Topic: Games you've recently beat

@mookysam Oh lord, Groundskeeper Willie’s dialogue is atrocious in Tomb Raider. The whole game suffers from terrible dialogue, I’d agree with that but I found myself quite enjoying the gameplay and I did get 100%.

@mookysam Cheers! Supernova gets easier the further you get into the game. As you amass XP you end up with more points to play with and higher dialogue-based stats, allowing you to talk your way out of things.

There's a higher emphasis on stealing stuff, or at least there was for me. More money means more opportunities to either a) bribe or b) respec so you can hit that dialogue mark you need to progress easier. Basically avoid conflict wherever possible, because most enemies will waste you. Running away is a perfectly viable option too.

@Gremio108 I was quite tempted by The Outer Worlds for a while. I'll admit, the idea of my protagonist being mute put me off for a while, but then I ended up enjoying Dragon Age: Origins which was a similarly silent experience. With your endorsement (and @mookysam adding praise there as well) I'll have to give it another look-see. Thanks!

@mookysam Your subtitle for Tomb Raider (2013) made me chuckle. Glad you had a good time with it regardless, in advance of the sequels. I'll be real interested to see what you make of them.

I recently beat Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, it was great, especially the final, third, canonical part of the game, which was excellent along with the rest of the non-canonical content.

@nessisonett Groundskeeper Willie would be preferable! https://youtu.be/78vl3QzVZMY

Lord knows how they did their casting. The absolute worst are the voiced text logs, especially the Japanese and German ones.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 on the PS2.

I'll share my thoughts at some point in the future. Still need to go back and clean up some endgame stuff before the final boss. But I've seen the credits, so whenever I get the hankering, I can happily drop it.

That’s the credits rolled on Assassin’s Creed III Remastered. I think I still have a couple of epilogue chapters before I chase the last few percent and start the DLC as I edge closer towards the platinum. I have to say though, that ending was proper brilliant even if the whole Desmond thing ended a bit abruptly. Given what I remember of Black Flag’s modern day stuff, they seem to have panicked and not known what to do afterwards. The game as a whole was brilliant though, some glaring bugs and weird gameplay aside. The remaster apparently fixes quite a few issues from what I’ve seen, specifically around stealth. There were some truly dodgy bugs, including some hard crashes and the strange misspelling of ‘British Amiral’ on ships but hey, it’s Ubisoft. Really didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I have!

Tonight I beat the Lost Bear on PSVR, and I'll post my impressions in the appropriate thread sometime soon.

I've also finished up Trials of Mana (PS4), Vader Immortal (PSVR), Super Mario 64 (Switch), & Super Mario Sunshine (Switch) in recent memory, with my thoughts posted in the Impressions thread over the past few weeks.

@Arugula Yeah that’s unpopular and for good reason mwahahaha. I dunno, I loved it despite the clear pacing issues!

I just beat Trails of Cold Steel III for the third time and I'm just so hyped for the fourth game in the series. However, I'm on PC and seeing it being released in 2021 has left me really sad but still very excited.

@Arugula I waaaay preferred it to RE2 Remake. Mind you I was never that fussed on RE 4 either.

@Kidfried @Thrillho Following on from previous posts of late, I thought I'd tag you with my concluding thoughts on Kentucky Route Zero. I won't write a full review, simply because I agree with the vast majority of what Kidfried wrote recently.

Put simply, I think this is the strongest example of a "gamer-dependent game" in recent years. There is no single way to absorb or interpret any of it, and I could totally understand how two best friends could play it in separate rooms and, despite being so alike, walk away with wildly divergent opinions. Despite agreeing with Kidfried's recent 10/10 review, if somebody right now told me that they hated it, I'd nod sympathetically. The game plays the gamer, just as much as the gamer plays the game.

For me personally, the wheels fell off the wagon with Act IV because I'd loved the first three acts and the freedom they represented. I'd have been quite content continuing to explore both maps, the surface and the Zero, fleshing out more backstory and meeting more characters. The sudden linearity of Act IV did me in, and it's where I started to lose interest (although replaying it for the platinum showed me some of what I'd missed at each stop along the way, which is I guess why they included that trophy, to encourage "exploration" of a linear path). Despite being a guy who loves narrative ambiguity and open-ended questions, I also felt that Act V was a letdown in terms of offering a sense of closure. It tried its best. Hypocritically, I'm not sure where the perfect balance point would be without compromising the elements I've been praising; all I know is that, as far as I'm concerned, they didn't strike it.

But hey, that's just me, and it wasn't my game to write. I respect the choices they made, and the line they drew in the sand to say "okay, that's enough roaming, let's move things along" in the final acts. I'm a detail-oriented chap, so a game this steadfastly minimalist (in every sense) was always gonna leave me wishing for 10% more, no matter what it did.

So yeah, 10/10 but also a solid seven, and it's okay if it's a two, too. Assigning it a number feels kinda wrong because, even if I found somebody else giving it the same score as me, we'd probably be doing it for wildly different reasons.

All I can say for certain is that I'm glad to have experienced it.

@RogerRoger Even though I completely agree with your criticism of Act IV, I also feel like it's wrong to criticize this game for shaking things up for their next Act IV. There's the comfort food gamer part of me that wished that every Act was like Act II, because its gameplay fits me the best personally. And there's the more 'adventurous' side of me, that appreciates how this gameplay just doesn't stick with something that works.

There's perfection in the game's imperfections or something. The game's constantly contradicting itself, which I really like, but yea, that's definitely not for everyone.

My GOTY so far, though. Also, really well written impressions. I nodded along with every line, ha!

@Kidfried Oh, absolutely. Like I said, I respect their line in the sand, and I'd have probably made a similar decision after three acts of roaming, had I been wearing their shoes. Despite literally yelling "Get on with it!" at my television for most of Act IV (because I didn't expect Act V to be so sedentary, and wanted to get back on the road) it made me reflect on gaming as a medium, and how interactive storytelling isn't as simple as a movie or book. I think it's brave to lock down a gamer into linearity, especially after giving them so much freedom so early on.

Still frustrated the crap outta me, but hey!

And yeah, totally agree with you about how they're constantly shifting protagonists. Even after Conway departs for the distillery, he was discussed a lot, but I still wouldn't call him the "main" character of the whole thing. That I didn't expect, and my reflections on Act V will probably improve in time, as I let its point kinda sink in. Despite having earned its platinum, it's a game I'd quite like to replay a couple years down the line. I think my perspectives will change as I do, too.

Thank you! My relationship with these kinds of games is fleeting, and has to be well-timed to coincide with my mood, so I doubt I could ever call it my GOTY as I'm simply not consistent enough. As I was playing it, though, there were moments where I definitely thought "Yeah, this is very Kidfried, isn't it?" so I'm really pleased to hear that you connected with it so much.

@RogerRoger I can tell you that I experienced some kind of frustration at the exact same moments, especially with regards to the ending. But frustration never really weighs a game down for me, if there's enough that makes me excited.

I got really angry playing Bloodborne, how you could hit through walls, how bad the camera and hit boxes were sometimes. But still, the combat and the world was great enough to name it one of my favorites of the generation.

Same thing goes for MGSV; yes, it's rushed towards the end, but it still is an amazing next-gen stealth sandbox game. And the same for The Last Guardian too, because Trico can be bad, but Trico can also be more amazing than any creature in video games before.

I'd rather have all of that than Fallout 4. Which was a good game, I guess, but also a bit forgettable. Anyway, I feel like I said stuff this like a million times before, and you probably already know all of that about me, ha.

@RogerRoger @Kidfried I just felt the act IV just kept on going and having blown through the game so quickly I needed a break afterwards. So when act V was so short I felt a little letdown although that final moment with the music is beautifully done. I can’t imagine what I must have been like for people to have waited two years between act IV and V!

I liked the fact that you had to embrace the journey rather than the destination and as long as you get on board with accepting that it’s the experience rather than a tidy story then I think people will get it. But I understand why people can’t buy into that.

I do think the cast got a little bloated by act IV as well but also liked the fact it wasn’t the story of any one character in the end.

I can’t imagine how it must have been to follow the game as it was released but I wonder if that added to the mystery of it all.

That soundtrack though!

@Kidfried It's worth saying again, though. Kentucky Route Zero is the kinda game which makes you consider your perspectives on gaming (whether intentionally or not). In those frustrating moments, I reflected on why I was frustrated, and what usually provokes a similar reaction in different games. It isn't like getting frustrated at a tricky shooter or hack 'n slash, because you don't have time to think in those situations; you just get rage-y. It's good to be granted a little introspection every now and again, especially in a hobby which doesn't usually afford the chance. For that reason alone, I couldn't stay mad at Kentucky Route Zero for long, even during its most tedious scenes.

@Thrillho Blimey! The more I hear about this game's release schedule, the more I'm grateful that it didn't pop up on my radar before it was complete!

And I think you're absolutely right about the journey being the point, in hindsight. I really like stories with that kinda message as well, so I wish I'd had that realisation whilst I was playing Act V because I think it would've blunted my sudden "Wait, is that it?" when it ended. Darn it, this is rapidly becoming the game to replay someday! Which I'd have no problem with, warts an' all.

I need to find a YouTube video of the Zero's ambient noise and loop it for ten hours.

@RogerRoger The Zero is something magical indeed!

Just watched my mum finish Mafia: Definitive Edition. That last chapter was absolutely brilliant and really capped an amazing game. It’s cool that since it’s a remake, there’s a major tie to the second game in the final cutscene which sets it up. I think my mum will finish off Uncharted 1 and play 2 before moving onto the next Mafia though!

Ha I love hearing about these posts every now and again about your mom beating a game @nessisonett. Good on her!

Is the second mafia remaster still a bit of a broken mess like I recall it being when it was reviewed or have they actually polished that up somewhat?