@Ralizah I thought Sayonara Umihara Kawase was alright, but has its flaws. It gets repetitive, and the difficulty spikes and insane toughness of a few levels make it very tedious in places.
Very well done on completing stage 46 and beating that horrific boss. That's my most attempted stage with 95 failures before I gave up on it.
Somehow I managed to complete 46/50 stages and get 3/5 endings, though I've forgotten most of the game by now.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Oh yes, I definitely have stuff I want to say about DDS. I don't know that it'll be one of my favorite MegaTen games, but it is interesting nonetheless.
@crimsontadpoles LOL I know I'm going to see that stupid crab in my nightmares at some point.
Stage 33 was also pretty hellish. There's almost nowhere to land that isn't covered in spikes. Ugh.
The funny thing is that I probably skipped a number of much easier stages when quitting after stage 46, but, by that point, it had just drained the life out of me.
The most painful thing is almost finishing a stage and then screwing up as you're about done.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy The meta commentary of the twist is definitely very well done. The full impact of the twist was definitely lessened for me, but the actual reveal scene is incredibly well done. "A slave obeys, a man chooses" is going to stick with me for a while. Incredibly written and directed, that scene.
The self-contained story of Minerva's Den being a step away from the more critically maligned BioShock 2 might have been a big factor in it's initial praise, indeed. I hadn't thought of that. I just think it's a very by the numbers DLC with a clever twist that doesn't really elevate it above solid.
I think it also helps in that Bioshock is not only well written but the casting choices and voice direction for the voice actors was pretty spot on too.
In fact Atlas wasn't going to be Irish apparently!
Originally Atlas had a southern accent that was done by Fontaine's voice actor of Greg Baldwin. However it turned out that play testers weren't that trusting of him
So instead they brought in voice actor Karl Hanover to do Atlas' incredibly friendly sounding and comforting Irish accent
So not only does it help preserve the twist of Fontaine being Atlas, but they ended up making it that much harder to suss out because of it
I await your DDS impressions with bated breath @Ralizah ... The final bonus boss is one tough cookie!
Well I'm eagerly awaiting your Bioshock Infinite impressions @Tjuz !
The Last Guardian. It was alright, but I feel that it could have been better. It's my least favourite out of that, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus.
My main gripe with it is the combat. It was an interesting concept to do the opposite of Ico and have enemies try to take you away while your companion tries to protect you. However, in practice most fights weren't very fun, and just ended up with me running away from enemies or hiding behind Trico while it dealt with the baddies.
Some of the puzzles were okay, but I didn't think they were as good as the ones in Ico or SotC. There wasn't a huge variety of puzzles, as a lot of them involved either getting Trico to jump somewhere, or finding an easily overlooked path for the kid.
My big positive for this game is Trico itself. It's so adorable, and the game does a great job at creating a bond between the player and that loveable creature. I did spend quite a bit of time just interacting with it and petting it.
Overall, I'm glad that I played this game, but I wished the gameplay was a bit more fun.
@crimsontadpoles That was the point of the combat though, you are not supposed feel powerful enough to fight them and are supposed leave that to Trico.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
A trio of impressions for games that I've not beaten, and don't plan on beating. Part of my resolution when committing to tackling my backlog was that, if I really wasn't looking forward to playing more of the game, I wouldn't force myself to play. So... it's a different format. I reckon I finished these games past their halfway points, at least, so I think I've played them enough to discuss them pretty fairly.
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- Title: Crypt of the Necrodancer
Platform: PS4
What is it?: A pixel art indie rouge-like dungeon crawler. What makes it unique is that your character is forced to move to a beat after an encounter with the Necrodancer. All movements are in tune with a beat, including enemies and bosses encountered through the dungeons.
Why Didn't I Beat It: There's this insane difficulty spike in the fourth and final area of the dungeon that I've been stuck on for weeks. Once you get through the dungeon, you have to fight two bosses in a row, too, and if you fail on either of them, you have to try the whole process over again. It's excruciating, and I finally just got fed up. Besides, apparently to fully beat the story, you need to play as another character who dies the instant you miss a beat. I'm NOT doing that.
My Thoughts: I bought this when Cadence of Hyrule was announced, and... honestly, I'm not really impressed. The pixel art is unremarkable. For an ostensibly rhythm based game, the music is utterly forgettable. And, to be honest, the "rhythm" aspect of the gameplay is overrated: you're just forced to move to a beat. Otherwise, it's a really bog-standard indie rougelike, and I don't think it deserves the acclaim it has received.
With that said, I remain somewhat optimistic about the Nintendo crossover. Artists who worked on Sonic Mania are doing the pixel art for that game, and it shows, because it's a MUCH prettier game than this one, and I'm sure the inclusion of remixed Zelda music will make it nicer to listen to. Hopefully the gameplay balance is adjusted somewhat so that the final stretch of the game is fairer to the player.
What is it?: A unique JRPG with a constantly shifting cast where you play as this clan of people cursed to age quickly and die after a couple of years. They're unable to reproduce with other humans, but you can both adopt people into your clan as well as reproducing with a veritable harem of male and female gods. You have to manage your family tree and make sure you have a constant stream of new clan members "in the oven," so to speak, so that you always have people to take out and advance the game through dungeon exploration.
Why Didn't I Beat It: Two reasons. First, the strict time limits on everything kind of wore on me. You can only advance the plot if you happen to find a portal to a demon realm, where you'll fight a boss, hidden in the depths of one of the dungeons once every year. The rest of the year is just composed of child-rearing, base-building (you can gradually upgrade your town), and training up your newest batch of soldiers to take on the next boss before they die. This was fine on its own, but then the game decided to go and force you, 1/3 of the way in, to have a particular re-incarnated goddess named Nueko in your party whenever you want to fight a boss. This throws off the rhythm of the gameplay, and, honestly, the more the game starts shifting to focus on Nueko, the more it devalues the contributions of your own clan members. It made me feel like my clan was nothing more than a disposable set of body-guards for Nueko, who was the real target of interest in the game. Anyway, after this became the norm for the game, I lost interest in playing it. I might go back to it someday, but I feel like I've experienced most of what the game has to offer.
My Thoughts: This game is hugely unique, but, at the same time, its utterly unconventional structure has some major issues that made me yearn for more traditional JRPGs. It's frustrating to spend 11 out of 12 months in an in-game year feeling like I'm just burning time until the next boss battle arrives. I like the base-building and child-rearing elements, but they don't feel fleshed out enough to justify the way it's set up. There's virtually no overarching plot chaining the experience together. You get little bits of dialogue and some cutscenes when the time comes to nab another one of the divine instruments at a demon feast, but otherwise you're running through the same cycle of dungeon crawling and (pricey) reproduction through the rest of the year. Now, I'm a gameplay-focused sort of gamer, and if this had the sort of depth you typically see in something like... Diablo, or a Souls game, then I could mostly forgive the absence of an overarching plot. But there are only a small number of dungeons in this game, and they're all tiny (which they kind of have to be, given the limited amount of time you have to explore: each month in the dungeon is ten or twenty minutes in real time). Even more damning is the absence of any real design in them. Some areas are locked off by keys, but the keys you need to unlock doors in that dungeon might not even be found in that dungeon, making is so that you have no guarantee of progressing further in a given run. These dungeons are also slowly unlocked over the course of the game as you retrieve more of the instruments, meaning that you'll spend a ton of time in this game effectively grinding the same sets of floors in the same few dungeons over and over to level up your characters, gain badly needed devotion, and, sadly enough, kill time between boss fights that progress the story.
The localization is another weak area for this title. Despite the relatively small amount of dialogue to parse, I still noticed a number of examples of broken English. It's as if the game itself was translated by non-native speakers.
The best aspect of the game is its presentation. Much like Okami, this game is set in ancient Japan and has a vibrant, cel-shaded look to it, which really makes the environments and characters pop.
One thing, in particular, that I'd like to draw attention to is the animated cutscenes, which are frequently long and incredibly well-animated. The cutscene that starts off the game feel somewhere between five and ten minutes long, and it does a great job of setting the game's tone: a bizarre mix of creative and macabre, which seems to so often be the case with older supernatural mythology.
While there aren't a huge number of interesting characters in this game, I really like KÅchin, a weasel girl (that is, a weasel that is turned transformed into something resembling a human girl) who helps to manage the daily affairs of my clan and who will even recommend courses of action to take on a given month. At the start of the game, when the structure of it seems incredibly open (before you really get a sense of how... limited your options are), going with KÅchin's automated suggestions feels like a massive help. While the character never really grows or evolves over the course of the game, she's cute and gives you a sense of familiarity as your clan members endlessly cycle in and out of your party over the course of many in-game years.
The best thing I can say about the game is that it's utterly unlike anything I've ever played before. Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines is absolutely bursting with strange and novel ideas and mechanics. While the gameplay is too basic in design to support an experience of this length, I do feel like there's a lot of potential here for a more fleshed-out adventure.
Score: 6/10
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- Title: Star Fox Guard
Platform: Wii U
What is it?: A companion game to Star Fox Zero. It's a sort of twist on the tower defense genre where you play as a defense contractor who is hired to help defend a variety of mining bases from attacks by invading armies of robots. You're tasked with setting up various security cameras around the base in the optimal way to detect and intercept the robots before they reach the center of the base.
Why Didn't I Beat It: Got bored with it. While it slowly adds some upgrades and new enemies that behave differently, the gameplay cycle grew old very quickly for me.
My Thoughts: It's difficult to come down hard on this, considering it's just an extra that was originally included with Star Fox Zero. It has a decent amount of content to it in terms of enemy variety and the number of levels included, but it all just feels the same before too long. As a Wii U tech demo, it would have been kind of neat, but this came way too late in the system's lifecycle to feel relevant at all.
Not bad, by any stretch of the imagination. Just kind of boring. Boring enough that I don't want to return to it.
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS4): I managed to get 100% in the game, with all crystals and gems. The only trophies I missed are the relic time trials and the 99 lives trophies, which I don't want to do.
It was good fun, just like the first game. The difficulty seemed much better balanced in the this game. There's still plenty of tough levels and getting some of the gems is very challenging, but thankfully it doesn't have much in the way of super tough infuriating levels that the first game had (I'm looking at you The High Road). Lining up some of the jumps in Crash 2 could be a bit tricky at times due to the camera view, but other than that the difficulty was just right.
There was a good variety of levels, each of which generally felt distinct and creative. The level design was mostly very well done. I didn't think that boss levels weren't that great in Crash 2. Bosses seemed to be too easy this time around, and none of them took more than a few tries for me to complete.
Another minor annoyance for me was the secret entrances to some levels. There isn't much indication that secret entrances exists, so it meant that I wasted a lot of time trying to find missing gems or crates in a level, unaware that it was actually impossible to get them without entering via a different route. Also, having nitro crates occasionally bounce up when trying to jump over them is pure evil.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. It's one of the better platformers on the PS4.
@crimsontadpoles I completely agree with everything you said there. Itās an improvement on the first game in almost every way but the boss levels are pretty pathetic.
The third game feels like a bit of a drag and has too many novelty levels. Iād definitely suggest having a break before playing it so it doesnāt feel too similar to the second game.
Edit: I also couldnāt be bothered with the time trial or 99 lives trophies either.
Finally finished dark souls remastered. Great game, only part i didnt like was giants tomb place, almost quit while playing that area. Not because it was too hard but because it just wasnt very fun. Now on to DS2.
@ellsworth004 Tomb of the Giants is an absolute horror. When people say the first game is the best, I think they're forgetting about this whole area. And I don't blame them.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
My save file reads a little over 76 hours. I believe it. A little while ago, I laughed my way through the genius end credits from the Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition and with those last few lines from Cassandra, my journey finally came to an end.
As somebody vehemently opposed to fantasy, my surprise adoration of the previous two Dragon Age games has been logged elsewhere in the PS3 forum, but nothing could have prepared me for the Inquisition on PS4. Whilst I cannot stand and call it my favourite of BioWare's epic trilogy, I can readily admit to being hooked every minute of that ridiculous runtime. I haven't cared this much about a new world and a new set of characters since Mass Effect and seeing everything come to a triumphant, yet foreboding, conclusion in the Trespasser DLC was definitely a highlight.
Because I've gotta be honest, the core game ended on a bit of a bum note. For all the sweeping majesty of the vast locations, giant enemy encounters and narrative complexity seeped in lore, the "final" boss fight against Corypheus and his pet dragon was something of a disappointment. Maybe they knew DLC would offer a proper ending later on, I'm not sure, but I was advised to raise the difficulty one level, to make it seem more of a challenge and give it more weight. I was glad I did because for all the apocalyptic crescendo, it seemed slightly hollow. If sixty hours (minimum!) all boils down to a relatively-straightforward six-minute button-mashing, you can put it on as many floating mountains as you want but it's still not quite gonna work. In hindsight, it seems like things were all a bit hurried along to reach the final post-credits twist quicker.
Speaking of that final twist, let's mention Inquisition's attempt to replicate the genius of Anders from DAII. This time, there were two shock reveals about your squadmates; unfortunately, the revelations regarding Blackwall and Solus fell desperately short of the power and narrative perfection achieved in the previous game. This is probably because Blackwall and Solus are the most soul-crushingly dull characters before you discover the truth about them. Was there really that much backlash against Anders? Would it have alienated players if they cared about the people who lied to and / or betrayed them? I don't know the answers to those questions. All I know is that I nearly missed Blackwall's storyline entirely because I was ready to finish the game without having spoken to him enough to trigger his confession; I had to be told to go see him before facing Corypheus. I did like how things unfolded from that point, and loved how we, the audience, knew more about Solus than our avatar did (until Trespasser, of course) but because I didn't care for either man, it was less of a "Holy crap!" moment and more of an "Oh, really? That's neat, I guess."
Maybe romance made all the difference. I'll go right ahead and say it; my Inquisitor picked the wrong guy. Getting cosy with The Iron Bull was a bit of an experiment, especially having seen enough of Dorian's insulting, cookie-cutter backstory... but no, here was a chance to forge a relationship with somebody significantly different from my previous BioWare romance options (Kaiden Alenko, Gil Brodie, Zevran and Anders) who had a totally divergent personality and came from a unique, well-defined culture. Alas, it went in some seriously bizarre directions which I didn't appreciate, but it did also lead to the single most hilarious scene in videogame history, so I slightly forgave it for that. By then, however, the damage had been done.
I did like how the Trespasser DLC seemed to realise this, though, and subsequently softened some of the romance-specific moments; they were much more in-line with what I'd hoped for, even if it was too little, too late. In previous BioWare games, mistakes like that have been relatively easy to correct. You can blast through a story-only run in twenty hours and see the romance you missed, but here? No chance. Many would call that the fault of the "power" system, blocking off major story quests until you've tidied up enough of each crowded map to gain access. I didn't hate that system at all, but I can see how it'd become the bane of an attempted replay. Perhaps that's why I didn't force myself to clear every single journal item before I considered the game "complete enough" to finish. It'll leave me other things to do in future visits, especially when you add on the two substantial chunks of DLC (a third, The Descent, will never be played again because of its disgustingly-unnecessary difficulty spike; a rare misstep in an otherwise well-balanced and enjoyable game).
This all sounds like I'm being really harsh and negative, but I'm not; rather, I'm getting specific because I genuinely care about these characters and this revelatory experience. Consider the amount of time spent playing the game. Consider that the above examples are a handful of characters and experiences in a world of hundreds. Folk like Varric, Cassandra, Josephine, Cole, Sera, Cullen, Krem, Leliana, Harding, Dagna, Vivienne... heck, even The Iron Bull, Blackwall and Solus, all of them had powerful moments that endeared them to me immeasurably. Stopping to re-create Hayden Hawke from DAII and seeing him fight alongside Alistair from Origins was the unprecedented and unparalleled cherry on an already-sumptuous cake (even if I didn't get his face quite right).
At first, I was unimpressed with my Inquisitor, Jayden Trevelyan (who spoke with the American accent, for the record). Probably because my sarcastic Hayden Hawke from DAII had been written so perfectly, he'd felt like a fellow squadmate rather than an avatar for my personality, and there's something to be said for that approach. I even think I prefer it on balance, but I've grown to appreciate the beauty of Inquisition's finely-tuned dialogue system. By the end, there was this zen-like symbiosis between my input and Jayden's emerging personality, to the point where his admission of "I don't want to die" near the end of Trespasser made me cry because I'd been thinking the exact same thing at exactly the same moment. I usually miss the supporting cast of these kinds of games when they're over, but I never "miss" the central character because they're supposed to be me. After this, I think I'm really gonna miss Jayden. I'm gonna feel empty not checking in with him on a regular basis.
And that's so weird for me to say, because every single "big" game I've ever played (so anything that's over twelve hours) has subdued my enthusiasm at least once. When I was halfway through the near-perfect Horizon: Zero Dawn there were a couple days where you couldn't have paid me to pick up my DualShock; it's just how I play games. Throughout all my time with the Inquisition, however, there wasn't a single moment where I was bored. Whenever I was there in Thedas, I was fully engaged. Sure, as I said, I didn't do every single thing in my journal before seeing those end credits, but my feelings about that now are ones of regret. I'm not trying to justify "skipping the padding". And I will play it all again, without hesitation, hopefully to build hype towards Dragon Age 4 (if the game development gods are kind to BioWare).
I'm listening to the soundtrack now, too. Music I've been listening to over and over again for the past month, and I still can't get enough.
This is why I play games.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
I so want to do a massive discussion with ya @RogerRoger but I'm dead tired...
All I'll say for the moment is That music during the final bit of Trespasser when you're truly learning about Solas or rather Fen'heral and his plan... Beautiful , plus I quite like Enchanter, Once we were and Sera Was Never tavern songs!
@RogerRoger Great stuff. I was looking forward to reading your thoughts on Inquisition and they didn't disappoint. The bit with Alistair and Hawke was unbelievable, and the climactic decision unbearable (I went with Hawke - even though I felt a similar attachment to my Hawke as you did to yours, it just felt like the right place for his story to come to an end, whereas it didn't feel right for Alistair).
I'd have to agree with your criticisms. I don't even remember the last boss, and yes, Blackwall is so dull and gruff he makes Sean Bean look like Gloria Estefan. I loved Solus though, but this might be due to watching my wife's playthrough. She romanced him, so you can imagine the rollercoaster of emotions she went through.
One way I felt it did improve on DAII was in fleshing out Cassandra's character. I thought she was brilliant in Inquisition, whereas I found her a bit too straight-laced in II.
Judging from the pics, your main character was eerily similar to mine, he even looked the same, and his name began with J. He was a mage though. I think it's the first and only time I've gone for the mage class in these kind of games, usually I opt for the boring sword-and-shield grunt.
Great game and one I do plan to hopefully replay at some point.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@Gremio108 Yeah, sorry, I forgot to tag you; meant to after you said you'd be interested in my thoughts, even though it took me a while to get through Inquisition!
We do differ in some places. I simply couldn't sacrifice Hawke, even though I felt awful for what happened to Alistair and in retrospect, wished I'd made him king to prevent him from ultimately being in that place. It was a very long pause whilst I made that decision! I can only imagine the intricacy of a Solus romance; I doubt it'd ever be anything I'd go for personally, but rather out of curiosity thanks to some post-credits hindsight. I'll bet your wife was devastated!
Agreed on Cassandra, though; I thought she was adorable in Inquisition. We never really got to know her in DAII, she was there to ask questions and move the storyline along, so when I was told that I'd end up loving her I had my doubts, but she's a firm favourite, for sure.
I only gently tweaked the second-to-last character preset, so yeah, I doubt I'm the most unique-looking Inquisitor out there. Not sure I'd ever go mage, though. I had way too much fun charging at everything with a two-handed axe. I also discovered a rather lovely ability which made me spin like a psychotic dreidel, so I'd run right into the middle of a large group of enemies, cyclone them half to death and then wonder why I was suddenly having to control Dorian or Cole to revive myself. Ah, the joys of playing on casual difficulty... meant I never had to get too fiddly with crafting armour or weapons, either. I could just wear what looked good and keep hitting things on the head with the biggest mallet in my inventory.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and mentally scrub the image of Sean Bean and Gloria Estefan you've kindly shoved into my brain.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
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