New Super Luigi U (as part of NSMBU Deluxe on Switch).
I kinda put this off for a week or two after completing the main game because I heard it was the more difficult of the two (I actually wasn't even really planning on completing it), but it kept nagging at me at the back of my mind, so I decided to give it a shot and am glad I did. Just like the main game, while the art direction is pretty generic (though they did add in numerous amusing Luigi references in the level design), the game itself is good fun, and even though it was a bit harder than the main game the levels were more brief so it had a real "just one more time" pull to it. Many times I just intended to play to a world's mid tower, but ended up completing the entire world (I actually completed the final 3 worlds all today). I probably won't go for all the Star Coins & Secret Exits, but I'm more than content with that.
Finally reached the end of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 (New 3DS version). It took me a while to get into the game, but overall I really enjoyed it. The story is a bit slow in places, but when the story's at it's best it is truly excellent. The characters are well written, and the game does a great job with character development.
As for gameplay, it took me a long time to get used to the battle system. I'm so used to running around trying to dodge every attack in games, but combat doesn't work like that in Xenoblade. Instead it's closer to a turn based RPG, where you need to decide what attacks to do and when. It took a while to figure out a good flow to battling.
There were a few minor issues I had with this game. Firstly, the side quests. There are a huge number of side quests, but a lot of them were boring or tedious. Most of them were either just killing a few enemies or finding some items. Secondly, buying new equipment gets annoying. It involves too much back and forth switching from the shop menu to your equipment menu to compare new items with your old items, and then further switching to equip the new item you just bought and sell the old item.
Thirdly, the game was alright at guiding the player along the path and teaching the player the basics, but there's plenty of things that could have been clearer. For instance, I don't recall it ever mentioning that you can trade items with NPCs, and I was a long way into the game before I realised that was possible. Also, it was confusing what attacks could and couldn't be blocked when you see a future vision.
Overall I'd say that Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is great, though that's mainly due to the brilliant story. The gameplay was alright, but I didn't think it was that amazing.
Persona 5. Finally reached the credits after getting the bad ending. I'd like to know how I could have avoided getting killed off by the big bad and get a better ending, but I'm not going to look online for the solution. Likewise I'll avoid looking up what other endings there are. It'll be much more fun to figure it out for myself whenever I eventually feel like replaying this or getting P5R. Edit: Never mind, I had one idea of how to advance, and it looks like it's going to help, so I'll give it a try another day.
Persona 5 is easily in my top two PS4 games, not sure whether this is my favourite or Nier Automata. It's also my favourite game that involves battling strange creatures and trying to get them to join your team, yes I enjoyed this even more than my favourite Pokemon game Soul Silver. I really enjoyed my time with this game.
Things I loved about this: the characters, the story, the general look and feel of the game, and the wonderful soundtrack.
There's very little I disliked about Persona 5. If I had to pick something then the story occasionally drags on a bit too much, and at certain points of the game I would have liked more battling and exploration of dungeons.
@Ralizah I got a different ending that involved whether or not you give out specific information at the end of the interrogation.
Initially I assumed it would be like Shin Megami Tensei where by the time you get a bad ending it's way too late to go back and make changes. At first I thought I failed because confidants weren't high enough or something. That's why I thought I was done with this game, but some nagging doubt in the back of my mind made me go back and try out the last bit again with a different choice.
@Ralizah Yeah I'm there. In that case I'm going to be enjoying Persona 5 for a while yet.
I've been underestimating the length of games a lot recently. With Xenoblade Chronicles 1 I was saying that I was very close to the end since about halfway through that game.
@Ralizah Thanks for the detailed writeup! I found it really interesting since you're one of the first people I've seen who seems to agree with my opinion on the game. I bought Okami HD last summer and being a huge Zelda fan thought I'd adore it, but I just couldn't get into it. The pacing was really weird, the dungeons were painfully linear with all of the puzzle solutions being incredibly easy, the general combat was mindless and, most of all, I despised Issun. The game was charming and gorgeous, but it just wasn't enough to get me through it, so I stopped playing at the point when you go inside the emperor's mouth, which I assume is roughly halfway through the game? I'll probably finish it at some point because I hate leaving games without seeing all they have to offer, but I felt like I'd played enough for me to justifiably feel disappointed, and that the game had been overhyped as "a masterpiece"
@crimsontadpoles To be fair, these games are pretty inordinately long, even by JRPG standards. My first playthrough of Persona 5 took roughly 115 hours to see to completion.
@BranJ0 Yeah, I think the game's reputation skates by so smoothly largely because of the incredible presentation, and because it was the only really Zelda-esque experience on the PS2. I've heard people refer to it as "the best Zelda game" only half-ironically. The thing about traditional Zelda games, though, is that the spectacular dungeons are crucial setpieces and are largely what those games are remembered for. Breath of the Wild was able to get away with sub-par big dungeons both because the majority of the focus was on adventuring outside in the larger, more open world of Hyrule and because there are a ton of mini-dungeons found throughout that feature enemies and puzzles that'd normally be found in larger dungeons anyway (although I actually think the Divine Beasts are still better than the dungeons in this game, because they're still creative and actually designed like big, interconnected puzzles). Okami's overworld segments are designed like those in ordinary Zelda games, though, so it feels like a big part of that equation is missing when the big setpieces are gone or scaled-back to the point where they hardly even stick in the memory.
I'd say you quit a little over halfway through the game. I don't regret beating it, but I do think its reputation is largely undeserved (except, again, for remarks about the presentation).
@Ralizah I would agree with you for the most part that the dungeons are huge setpieces that you mainly remember, but I find it interesting that I adored wind waker, the game with by far the worst and most linear dungeons in zelda history. I can't quite pinpoint what it is about wind waker that makes me love it so much that is missing in Okami.
If I was a bit halfway then I'll probably finish Okami at some point this summer then, if only because having it sat unfinished on my switch dashboard is driving me mad!
@BranJ0 The design of most of Wind Waker's dungeons are still quite a bit better than the majority of dungeons in Okami. Tower of the Gods and the Earth Temple are both pretty good Zelda dungeons, and I quite like the Forsaken Fortress. I can't think of anything similarly strong in Okami HD. There's a dungeon near the end that is... decent. It's almost like a real Zelda dungeon. But it's the only one, and it only sticks out to me because of how much better it is than the dungeons throughout the rest of the game.
Additionally, while both allow you to use tools you've gained to access secrets in the overworld, Wind Waker gives you a seamless, open ocean to explore, whereas Okami is segmented into several distinct zones.
You can explore in Wind Waker without constantly being ripped away to a separate battle screen, like in Okami.
The characters in TWW are fun, charming, and often memorable. Not so in Okami.
@Ralizah Haha, that pinpoints it quite nicely! I actually am not a big fan of the earth temple (mirror is annoying to control and the puzzles for it are very simple, design is quite boring and the boss is pretty uninspired) but I LOVE the wind temple, so that makes up for it. I'll look forward to the one good dungeon in Okami then as well when I finally get round to finishing it off
I started the very first BioShock about a week ago, and finished it today. It definitely is quite a good game. I didn't fall in love with it as many seem to have done, but I can't deny that it kept constantly kept me interested and wanting more. Unfortunately the big twist was already spoiled for me way ahead of time, so that may have eliminated some of the real story impact in my experience. In addition, I did find it hard to really follow the story and lore. This is completely on me, but I'm not someone who is easily invested in storytelling by tapes, which is pretty much what BioShock went for for most of it's run. I'm definitely more of a sit-back-and-relax-while-watching-a-cutscene kind of person. Because of that, I did need to make a big effort to really follow what was going on, and even then I'm not quite sure I've properly understood all the dynamics and character relationships. I still don't know what Diane McClintock's deal is supposed to be, really.
Luckily, a lot of the storytelling was also in it's environments, which to me is really where the game shines. The levels in this game were expertly crafted and filled to the brink with detail. It was a real pleasure to explore every nook and cranny in this world, even if the underlying concept of Rapture itself wasn't all that interesting to me. Fort Frolic was probably my favourite level in the game, thanks to it's great atmosphere and fantastic antagonist. It's a shame he was only in there for one level (and a cameo later on), because he might be my favourite character in the entire game. Everything about him was just so refreshing in a depressing world like Rapture, and the level itself was beautifully decorated with all kinds of fun things.
The Big Daddies were truly terrifying at first, but once I figured out that either using Electric Gel or Exploding Bucks was the most effective tactic, they lost a lot of their tension. I did also run into the extra little sister glitch, where by (accidentally) avoiding scripted little sister/big daddy events you could get an extra one to spawn and possibly break the game. I had this problem the very first instance it could happen (in Neptune's Bounty), and luckily I looked up why I saved 4/3 sisters and found sound advice to avoid doing that afterwards. Apparently the game will let you have 1 extra sister, but any more and you automatically receive the bad ending. That would've put a real tamper on the entire experience had it happened.
The combat in this case is truly satisfying. I'm not one for experimenting with combat systems in games, and the same happened here. What you give me at the start, I'll use for the entire game. The wrench as well as electric shock is what I used to kill every enemy except Big Daddies, because that would've been an impossible task in their case. Stunning and hitting splicers with a wrench never got old, and I'm sure I there's a lot more fun combinations like that if I had experimented more. Arkham-style combat is usually my favourite (and frankly, the only kind of combat I really enjoy), but this was very well executed.
Overall, I did enjoy BioShock (or I wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to finishing it), but it didn't quite live up to the hype for me. Constantly good, with shades of greatness. I did already start BioShock 2 this evening, and played through the first level. I did prefer the introduction of 2 to 1's introduction, so maybe the second one will end up being somewhat more up my alley. I do enjoy the thought of playing as a Big Daddy, even though the Big Sisters are already annoying the hell out of me. The entire concept of Big Sisters feels cheap and like they were simply trying to get a new enemy on the level of Big Daddies in the laziest way possible, but maybe I'll be proven wrong later on. Being closer to the Little Sisters might help me become more emotionally invested in the second one, which is a component I was missing to the first one. I never felt challenged emotionally by the first one whatsoever, except for the one time you had to escort a Little Sister. I suppose I'll see!
Ok guys I had to go through and delete a few posts here. Keep in mind when posting in this thread
Stay clear of posting a review and rating games (1 out of 10 that sort of thing) which is against the rules here if your post comes off as a review I will edit/delete it.
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If this just becomes a user review posting thread then I will have no choice but to lock this thread.
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RetiredPush Square Moderator and all around retro gamer.
What an ordeal. Great game, it's very nearly up there with the Soulsborne games for me. The only thing holding it back really is the repetitive enemy design. You're basically fighting the same enemies all the way through the game. The standard enemies I mean - the boss designs are exceptional across the board. I can't remember a bad one. Great game. I'm glad it's over.
No way I'm going for the platinum, kudos to anyone who has it.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@Thrillho I must admit I started letting the side missions slide a bit towards the end. And yeah those skeleton wheels are real prats. Just as bad as the ones in Dark Souls. I'm yet to see a skeleton wheel enemy in a game that isn't annoying. Skeleton wheels must be pretty angry with how they've been represented in gaming up to this point.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@Gremio108@Thrillho Cheers to you both, as I have just started this game. I'm only in the third main mission now, so haven't encountered any wheels yet!
Decided to gift myself that game for beating Virtues Last Reward, which was quite an investment. It took me over 30 hours to get all the different endings, woah.
I liked the game, although I felt that 999's story tree design was stronger. Some of the endings felt more like ticking boxes than anything.
I loved the approach with regards to the theme of time travel, though. And I generally though the escape room were on par with, if not better than, those in 999.
I also liked how they went overboard with the metaphysics; that became really over the top towards the end, but it served its purpose.
I do feel that the character development wasn't as strong. Sigma was a very well rounded character, and I liked Luna and Phi too, but a lot of the others never became more to me than their respective roles. Try to name one other trait of Quark besides 'being a kid'. And I also thought Junpei didn't act in line with his personality in 999. I could go on about the characters, but bottom line is I just wished there was a bit more depth to them as persons.
Aside from that and the fact that I wouldn't have minded the game being a bit shorter, I had a jolly good time with the sequel. Now I am standing for my next dilemma.
I am online trophy removed from the platinum in this game, but unfortunately it's a missable one, so I'll have to start over. I want that plat, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it..
Decided to gift myself that game for beating Virtues Last Reward, which was quite an investment. It took me over 30 hours to get all the different endings, woah.
Out of curiousity, did you stop at "END or BEGINNING" (i.e. the canonical true ending to the game), or did you go for the "Another Time" bonus ending as well?
Because, if you didn't go for the bonus ending, I won't discuss it.
I liked the game, although I felt that 999's story tree design was stronger. Some of the endings felt more like ticking boxes than anything.
A fair criticism, although, given the structure of the game, I'm not sure how it could have been avoided. It is one of my bigger criticisms of the game, though: the initial rush you get when you're first playing the game and are forced to play mind games with other people in the AB Room gives way to "box ticking" as you peck around for other strands to continue unraveling the game's complex knitting.
Given the focus on exploring the consequences of your actions in different timelines, though, I tend to think of it as a sort of spandrel in the game design: a necessary by-product that arises when you combine other aspects of the game together. I can think of ways around this issue, of course, but they all affect the fundamental design and flow of the game itself, so that's no good. A lot of what I love about the game would change in that case. I'd prefer a flawed design that I love to a tighter, less flawed design that isn't as ambitious and engaging.
Although it could be argued that it's not a flaw at all, but a fundamental aspect of the game's evolution as an experience. Consider that Sigma, at the beginning of the game, has no conscious awareness of his deep experience with and connection to morphogenetic tunneling (i.e. the consciousness jumping to different instances of himself in different timelines). The AB game is this intense game of the prisoner's dilemma that he's been forced into, and he doesn't understand the purpose for it or any way to deal with it. Similarly, the player kind of has to blindly make choices about whether to trust or betray the people they've spent time around. In a move that deliberately identifies the player with the character, though, the action of "box ticking" different endings in our universe is the in-game equivalent of Sigma bouncing between timelines, looking for ways to escape his situation. This is addressed explicitly when the game reveals that the timeline manipulation game mechanic is actually a 4D look at what Sigma has actually been experiencing throughout the game. Characters remember things that the player has done previously, further demolishing the barrier between the ludic elements of the game and the experience of the character within the game itself. Granted, other games have satirized, subverted, and or played with the idea of ludonarrative dissonance, but I don't think I've ever played a game that so completely both disintegrated it and made that disintegration an integral part of the game (and experience of the game) itself.
I loved the approach with regards to the theme of time travel, though. And I generally though the escape room were on par with, if not better than, those in 999.
VLR has the best escape room design in the series, imo. There's more of them, and they're often a good deal more elaborate than anything found in 999/ZTD.
I do feel that the character development wasn't as strong. Sigma was a very well rounded character, and I liked Luna and Phi too, but a lot of the others never became more to me than their respective roles. Try to name one other trait of Quark besides 'being a kid'. And I also thought Junpei didn't act in line with his personality in 999. I could go on about the characters, but bottom line is I just wished there was a bit more depth to them as persons.
Putting aside the fact that Uchikoshi isn't exactly known for the amazing character writing in his work (they're OK, but I don't think the casts of these games are exactly unforgettable, y'know?), I found some of the characterization choices interesting. Particularly with Sigma, who is... well... an a-hole. He's often rude, selfish, excessively vulgar, and don't even get me started on the times he almost randomly starts sexually harrassing the girls around him. It must be an experience playing the game today in that regard, considering the blatant harrassment made me incredibly uncomfortable even when I was playing it back in 2012. And there was none of the consciousness-raising about how women are treated in the news back then. Feminist talking points weren't nearly as commonplace as they are now. I guess all I'll say in that regard is that, from what I can recall, the other characters usually reacted with anger and/or disgust when he did this (his perviness must have been even creepier for them when you consider what HE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE), and the behavior isn't.... unexpected given the fact that he's mentally a late teens/early 20s college bro who was clearly never taught to respect women as people. I can dig a game where the protagonist is an extremely flawed and often unlikeable individual, but, considering the game never really addresses that behavior in a broader way, I do wish it wasn't present in the game. Especially since I could see it turning off a lot of people from what I consider to be an incredible unique and well-crafted experience.
RE: Junpei... considering how much older he is in this game, and how much crazy stuff he's seen, it doesn't surprise me that his behavior is different. Same with Akane. If Junpei's characterization bothered you in this game, though, all I can say is that I'm eager to see how you react to how he is portrayed (in much, much younger form) in Zero Time Dilemma.
Aside from that and the fact that I wouldn't have minded the game being a bit shorter, I had a jolly good time with the sequel.
The game absolutely has a terminal case of what might be termed "scope sprawl," but that's part of what I loved about it. 999 is a tightly-crafted thriller where the characters hardly ever have room to breathe, so to speak, and the game's focus is primarily on one central mystery. VLR, on the other hand, does an extensive amount of worldbuilding, crafts an intricate metaphysical system around its complex nest of mysteries, and, oftentimes, just slows down to allow the characters to discuss stuff. A game without scope sprawl likely wouldn't feature a scene where a robot with a cockney accent talks at length about Searlian thought experiments about the nature of consciousness, for example.
I am online trophy removed from the platinum in this game, but unfortunately it's a missable one, so I'll have to start over. I want that plat, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it..
What trophy? VLR doesn't have any missable trophies (how could it?), and online resources are informing me that this is true for the Nonary Games collection as a whole.
@Ralizah Thanks for the reply. Great as always. I'll try to address most of your points.
1. I did all of the extra endings. Though I must say that those extra endings confused the heck out of me. Are they important for the next game, like the ending in 999 was?
2. I totally get the concept of the game is why this game felt a little repetitive and long at some points, and why sometimes it felt like my choices were insignificant, as I would have to make the other choice as well to get all the endings. All the same sometimes it resulted in some truly magical moments too, for instance the first time when you make a different choice in the AB game, but your opponent does as well. You completely share that moment of disbelief with Sigma, which was pretty cool.
I get that it's kind of a trade off too. It often is in game design, that trade off between fun and the pay off. Like now with Nioh too. Some of the game design choices are downright frustrating, but they're there for a reason too. Wouldn't want to have it any other way.
3. I totally should have made my appreciation for the escape room more clear: I love them. Also, love how at the start of every room I would feel some anxiety: will I be able to finish this without a guide, it looks so complex. But I would always be able to manage quite well.
4. I agree that Sigma has some weird lines, and I feel like the game would have been better off without them. Still, I didn't minded it too much, because the woman characters in the game were the best developed characters and the smartest too.
5. I always liked the long winded conversations. The Chinese room stuff, etc cetera. That never felt too long. But the parts where they were exploring all rooms in between AB games, often felt unnessecary. And was pretty repetitive.
6. The trophy I still need is from 999. I know all guides say it's 'not missable' but it actually is. I accidentally got the real ending in 999 after only two or three playthroughs. I never got the worst possible ending. Thing is, I can't get it anymore, because once you have unlocked a certain branch, you can't go down the 'bad' path anymore, unless you replay the game.
So, that's definitely a missable. It feels kinda like a punishment for making the right choices the first time around.
7. Closing comment: I really liked VLR. I sometimes think I might sound too dismissive or negative talking about games here online. That's me being insecure, because I'm not a native English speaker. So, yes, really liked this game.
Re 1: The hidden ending is never addressed in the sequel. Uchikoshi says this is because the scene was supposed to be an "extra" for the fans who thoroughly completed it, but considering how narratively dense the scene is, that explanation doesn't really fly with me. Considering how... unrealized... ZTD feels compared to previous games in the series, my guess is that he abandoned that narrative thread for some reason..
Re 3: The design of the rooms is interesting, as you have to kind of combine a bunch of smaller problems or puzzles with a larger guiding theme to make them feel integrated. It's like walking a tightrope between Professor Layton and The Witness, so to speak.
Re 5: I have often wondered how many of the hours I spent playing that game were actually consisted of watching a dot slowly move across a map of the facility. There's undoubtedly, you're right, a ton of padding that makes the game feel bulkier than it needs to.
Re 6: Oof! That sucks. If you clear the game data, does the remake give you the option to skip text by default? If you could fast-forward your way through the early parts of the game, it might make obtaining the trophy more bearable.
Reminds me of Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir. I played the heck out of that game and got the majority of the trophies (44/47 non-platinum trophies), but I deleted it without realizing, at the time, that doing so also deletes save data (I played on PS Vita), and I didn't subscribe to PSN at the time. So now I'm blocked out from the platinum because I didn't find one or two recipes and texts.
Hell if I'm going back to it just for trophies, though. I completed it in every sense that actually matters.
Re 7: Nothing wrong with being critical about games. It allows you to accept their flaws while also more fully understanding what they did right.
Also, I know insecurities aren't typically what you would call rational in nature, but you're one of the most articulate people on this forum. I'd NEVER guess English wasn't your first language. It's really impressive how fully you've mastered it (in written form, anyhow).
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