Topic: Games you've recently beat

And Claudia Black - who makes everything better!

@crimsontadpoles I'm not surprised to hear you echo a familiar reaction to Iceborne, namely that you reach a point where you've just played the game enough, and wanna give it a break. Your point about feeling pushed towards multiplayer also reminds me of my solo experience with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, a game designed around the concept of teaming up with friends in order to take down boss mechs with neverending health bars. Funnily enough, it includes a Monster Hunter crossover level as an Easter Egg, too! Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself regardless.

@Rudy_Manchego Eek; hope you're fully recovered soon, buddy. Glad you were at least able to use your downtime productively and enjoy a decent game!

I've just recently finished Death Stranding sinking a solid 50 hours into it, excellent game. I also just finished off The Last Guardian after picking it up in the sale, it was a rather janky experience but a fun little adventure none the less.

Yesterday I beat Donut County (and platinumed it, really easy).

It was a nice game to play in between some other games. Even though at times it felt hardly like a game at all and more like an interactive experience. And I don't mean that as something I am holding against the game, although some others probably will. I really liked it when it evoked a sense of wonder - and the game could have benefited for even more moments like that.

It's definitely a game I would recommend to kids. Looking back that might be the game's target audience after all. To me, it was nice, but not ambitious enough to be extremely memorable.

@Kidfried Thanks for writing up your thoughts. I'd always been vaguely interested in this because, as you say, it seemed like a delightful stop-gap game for enjoyment between bigger releases (and it's currently a fiver in the PSN sale). I've nothing against light-touch gameplay, and am basically a big kid who giggled at its reverse-katamari concept anyway, so might give it a try.

@RogerRoger Thanks!

@Rudy_Manchego Sounds ace. It's not a genre I'm that comfortable with as I can't ever get proper combos going either, but this actually sounds quite accessible. I did complete Devil May Cry 4 and enjoyed it despite finding it rather tough. And the dafter the story the better with these types of games!

@Kidfried I'd not heard of that before. It sounds like a pretty chill experience to break things up a bit.

Beat DOOM (the old one) and Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair on Switch Lite.

By the time I have reviews of those posted, I'll likely have also beaten DOOM II: Hell on Earth on PC and Clock Tower 3 on the PS2.

Oooh nice @Ralizah! I look forward to reading those sometime soon! That Yooka-Laylee one in particular as it sounds like a neat little platformer.

Clock Tower is the horror series with the Scissorman in right? I think I've watched playthroughs of all those. Going by the western version of the releases I think only the "first" and third came to the UK.

The first is soooooooo expensive it's crazy (Like £200 for a copy)... Plus that english dub is soooooo bad it's hilarious 😂 (I think three had a decent-ish dub though)

-EDIT- I also haven't seen you in a while round here (Though I think that's partially cus of myself as well not being here so much), so nice to see you're doing ok!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah, I was pretty happy with the new Yooka-Laylee. It's a really decent little DKC-esque platformer.

The Clock Tower series has had a weird release history in the West. The SNES original never made it overseas (although English-patched ROMs are easy enough to procure online), Clock Tower 2 was renamed "Clock Tower," Clock Tower: Ghost Head was renamed "Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within," but, thankfully, by the time Clock Tower 3 released, those shenanigans were history (as was the Clock Tower series after CT3, lol!). Going by the English names, Clock Tower 1 and 3 are easy enough to find, but CTII is INSANELY expensive online.

I'd like to say that CT3 shed the terrible, B-movie voice acting of its predecessors, but... well... it didn't. It's also an aggressively weird game. I'll have fun writing about it.

But, yes, the first two games revolved around you being chased by a short dude with garden shears.

It's good to finally talk to you again! Been keeping busy?

Confession time... I've never played a Donkey Kong game. Not even the Mario based ones!

In fact I don't think I've seen any of them... 😂

I bet it's not PAL versions of Rule Of Rose expensive. That game is like £1000 or so as you can only get super rare review copies thanks to Italy causing it to be banned in Europe.

Especially short As it is an eight-ten year old kid who's the Scissorman if I remember right?

I honestly don't remember a whole lot about the series though as it was forever ago when I saw playthroughs of them. I look forward to seeing your eventual Clock Tower 3 review as I know it'll be a hoot!

Is Haunting Ground(s?) a psuedo sequel to Clock Tower or completely unrelated aside from the "Stalker" gameplay? Hell is it even the same company?

Mmm hmm! I admit I slacked off a bit with my lesson planning over the christmas break... as I always sadly do (Only a little mind, but still needed to get ahead a little on that 😅).

Plus just getting back into that teaching routine always takes me a good week or two after a term break to really get into the groove. Especially after Christmas.

Plus I think those kids gave me a cold or summet... But I'm good otherwise (... And should REALLY be sleeping at this point)

Oh, wow. That's... hard to imagine.

No. Although Rule of Rose, even having not been banned over here, still costs $250, at minimum, to obtain physically, it seems.

Shantae on the GBC also costs a few hundred dollars, even for just the cartridge.

In the original SNES one. In Clock Tower on PS1, it's a ten year old kid.

It's rumored to have started development as Clock Tower 4 before becoming its own original IP. No relation to Clock Tower otherwise.

Although Clock Tower 3 seems to have little to no connection to previous games in the series, either, so, in a way, it's Clock Tower in everything but name.

I have a friend who teaches at a small university, and she's ALWAYS swamped with planning and work at the beginning of the year.

@LaJettatura I'm more of a solo player, so probably not. However, I imagine Monster Hunter would be better when playing together with a few friends.

@mookysam Oh I think if you have it on basic difficulty you can get a lot of fun without any frustration.

Wow that was a total 180° compared to your impressions last week @KratosMD 😂

I think there's a fairly valid (at least in my eyes) reason why SR IV is a bit shakey.

THQ getting shut down.

No doubt that played a huge part in Saint's Row 4's development.

Maybe Deep Silver asked for a quicker turnaround on the game to make some of the money back they spent buying Volition?

Could be why it uses the modified Steelport and reuses a number of assets from the Third entry.

You may've not actually seen me say that after your posts about SR4 (Ryall asked me about the DLC's) But yeah Enter the Dominatrix was the original idea for 4 when it was going to be an expansion for SR III before it was expanded upon.

Again we won't truly know the reasons that course of action was taken.

The side missions are lacklustre though (... I don't recall the third having any though) and I totally agree on your thoughts the DLC.

I personally disagree that Saints Row The Third being better myself (I find the gang stuff in that particularly boring) and I'd say 4 has some better writing and is a bit more mature overall then 3 but that's just me of course

@KratosMD you recommended we drop everything to play this game and now you’re disappointed by it!! Damn you!!!

Not to mention you get the superpowers waaaaaaaay too early.

I'll definitely agree on the buff being a bit boring and the death from above and dash shield thing being pointless.

Again maybe the development cycle caused it be a bit more unpolished and unbalanced then it could/should've been!

I haven't played Gat Outta Hell so i'll be interested to hear what you think down the line! @KratosMD.

I can honestly say I'm so glad I'm a primary school teacher not a Uni/College prof. 😅

I was wondering if we should change forum topic to reply in now though @Ralizah

I actually spent the past two hours (alongside replying to Kratos) looking up Clock Tower, Haunting Grounds and Rule Of Rose due to our discussion yesterday.

Maaaaaan I forgot how f**king (Yeah I'm not even gonna say fudge here) dark Rule of Rose was!

I think I only read the Wiki page about it though before... watched a thirty minute video about the game earlier and it really hit me hard (I thought I'd watched a playthrough of it but apparently not... must've just been the Clock Towers)

Stilllllll not worth £200+ though (I found some cheaper offers, most of those are from germany or france) One "UK PAL" sealed copy though was on offer for £2,500. That's ludicrous. 😂

I was suprised though to find that Haunting Grounds is suprisingly quite cheap here (I thought it was quite the rare commodity here too). £15 for a sealed copy. Was actually considering it as the alchemy theme surrounding the survival horror sounds neat... though I'm pretty bad at pursuing enemies and makes me anxious as hell actually playing them!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I think Rule of Rose is that expensive in the UK because of all the panic surrounding its contents. IIRC, the game was actually cancelled over here so there won’t be too many copies flying about.

There we go, Resi 7 beat. I’ll probably jump into the DLCs now as I’ve heard they’re pretty good. Overall, Resi 7 was seriously great. Probably an 8 as I do think it was a tad linear and the final boss.... existed.

the last guardian yesterday.

a frustrating game tnx to the controls but still a special game.

ending hit me in the heart to.