clearly what they were going for - the first two words of the game are "Stephen King"), with a small town being caught up in a massive and incomprehensible threat.

The game's pretty short - it took me a little over ten hours to beat, and there are only six chapters. I feel like going for 100% completion would be frustrating - there are several different types of collectibles, and only one of them (the manuscript pages) gives you any indication of where they are in the game. (with the rest, you'd presumably have to scour the game thoroughly or use a guide)

The highlight for me was near the end of chapter 4, where Alan and his manager Barry (the comedic relief of the game) have to fight back an army of possessed/Taken on the farm of a pair of elderly rock stars, as Barry manages the lights on a stage that the rockers had set up and this song plays in the background:

I had a great time from start to finish, and the ten hours just flew by. I'm not sure if I'll get Alan Wake 2 (I feel like my computer would need a few upgrades - at the very least, I'd need to figure out how to get more memory for it, as my computer's memory caused issues with playing RoboCop: Rogue City), but at the very least, I'll play through the bonus levels and Alan Wake: American Nightmare.

 

[---]

It's been a while since I've posted in this thread. lol

Fire Emblem Warriors (Switch)

Very much a game that hinges on whether or not you bought the DLC. This was my first Warriors game, and I can safely say that it is definitely a junkfood game. A game that is good in short bursts, but hard to sit through for long play sessions. When you get combos and juggles going, it feels amazing, but the amount of repetitiveness and grinding required as you progress is really daunting.

The game without the DLC is pretty mediocre, but with it, it boosts the game's content by almost 200% and makes many missions much more enjoyable. I honestly can't imagine playing this game in it's vanilla state. The DLC characters offer playstyles and weapon skills that almost feel required to clear some missions. Ex. In the base game, there are only 3 Lance Users and they are all Pegasus Knights who play the same/have the same weaknesses. Or how missions only allow Bow Users (up to 4) but the base game only has 3 (1 of which is Anna, who I didn't unlock until over 100 hours into the game).

I did pick up the 3DS version + DLC before the eShop closed and it seems to run fine, but there is zero-point in buying this version without it now.

It took me about 250 hours to 100% the game + DLC, so it's hard to deny I got my moneys worth. It's a shame that it didn't receive a Definitive Edition with the DLC on cart or any extra content. The character roster is pretty unbalanced in terms of gameplay styles and representation (I hope you like FE Fates), so adding in another Dragon Stone/Bow user or a fan favorite like Ike or Roy would have gone a long way.

If you do play the game, just make sure to initally bring Chrom/Niles/Ryoma into every mission so you can Support with them and unlock their skills on other characters. Also do not play the game with the Fire Emblem permadeath gimmick on; while it's hard to die, it will only add to the amount of grinding you have to do to revive the character and could potentially soft-lock your game if all of your characters of a weapon type die.


Hime's Quest (GBC)

A Zelda clone. Not much to say other than it's a harmless licensed game. It's super easy and entirely linear, and probably not worth going for 100%, but there is definitely a lot of love put into it by the development team for what is otherwise a free web browser game on Crunchyroll's website.

The biggest nitpick is mostly that you never get to upgrade your sword, so it never really feels like you grow stronger on your journey. Every enemy in the game takes between 2-5 hits to kill, so combat feels fairly stale after the first dungeon. Enemies also drop health ups more often than coins (1 coin per enemy only), so bum rushing enemies/bosses is often easier than learning patterns or grinding money for more bombs/arrows.

I'm glad that a physical version game out so when the web browser version shuts down, it'll still be around. The game is charming and the music is great. I can definitely seeing this being a perfect introduction to the Zelda formula for Kids. That said, if it does get a Steam/Switch digital release, I wouldn't pay more than $5~10 for it. I would be curious to see the same dev team tackle a more ambitious sequel as I think they have the talent for it.

 

[---]

Janken Disk Jou (Famicom Disk System)

It's been a lot time since I dusted off my FDS, so I'm glad that I made time this game. An overhead puzzle game in the vein of Sokoban & Adventures of Lolo where you push statues of Rock/Paper/Scissors next to each other to clear a path to exit. Starting lost Nintendo mascot Diskun!!

The statues you push each have their own strength rating with Red being the highest (3), Yellow being middle (2), and Green being the lowest (1), so even if you have a statue that trumps/is weak to the statue you push it against, it only reduces the strength of the weaker statue by the corresponding amount. If you push the statue next to statues on multiple sides that it's strong and weak against, the game will have the statue deal damage to the statue you're strong against first before taking damage of it's own.

The biggest gimmick is that for each statue you destroy/stage you clear, you can earn currency to take back to the in-game shop to purchase items that can be saved for clearing stages. Certain items are required to clear certain stages, but thankfully the game offers said required item in each stage where it's needed, so these extra items mostly just offer ways to cheese the game in some aspects. You do lose money (and any items you already used/picked up), however, if you restart a stage from the beginning if you mess up, so there is still a bit of a learning curve and forethought required.

Bosses mostly play out the same as regular stages, except you have to push statues they are weak to next to them to damage them (no items allowed). As they are weak to these statues, they do not disappear once finished dealing damage, you often have to change your plan of attack or carefully plan around keeping nearby statues that trump the statues you need. Your resources are finite in these stages, so these stages are both the most frustrating but also feel the most rewarding.

Including the bosses, the game only has 49 stages, so it does run a little short compared to other Puzzle Games for the NES/Famicom/FDS line of games. That said, it came out on a dead format on a shoestring budget so it's forgivable and somewhat impressive that it looks like a game from late 1992. Diehard puzzle fans probably won't get that much of a fix here compared to Adventures of Lolo, but it's approachable enough for newcomers and has a fair amount of charm to be called a hidden gem IMO.

 

[Megadoomer]

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (Steam)

I'm a year late, but I played/beat this April Fool's Day game, which was surprisingly in-depth all things considered. (I can't think of many cases where a company actually releases a game on April Fool's Day, at least when its announcement is treated like an April Fool's Day joke)

The game's a mix between Phoenix Wright-style investigations (though thankfully not as punishing - I haven't gone back to the series in a while because I had trouble following the specific logic being used for when to use a given item without following a guide, and the series penalizes you if you don't present the item at the specific time) and an isometric platformer. The platforming segments got a little frustrating at times, though thankfully, there's an assist mode that allows you to decrease the maximum number of rings needed, make you invincible, or bottomless pits.

I only had to use the assist mode once - there's what felt like a major difficulty spike at the end of the game. I'd like to see Sega do more games like this - Sonic's got a great cast of characters, and it's fun to see them chilling out, relaxing, and interacting with each other.

The game took me roughly an hour and fifty minutes to beat, and there weren't any achievements. The game's still available on Steam (for free), so it's not like it was a limited-time thing for that day. It was an entertaining little experience, and I'd like to see more franchises do something like this.

 

[Megadoomer]

Half-Life 2 (Steam)

I'm 20 years late, and as a result, I might not be fully aware of what made this game so innovative, but I beat it. (I had previously played the game in 2013, but I stopped because the hovercraft segments were frustrating to control)

Compared to something like Halo 1, this game has more of an emphasis on story, though it definitely feels like a middle chapter - you play as Gordon Freeman, a physicist who's thrown into the middle of events after what's apparently a long absence. I'm not sure what happened in Half-Life 1, but whatever it was caused an interplanetary/interdimensional empire called the Combine to arrive on Earth and take it over in a matter of hours. Now, Gordon finds himself the figurehead of a rebellion, led by Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx Vance, against the Combine and their human administrator, Dr. Breen.

The story comes to a rather abrupt end, but while it lasts, it does a good job at making you invested in the characters. There's a nice variety of weapons, with the Gravity Gun being the highlight - there's an achievement for getting through the Ravenholm section (a nearly abandoned zombie-infested town) using only the Gravity Gun, so it was fun to mess around with it and figure out what objects could or couldn't hurt the zombies.

It took me about 14 hours to beat, and I got 24 of the game's 33 achievements. (the rarest being the "get through Ravenholm while only using the Gravity Gun" achievement, though I did get a rare achievement for killing an enemy with a toilet) I had a good time with it, and I'll definitely play through Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2 at some point. (though I'll likely focus on a Switch game next; I've got a few in my backlog that I've been meaning to get through)

 

[CrusherMania1592]

Half-Life 2 (Steam)

I'm 20 years late, and as a result, I might not be fully aware of what made this game so innovative, but I beat it. (I had previously played the game in 2013, but I stopped because the hovercraft segments were frustrating to control)

Compared to something like Halo 1, this game has more of an emphasis on story, though it definitely feels like a middle chapter - you play as Gordon Freeman, a physicist who's thrown into the middle of events after what's apparently a long absence. I'm not sure what happened in Half-Life 1, but whatever it was caused an interplanetary/interdimensional empire called the Combine to arrive on Earth and take it over in a matter of hours. Now, Gordon finds himself the figurehead of a rebellion, led by Eli Vance and his daughter Alyx Vance, against the Combine and their human administrator, Dr. Breen.

The story comes to a rather abrupt end, but while it lasts, it does a good job at making you invested in the characters. There's a nice variety of weapons, with the Gravity Gun being the highlight - there's an achievement for getting through the Ravenholm section (a nearly abandoned zombie-infested town) using only the Gravity Gun, so it was fun to mess around with it and figure out what objects could or couldn't hurt the zombies.

It took me about 14 hours to beat, and I got 24 of the game's 33 achievements. (the rarest being the "get through Ravenholm while only using the Gravity Gun" achievement, though I did get a rare achievement for killing an enemy with a toilet) I had a good time with it, and I'll definitely play through Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2 at some point. (though I'll likely focus on a Switch game next; I've got a few in my backlog that I've been meaning to get through)

So when's Half-Life 3?

Golden Sun (Switch)

It was nice to see a classic game get imported to the NSO collection online. Never played GS, and ended up enjoying it more than I should've. Looking forward to seeing how the sequel goes

 

[Deebo13]

Dragon Wings-6.5/10

This game is described as relaxing dragon flight, which is pretty much true. You play as a young dragon named Ember who goes on a journey to find other dragons. You then fly through 10 levels. You get fire and water balls to take out obstacles, but most of the time, you can find your way around it without using them. The game didn't have the fanciest graphics, but Ember was kind of cute. The music was of varying quality, which sucks since that's part of the game. I ended up just muting it and playing some Skyrim background music. Some of the levels could get a bit confusing. Spent a lot of time in the sixth level because it was a bit of a maze. You get the trophies by completing all the levels, so nothing is missable. It wasn't bad. Not the best game I've ever played, but not bad.

 

[Rizen]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Ah Assassin's Creed, where all the world's problems can be solved by murdering people. You play as a mercenary trying to assassinate an evil cult who controls the Greek world. Despite taking place in ancient Greece, 98% of the enemies you fight are either humans or real world animals. There are very rare instances of mythological creatures but they tend to act as super bosses.
Gameplay- as an open world game you spend a lot of time exploring and there's resources to collect along the way. You'll enter restricted areas where enemies will attack you and you can kill them stealthily or aggressively depending on what mood you're in. No matter what you do you're character is stupidly over-powered and only gets stronger with time. The combat is like a soulsborne game but without any of the restrictions that make them challenging. You can spam attack or dodge as much as you like without stamina to worry about. You do have adrenaline segments for special attacks that fill as you hit opponents. Out of combat you have a helpful eagle companion who marks enemies so you can see them through walls. Even though you're strong enough to take on hoards of enemies at once, you can easily climb any surface and out run enemies to escape if things get dicey. Almost every enemy can be beaten with R1 spam>see enemy do anything>dodge on reaction>repeat. It's so easy I actually increased the difficulty. With that said, the super bosses took a few tries and the combat is super fun. You can also sail and battle in a ship.
Presentation- It looks slightly dated as a PS4 game but still beautiful. This is a good looking game. I did run into some glitches. The game crashed 3 times, which is more than it should and after running around for an hour I finally looked up the objective to a quest to find it simply didn't load. With that said, the game is very high quality and fully voice acted. There must be dozens of hours of voice lines and everyone speaks with a Greek accent. It really helps keep the story interesting even if the gameplay gets repetitive. The world is also huge and chucked full of things to do. Even sticking to the main quests this took me well over a hundred hours.
Overall ACO is an excellent game if you want a lot of light gameplay and open world goodness.
9.5/10.

 

[Janx_uwu]

Infamous: Second Son

I've been interested in this game for a while. If you've ever seen one of those social media posts of pics that "go hard" or whatever? That's the vibe this game gave to me as a kid. And in my sophomore year of high school, my friend was a fan of the game and he showed me all the playable abilities on YouTube. I finally caved and downloaded the game (free with one of the PS Plus tiers) when Penny Parker, one of my favorite streamers, mentioned it in relation to Prototype (a similar game by a different developer). I also had high expectations because Sucker Punch's other projects included Ghosts of Tsushima and the Sly Cooper games, which I've heard fantastic things about.

The game has a really fun opening - spray painting police billboards in your punk rock getup and doing parkour on the docks of your tribe's hometown. Then you accidentally get some guy's powers and inherit smoke abilities, which let you dash through most objects in an invulnerable ashy form. After a tough decision when the main villain arrests you, you cross the bridge to Seattle and the world is open. The goal? Augustine has encased your tribe's limbs in concrete with her own abilities, and it's up to you to inherit her own powers and use them to heal your family.

The draw of this game is unlocking new abilities that allow you to progress further, and upgrading those abilities to become stronger and faster. For instance, you can fire smoke projectiles, and if the conditions are met, you can upgrade your smoke projectiles to knock down enemies with just a headshot (usually takes 5-30 hits depending on the enemy type and weapon type). You can dash through the air with Smoke Dash, and upgrade it to dash twice in the air.

The movement in this game is really solid - Smoke Dashing through a vent to reach the top of a builiding instantaneously, then dashing forward and hovering onto a high-speed train to reach your next destination. I won't spoil them, but some of the later abilities get even crazier, especially with the proper upgrades. In order to upgrade your abilities, you'll have to find Shards, which can be taken from Department of Unified Protection (D.U.P.) tech. That means destroying toll booths, shooting down DUP drones, and blowing up DUP Mobile Command Centers, heavily protected vehicles you'll have to push through a small army to get to. But the upgrades are worth it, and by postgame, you're pretty much unstoppable.

Remember that "tough decision" I mentioned earlier, before the world opens up? Well, that's a choice between confessing that yes, you inherited powers from an escaped superhuman convict, or staying silent and letting your entire tribe take the blow. These two choices don't change the events, but they will determine which morality you begin with, good or evil. This affects the kinds of upgrades to your abilities you can get (for example, having a faster fire rate with evil, or faster healing rate with good), what happens in the story, how Delsin acts in dialogue and cutscenes, and which side missions you'll want to be doing.

There is a LOT to do on the map, some of it busywork to get the 100%, like shooting down DUP cameras or taking down secret DUP agents hiding in the crowds, but there's also a lot you can do that isn't neccessary, yet will build up your good or evil karma (unlocking more abilities and giving you cooler jackets). An example of a good sidequest being busting a drug deal and nonlethally subduing the dealers, and a bad one being harming and/or killing a group of anti-superhuman protestors.

Honestly, I did want to give this game a fair shake, and replay the whole thing on "Infamous" mode after my emotionally fulfilling "Hero" playthrough. But it was clear that this is the kind of game you play once, maybe twice, ever. It's just very slow, there's no way to skip cutscenes and there's no such thing as a New Game +, so I can't just blow through all the enemy encounters. And while it's a great game, a lot of it feels like doing similar chores over and over, chase missions and whatnot. And the combat could really use some more abilities - the same three-hit combos, light ammo and heavy ammo were not doing it for me. The most fun ability is the postgame one, which is extremely powerful and lets you decimate every encounter. When every enemy feels like a bullet sponge, the final power really helps the postgame stuff from feeling like a slog.

That's not even counting the boss fights. Goodness gracious, these are some bad ones. One of them has you destroy each and every neon sign in the room to deprive your opponent of their Neon ability, and THEN you have to wittle down their health bar as they teleport across the screen over two or three minutes. Another can only be defeated with heavy bullets, and you have to jump back and forth across platforms to recharge at - with precision platforming in this game so rare, it came as a shock. The final boss has some cool ideas, but really lost steam halfway through once the goal became "dodge under its legs, wait for your heavy ammo to recharge".

What Infamous: Second Son lacked in combat, it made up for with its writing. Keep in mind, I played the Hero story, so some things may vary from other playthroughs, but at least in what I played, Delson is a young, strong-willed protagonist who loves his brother and his tribe, is learning new powers, and shoots quips with his enemies at an insanely fast rate. The childlike wonder in his voice when his mission involves climbing up the side of the Space Needle to beat up some bad guys is one of my favorite moments in the story. Nolan North does a great job, and on that note, the entire voice cast is astounding, especially Travis Willingham as Delson's brother, Reggie, who brings so much love and comedy to this game. The juxtaposition between Delson, a laid-back graffiti artist with a long list of arrests, and his brother, the police chief responsible for each one of those arrests, is obvious, but that divide between them makes it all the more heartwarming when Reggie comforts his brother, who is terrified of his brand-new abilities, in a hug. Or at the end of the game, when Delson avenges his brother's death at the hands of the antagonist, Augustine.

The conflict, yes, is between you and the main antagonist, Augustine, who leads the DUP and locks up superhumans like you. But the real tension lies in the public opinion of Delson and the other superhumans, and how the governemtn and the DUP influence that opinion. While the official term for supercharged humans in this game is "Conduits", the government has coined the term "Bio-Terrorists", believing Conduits to be too strong to keep on the streets, or alive at all. You're labeled a terrorist as soon as you recieve your powers, even though you've done nothing but save people. The questions this game asks about how our governments deal with threats and minorities are very real and well-stated. I especially love the graffiti art that Delson can put up around the city - depending on your morality, it can either be light-hearted and funny, or vulgar and violent - though either way you'll generally end up making some kind of statement about law enforcement and the abuse of power in government.

The graffiti sections are very fun - you turn your controller sideways, hold it like an Aerosol can, shake it, and press R2 to spray with motion controls over a stencil. Very much screams "I am an early PS4 game and I will insert needless touch and motion controls into cutscenes and gameplay". (Speaking of which, the way you refill your abilities is with tapping the touchpad at a chimney, neon sign, etc, but it feels natural so I didn't mind). The fact that you're putting your art on public property without permission does make the Hero path a little questionable, but all of your graffiti on that path will be good-natured or humorous and I love seeing the art, so I didn't think much of it. There must be at least 50 or 60 unique pieces betweeen the good and evil variants for each individual tagging location.

For me, the best part of this game was the addicitng gameplay loop of doing sidequests to get better powers and using those better powers to do more side misisons and so on. It's a really fun, addicting ten or so hours, maybe thirteen if you're doing 100%, and double that if you want the full experience of playing through both stories. I highly do NOT reccommend that last option though, because there's really not much to justify replaying. Although I will say, the final cutscene of the evil route is breathtaking.

To put my thoughts in summary, Infamous: Second Son is a really cool game, and if it had the combat of Insomniac Spdier-Man or Batman Arkham, I would give it a 10/10. It's still great, the combat is easy to overlook when so much cool stuff is happening, but when you've cleared up the main story it definitely slows down a bit. I reccommend it!

8/10

P.S. Do NOT do the Paper Trail mission. Apparently it used to be a cool ARG type thing, but the website for it went down, so now it's just a string of side missions that make zero sense.

 

[Rizen]

Spiderman 2 (PS5) Early impressions:
First off playing as spiderman is incredibly fun. You can zoom around NY and they added a gliding mode web wings for areas where you don't have a building to web on to. That was a nice improvement because in the last game you'd frequently face plant because the AI couldn't find a building to sling from.

The combat starts out with an awesome sequence where you're battling a giant sand golem. It really gets you in the mood. With that said I definitely have complaints about the combat. It's ridiculously frantic and the spidermen (yes there are 2 of them) are super squishy. Now you have special moves activated by pressing L plus a button and gadgets activated by pressing R plus a button. Everything has a timer to recharge. Also everything essentially does the same thing: disable enemies. This means you have to keep track of up to 8 abilities/gadgets while you're jumping around dodging a dozen thugs, shooting guns at you and swinging crowbars. Then some enemies block so you must disable them before comboing them. Other enemies have undodgeable attacks you must parry. There's a million things to keep track of! I've died several times already. This battle system simply adds too many options to juggle.


An update on the Spiderman 2 game (PS5). It's really hard but it does get easier. It has a bad case of early game suckage where your characters are pathetic until they level up a bit.

 

[Janx_uwu]

Undertale

Whoa. What a game.
Undertale is like...it's kind of insane? I knew a lot about it going in - so many of the songs, the what the characters were kind of like, and I also knew vaugely that you can't do a genocide run before a pacifist one or else the characters will know.

I can't talk about Undertale without feeling like I'm spoiling the magic. Most of the game I was laughing, Toby Fox is hilarious, but also, when I killed Toriel, reloaded my previous save and the flower knew? That messed with me hard. A lot of stuff in this game did that, the scariest and most profound moment was easily when Sans reveals that he would've killed you if not for a promise your goat mom made him make.

Well, I say that was the scariest part. But I forgot about the True Lab. That, actually. ****ing shook me to my core in the best way possible.

Having to walk around for five minutes every time I want to fight a secret boss, though? That deducts a point.

9/10

 

[Megadoomer]

Mad Max (2015) (Steam)

I don't usually get into open world games, but this one really gelled with me for some reason. (it likely helped that I picked it back up in the lead-up to Furiosa, and that the open world was a fairly small one with only four major areas) It does a great job at capturing the barren desert setting of Mad Max and making it look downright gorgeous at times, along with including plenty of world-building (Dementus, the villain of Furiosa, is even mentioned in character backstories).

It has a few bugs (one character's profile never showed up, and a mission was marked incomplete on the map but complete on the in-game mission list), and it's impossible to complete the game 100% because a single mission tied to a single achievement was tied to an online mode that was shut down four years ago. However, if you're just aiming to beat the game, those are minor. The missions to lower the threat level in an area (tearing down scarecrows, disarming landmines, destroying bases, etc.) never felt like I had to go far out of my way to complete them. There's lots of customization options for both the vehicle (the Magnum Opus - Max's usual V8 Interceptor is unavailable) and Max himself. (naturally, you can make the Magnum Opus ride eternal, shiny and chrome)

Also, there's a mission where I had to steal a car that was covered with speakers and drive it to a specific location while a warbly version of the William Tell Overture was playing. No flamethrower guitar guy, unfortunately, but it was basically everything that I wanted out of a Mad Max game, even if it seems like going for 100% completion (or at close as you can get given the inaccessible achievement) seems like it would be extremely frustrating.

 

[Rizen]

Spiderman 2 (PS5)

The direct sequel to Marvel's Spiderman. It's an open world beat em up type game but with a lot of side activities to break up the repetitive fighting.

The good:
Although the story's about what you'd expect from a superhero game, the boss fights are epic and there's a lot of side stories that flesh out the characters. You really feel like they're actual people and not one dimensional heroes. The side activities are a big improvement in the fun factor from the first game. Although it can be a little hard to tell what to do at times they overall do a good job of guiding you through the various missions and games. You do a wide variety of things from stealth missions to flying for some reason. That brings up the web wings. Now you can glide around New York. This is a great fix for some problems with the first game, namely that web-slinging requires the AI to find a building and sometimes it doesn't and you faceplant into the ground. Now you can cross open areas like rivers better. New York is beautifully rendered and vibrant with life. You can zip around the city really fast and it's a joy to explore.

The bad:
First of all this game has a serious case of early game suckage. Your characters, yes there are 2 Spidermen now, are pathetically weak at the start until you unlock several upgrades. Most of my deaths were early game. That's not helped by the fact this game has an incredibly steep learning curve and that's coming from a veteran of Spiderman one. To be fare they did a pretty good job of making you control complex, ultra-athletic characters but not perfect. There are many times when what you're trying to do simply doesn't work and it gets frustrating. This is compounded by the controls. There are far too many options. For combat you have attack, dodge, jump, heal, web-zip to enemies, parry, 4 special moves activated by holding the L button down and pressing a face button, web attack, 4 gadgets activated by holding the R button down and pressing the face buttons and L3+R3 for a super burst when your meter's full. All your gadgets and special moves take time to recharge, as do web attacks so you literally have 9 timers to keep track of. This is all when 2 dozen thugs are shooting guns at you and trying to kill you with various weapons. It's far too much to keep track of and the game would have been better with only special moves and no gadgets. To make matters worse, all your special moves and gadgets do essentially the same thing: disable groups of enemies. It doesn't really matter which ones you use and when. I ended up just rotating through the special moves and gadgets frantically as I attacked and dodged. This game is extremely mash heavy btw. Eventually you get the hang of it but a simplified combat system with more meaningful special moves would have greatly improved the game. Also the map is pretty small for an open world game and reused from Spiderman 1.

The verdict:
Spiderman 2 can be epic and tons of fun if you're willing to work through the adjustment period and deal with some occasional frustrating moments. Playing as the Spidermen grants a lot of freedom and is more fun than other superhero games. Overall the gameplay could have been better thought out but is fun regardless.
8.5/10

 

[Janx_uwu]

Buckshot Roulette

I might update this review later as I have not technically finished the game, there is still lots more content left it seems. But after beating the original three rounds and attempting the "Double Or Nothing" mode (still haven't won) I have my thoughts here.

Plot-wise? It's Russian Roulette with a shotgun, against disembodied face and hands, over cash (not really a huge amount given the risk, btw). You seem to be at a party of some sort, and the "game" is extremely well organized, with a waiver to sign and a table which shifts to display ammo and tools in hidden drawers. There's not much else to the plot, at least so far.

Buckshot Roulette is visceral. The double barrel feels so intense against the screen, and that click makes you breathe a sigh of relief. It's not a horror game, I would say, but it scares me on almost every round. After three hours, I'm still not desensitized to that sound design, it's anxiety-inducing each time.

For now, 10/10 since I bought it for a dollar and it has wildly surpassed my expectations, even though it's normally not the kind of thing I would play.

 

[Janx_uwu]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Phoenix Wright: Justice For All

I have never reviewed a book before, let alone a visual novel! I guess I'm going to do this in a less conventional sense, then.

Capcom is known for their crazy-ass bosses - from Monster Hunter to Mega Man to DMC to their vast fighting game collection - and I must say, Phoenix Wright may not have boss fights in a literal sense, but the courtroom chapters sure feel like them. The sound effects for the menu, the music, and especially "Objection!", these sounds do a great job at making you feel like what you're doing is a great big deal and a huge battle, even though it's technically just talking to people and yelling a lot. The witnesses and murderers all have such incredible animation, it felt like each antagonist topped the last in terms of animation and personality. I get the same feeling from pulling out evidence after evidence that I do from pulling off a long Tony Hawk combo or securing a three-stock in Smash. If there is one negative thing I have to say about the court cases, it's that the ways in which Mia helps the player out can fluctuate greatly between hand-holding and dropping you off a cliff. Sometimes I've figured out the mystery before it is promptly over-explained to me, other times I've had to look up a guide while squinting my eyelids to avoid spoilers. However, the investigations have this aspect much worse, to the point where I was stuck for a whole hour twice, both in Justice For All, because I was lost on where to go, and what to present to who. The ability to present characters to other characters slightly increased the length of the investigations, I must say.

I really feel like not a single case went to waste. Virtually everything is tied up in a nice little bow at the end of each of the two games. My favorite case had to be Rise from the Ashes. For spoiler reasons I cannot discuss why, but it's just so so good. And it felt the least frustrating in terms of "where do I go, who do I talk to" out of all the cases I've played so far.

I also think a great part of this series is the lovable characters. The humor mostly hits, although whenever Nick treated Maya like crap I had to groan. Even after she's been starved for two days he has the ****ing audacity to make fun of her for wanting to eat a lot of food?

My biggest complaint is just how much repetition there is when I can't figure out where to go or who to talk to. It breaks the immersion consistently, and makes me not want to play, although the plot always reels me back in for another hour or two until I eventually realize it's midnight.

Edgeworth. Edgeworth edgeworth edgeworth. He is my GOAT. He is the literal best guy ever. If I had to pick my favorite of the two games, I gotta go with the first one cause I like him way more in that one.

My favorite characters (apart from Edgey-poo) are the Skye sisters, Von Karma, Damon Gant, and Ini Miney. The former two are just very sweet characters - Damon Gant is super intimidating and a fitting final antagonist for technically having supreme power over our two main characters. Von Karma was the only character who did the "i'm the prosecutor so the judge follows my orders actually" and it be consistently funny, it wasn't as funny when Franziska did it. And Ini Miney is just probably the most evil character in the series in my opinion, what she did was so visceral and unbelievable. It's chilling.


AA 1: 8/10, same for AA 2 though I prefer the first.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

I was going to replay Chrono Trigger but then my laptop broke so I switched to replaying the NES Mega Man games on an emulator on my phone, and I just finished the first one.

For games that are considered some of the quintessential 80s experiences, Mega Man is surprisingly unlike anything of the era. There’s almost an assumption you will get hit a lot because health is so plentiful which allows the platforming aspect of an action platformer to take focus and you get the best of both worlds. The “action” aspects are very fun and switching abilities is genuinely very engaging because it allows you to deal with challenges in different ways. You’re missing out a lot if you don’t use powers in levels and save them for the boss like a lot of people seem to do. Speaking of which, the robot masters are easily the highlight even the quality of their boss fights can vary a little. I disagree with the notion that it took Mega Man 2 for the gameplay to hit its stride because the format is done so well here.

The main issues are the significant drop in quality once you reach Wily Fortress and that the final boss was underwhelming, relying on robot master rematches a little too much. The game is of course very brutal and unfair at times but I’d say it’s more forgiving than I originally remembered and I managed to beat it all in two days without restore points so it’s not too BS for me. I played it lots before though so that might be why. Oh, also that platform power up. The fact you might need to backtrack to get that was pretty frustrating and I’m glad that didnt happen in games that followed it.

Overall, I’d very much forgotten how good these games were and I’ve kind of fallen off the Mega Man series lately so it’ll be fun to play Mega Man 2. I haven’t played it as much as the original Mega Man since I usually want to replay the whole series in a marathon but stop after the first game.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Phoenix Wright: Justice For All

I have never reviewed a book before, let alone a visual novel! I guess I'm going to do this in a less conventional sense, then.

Capcom is known for their crazy-ass bosses - from Monster Hunter to Mega Man to DMC to their vast fighting game collection - and I must say, Phoenix Wright may not have boss fights in a literal sense, but the courtroom chapters sure feel like them. The sound effects for the menu, the music, and especially "Objection!", these sounds do a great job at making you feel like what you're doing is a great big deal and a huge battle, even though it's technically just talking to people and yelling a lot. The witnesses and murderers all have such incredible animation, it felt like each antagonist topped the last in terms of animation and personality. I get the same feeling from pulling out evidence after evidence that I do from pulling off a long Tony Hawk combo or securing a three-stock in Smash. If there is one negative thing I have to say about the court cases, it's that the ways in which Mia helps the player out can fluctuate greatly between hand-holding and dropping you off a cliff. Sometimes I've figured out the mystery before it is promptly over-explained to me, other times I've had to look up a guide while squinting my eyelids to avoid spoilers. However, the investigations have this aspect much worse, to the point where I was stuck for a whole hour twice, both in Justice For All, because I was lost on where to go, and what to present to who. The ability to present characters to other characters slightly increased the length of the investigations, I must say.

I really feel like not a single case went to waste. Virtually everything is tied up in a nice little bow at the end of each of the two games. My favorite case had to be Rise from the Ashes. For spoiler reasons I cannot discuss why, but it's just so so good. And it felt the least frustrating in terms of "where do I go, who do I talk to" out of all the cases I've played so far.

I also think a great part of this series is the lovable characters. The humor mostly hits, although whenever Nick treated Maya like crap I had to groan. Even after she's been starved for two days he has the ****ing audacity to make fun of her for wanting to eat a lot of food?

My biggest complaint is just how much repetition there is when I can't figure out where to go or who to talk to. It breaks the immersion consistently, and makes me not want to play, although the plot always reels me back in for another hour or two until I eventually realize it's midnight.

Edgeworth. Edgeworth edgeworth edgeworth. He is my GOAT. He is the literal best guy ever. If I had to pick my favorite of the two games, I gotta go with the first one cause I like him way more in that one.

My favorite characters (apart from Edgey-poo) are the Skye sisters, Von Karma, Damon Gant, and Ini Miney. The former two are just very sweet characters - Damon Gant is super intimidating and a fitting final antagonist for technically having supreme power over our two main characters. Von Karma was the only character who did the "i'm the prosecutor so the judge follows my orders actually" and it be consistently funny, it wasn't as funny when Franziska did it. And Ini Miney is just probably the most evil character in the series in my opinion, what she did was so visceral and unbelievable. It's chilling.


AA 1: 8/10, same for AA 2 though I prefer the first.

Ini Miney is the most evil character in the series so far