Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Tasuki Now that is a sick burn. 😂

Just beat Cosmic Star Heroine on the PS Vita. It was... alright. The combat system is interesting: the constantly cycling power meter reminds me a bit of Octopath Traveler (including that same focus on using certain skills at certain times to make full use of that meter). There's also something called "style" that you build up by using certain moves. It can be used as a resource when using powerful skills, and building up an abundance of it can also allow you to temporarily survive a blow that would kill you, giving you time to heal your character before she succumbs to her wounds. Also, like in Radiant Historia and some other JRPGs, it shows you a flowchart of when you and your enemies will move, and there's a lot of interesting ways of manipulating this to your advantage. I also liked the short, PC Engine-esque cutscenes, which show up periodically throughout the game.

On the other hand, the character writing here isn't great, the plot, while interesting, develops too quickly to really give any sense of significance to in-game events, the setting is never developed very well, and the music is passable. Much of the game feels like it's on rails, to the point where you can't even revisit a room in a dungeon that you just exited. In terms of the Vita port, in particular, the game feels poorly optimized, with numerous glitches, long loading times, etc. Which seems pretty weird for such a visually basic game.

Overall, though, it was fully worth the $7 I paid for it.

@Tasuki That seems like an unnecessarily harsh thing to say. Many people just aren't good at certain kinds of games. No shame in that.

@JohnnyShoulder @beemo @Ralizah It wasnt meant as an insult or anything. Literally there is unlimited continues which means you just hit start when you lose all your lives and just keep going from literally the point you died. Even bosses life doesn't replenish when you continue. You can literally brute Force your way through this game.

Besides Tekken 3 has to revelence to the beat 'em up genre, that's a tournament fighter. Final Fight doesn't have any crazy combos or anything like that, it's one button to attack one to jump.

Just watched the credits roll in Shining Resonance Refrain (Switch).

It's a solid, if not particularly remarkable, JRPG. The battle system is good but standard (it IS fun transforming into a dragon, but very OP), unlike some of the other big 3D RPGs on the system (notably XC2 & YS VIII) in runs native res at all times portable, though in terms of world design it's locations are the typical archtypes (grass area, forest, snowy mountain, etc.), and likely due to a smallish budget, there aren't many animated cutscenes, with the vast bulk of the story sections being told in a visual novel like presentation. It also has a few other oddities, like the fact that they seemingly forgot to add save points before a few bosses in the late game, and you can fast travel back to town, but not to any of the game's other regions (not even to the camps littered throughout the overworld).

Don't get me wrong, it was a fun enough time, but unless you're really into grabbing JRPGs, I'd say stick with the more popular choices like XC2, YS VIII, and Octopath (I assume, as I haven't yet played that last one). Hey, at least I got the steel sleeve edition for regular price

Finished up Captain Commando with a friend has night from the Capcom Beat'em Collection. As fun as always.

I finished playing Metal Gear Solid 2 yesterday. Pretty good game. It definitely has it's faults though, albeit mostly with the janky controls. The way they set the world up to be fully 3D while keeping the camera fixed made everything far more awkward than it would have had to be. Started Metal Gear Solid 3 earlier (the Subsistence version), and it works so much better with a free camera. The story was pretty solid all the way through, although it did hit some lulls here and there (bomb defusal/underwater part). Rose very much got on my nerves, but it makes more sense why she acted the way she did considering the reveal. Still my least favorite character in the franchise so far, however. All that said, while I recognise I'm 17 years late to the party, it definitely was a very ambitious title and did a lot more right than it did wrong. It was incredibly challenging too (on Normal mode), but I never felt it was the game's fault when I screwed up. The graphics (for the HD version) also hold up incredibly well for an old PS2 title, even if it's modernised. I really enjoyed the look of the game, very smooth and clean, but it did get a bit repetitive after 15 hours of play. Kojima managed to create a very engaging game all the way through not because of it's flawless execution, but with it's obvious ambition and consistent switching up of the gameplay. Overall, I'd give it an 8/10. Definitely kept my interest in the series, and from what I've played of MGS3 (the first hour or so), it only seems to be getting better.

Beat Medal of Honor: Warfighter for a hard mode trophy that didn't exist. Silly! Was looking at the wrong game. Played the reboot of Medal of Honor and there it was. Pop!

@Tjuz That’s a very good description and I appreciate your thoughts. Most of us place MGS3 as the best in the series, but it’s a little bit like choosing your favorite flavor of ice cream — there’s no wrong choice because they are all delicious. I really need to replay MGS2 because when I played it, I really didn’t stick with it and some of the subject matter was lost on me.
Have you played MGS4 and 5 yet?

@Th3solution Good to know MGS3 is the fan favorite! I look forward to digging my teeth into it further. The survival elements are a nice touch so far. MGS2 deals with quite a lot of subject matters, so I can't fault you for some of them possibly going over your head. That said, Kojima really enjoyed hitting you over the head with preachy exposition in some parts of the game. That was probably one of the biggest faults with the story.

I have not played MGS4 yet, but I did try MGS5 when it came out. I bought MGS5 on launch day, all hyped up, only to find out I had literally no idea what was happening. I wasn't really familiar with the MGS franchise as a whole outside of name recognition, so I just expected a nice open world stealth-however-you-want game. Got a lot more than I bargained for, though. I definitely still enjoyed it, but by the time I got to Africa (which at that point was 50 hours into the game for me) I felt like I should stop playing and go back to the previous games so I could appreciate the story more as well.

Because of that, I played and finished the first Metal Gear Solid (and bought all the games minus GZ/TPP, since I had already bought those) back in June 2016 and really enjoyed it. Started MGS2 shortly after, but somewhat got burned out with games as a whole. Now, 2 years later, I'm back with a mission to play all the games I've missed out on! First up was obviously MGS2 (although I did start over since it had been 2 years). Kind of a weird trajectory to go on in my MGS history, but hey, I'm here now! I did see Metal Gear 1 & 2 were included with the MGS3 Subsistence version, though. I wasn't aware of that so I've been somewhat hitting myself over the head for not playing those before MGS1. I've read summaries of the plot already, so I'm not sure if it's worth coming back to now. It will probably only distract from the stories I'm experiencing currently. Any thoughts on whether or not I should go back and play those games even though I know the general outline of the story?

@Tjuz. There are definitely more knowledgeable students of the Metal Gear franchise than me on here. One of the PS forum stalwarts @KratosMD has just recently also finished a blitz through all the games for the first time in similar fashion as you are doing but he is absent for a bit of a hiatus, but I’m sure he’ll be back as a frequent poster here. I know he has played them back to back to back to back to back and is in the closing parts of MGS5 and has a lot of impressions on that thread and we discussed a lot of the great things about it and all the MGS games as he was playing through them for the first time there. But as for MG1 and MG2, I personally never played them and I don’t think it affected my enjoyment of the series in any negative way. The story is pretty convoluted and a bit hard to follow even when you have all the context and information. So I’d say not to worry too much about the Metal Gear games and do MGS3, then MGS4, then actually it might be best to do MGS Peace Walker if you can get your hands on it. It is a great game that many skipped due to it being released just on PSP. I believe it’s included in the MGS HD collection on PS3 if you have or can get that. The story directly links into Ground Zeros, which then goes immediately into The Phantom Pain. It would be reasonable to skip Peace Walker and watch a summary of the plot on YouTube in preparation for Ground Zeros, but definitely don’t skip GZ before going back to TPP. It sounds like you may have known to start with GZ first, I hope.
I don’t know if anyone else who actually played them has a dissenting opinion about MG1 and MG2, but I think my opinion at this point is to just press on with the “Solid” games.
I envy you that you are getting to experience their greatness for the first time! Love to hear more of your impressions.
And welcome to the forums, btw!

@Tjuz @Th3solution I think I said on here before that I played MGS2 so much I completed all difficulties and got every single dog tag even though there was zero reward for doing so. Ironically, it's probably my least favourite overall MGS game but there is a lot of story that comes back in subsequent games. The Harrier on extreme difficulty took me a LONG time to beat..

MGS3 remains my favourite of the series so I'm slightly jealous you get to play it for the first time! I liked the change of mechanics and I thought the boss fights were among the best in the series.

I never played the original Metal Gear games though and it made little difference to my appreciation of the game and overall story; the biggest thing was probably wondering why Ninja from MGS1 was so important to Snake..

Peace Walker is a fun game and I played it on PSP (one of the few games I ever had for it). As said, it bridges the MG games into MGS:GZ/5 and has some little bits in it that you might not get in MGS5 but it's probably not an essential one to play in my opinion.

@Th3solution @Thrillho Good to know I didn't miss out on much with the Metal Gear games. I do own the HD Collection, so I can play Peace Walker. One of the things that intrigued me the most about MGS5 initially was the whole motherbase managing part of it too. I think this originated in Peace Walker, albeit less fleshed out than in MGS5. Definitely not skipping Peace Walker, especially now that I know it ties in directly to the MGS5 games. I suppose that was the essential missing link I would've needed before getting into MGS5.

Hope you're not getting sick of all the MGS discussion yet after @KratosMD's complete playthrough! I definitely plan to keep posting my thoughts here. Thanks for welcoming me to the community. I figured that if I want to get back into games, I might as well find a nice forum to help motivate me as well! Seems like I've found the perfect community.

MGS2 on all difficulties sounds like a pain in the ass. I don't consider myself a pro at stealth games since I've only really successfully beaten Dishonored with a "ghost" playthrough, but I didn't expect MGS2 to be as challenging as it was! I had more luck just making a run for it most of the time than being properly stealthy, haha. Strut D with the water filtering was the biggest hell in that entire game. Seems like I'm having more luck with MGS3 so far, though. Harrier was pretty easy on normal, but damn those Metal Gear RAYs. It wasn't as much hard as that it took me a long time to find out the optimal strategy. I probably spent 1 - 2 hours on that fight alone.

The change of mechanics is definitely a breath of fresh air. I really like the camouflage system as well as the change in setting. I don't like those alligators, though. I'll avoid them for as long as I can!

I recently finished Steamworld Dig 2, Spider-Man and the COD WWII campaign. Next up I'm planning on getting through Battlefield 1's campaign and Hollow Knight.

@Simon_Fitzgerald Literally just finished Steamworld Dig 2 myself. Very enjoyable game! Much bigger in scope than the first with a raft of improvements and new additions. The areas felt much more distinctive visually. Furthermore, the large increase in the number of caves and more sophisticated level design made this feel like a really complete package.

@Tjuz A few weeks ago I completed Metal Gear Solid for the first time. I'm going to start Metal Gear Solid 2 today and work my way through the other games in the series.

@mookysam @Tjuz So cool you're playing this series from the start. I can only applaud you for giving this series a chance and just going all the way. I know it's quite an investment, but there's no way you're going to regret play through all of them again.

Wish I could experience it all from the start again myself.

@mookysam Hopefully you enjoy MGS2 as much as I did! It's very good. Be sure to keep me updated! It's all still fresh in my mind so I'd love to discuss it with someone who only recently experienced it as well.

@Kidfried Seems like there's no other way to play MGS other than from the start! I definitely can't wait to get through it all. I know the feeling of wishing you could experience it for the first time again — if only I could do so with Mass Effect.

I've just managed to beat Halo 2 on Legendary Solo last night after about 2 years of sporadic playing. Man that game is hard as Hell, it is by far the hardest of the 5 games.

@crippyd Well done! I hated the Halo 2 single player campaign - design and tone just made it feel rubbish compared to the first.

@crippyd Congrats! Master Chief Collection or original, by the way?

@KALofKRYPTON Thanks, it was a real slog, difficulty not gameplay or story. The only bum note for me is the ending and I remember the first time thinking "WHAT?!", one of the worst endings I can think of.

@Kidfried Master Chief Collection, I'm going for completing all campaigns Solo Legendary. I have previously done 3, 4 and 5 this way and CE from the same collection. Next is 3, ODST and 4.