Finished Atsu's hunt if the Yotei six last night. It's been a long journey, made longer by the fact I had a month out of gaming thanks to real life work! The cheek of it!
Absolutely fantastic, I slightly prefer Jin's story but still an absolutely beautifully crafted story and world. One I will remember for a long time. Yotei is as good or even better in most aspects, combat is fantastic with the new weapons.
Sucker Punch do such a good job in making their story's and world feel alive, characters you meet along the way you see later in side quests to finish of their story is a real nice touch and lots of rpg games should take note of this.
Atsu is a formidable character, I grew to really enjoy her story, personality and struggle. Some of the boss fights where really good and on Normal difficulty took me a few attempts I don't mind admitting.
I'm 1 trophy away from the plat, which is literally testament to how well the game is made because I haven't paid much attention to the trophies at all until last night I realised I was 2 away from the plat, one being the last mission. I just genuinely feel like doing everything in the game, all side quests and extras seem worth it because the tale you get or the reward is usually worth it. I'll finish up the Platinum tonight and then that will be my time in Yotei done.
Well done Sucker Punch and Playstation for creating another truly memorable experience.
I'm not sure what's next for me, I have a big list to choose from. It makes me realise us gamers are eating well lately
@MaulTsir Congrats on Yotei. I came close to buying it recently but I have too many other games lined up and so won’t get around to it for a while. I’m having trouble simply trying to keep up with first party games.
As for Yotei, the impression I get from it is that it’s a little better than Tsushima in the gameplay and overall polish and design, but a little worse in the narrative department. But it sounds like a slam dunk for both gameplay and story, either way.
Some of the excitement for it has been blunted by the fact so many similar feeling games (at least similar game settings) have come around lately. AC Shadows is the obvious one, but Rise of the Ronin, Nioh 3, Onimusha, not to mention I still need to play Sekiro. I think I’ll prioritize Yotei though whenever the next feudal Japan itch kicks in.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@CaptD Glad you stuck with it. The level design, as you mentioned, can be too confusing. FromSoft and Round8 both do a better job at making sure you know where "forward" is, while leaving the areas open-ended enough for exploration. By the end, I played almost exclusively in Umbral, only popping out to reset the clock, which is a shame, because Axiom is damn gorgeous.
I've done Quality, Radiant, and Inferno playthroughs. Still need to get back to do an Umbral playthrough at some point. I personally found Inferno as the most OP build, especially if you're using the Fallen Lord's big bonk sword, but it's honestly all fun to mess around with.
@wildcat_kickz
Thanks, I finished first playthrough yesterday and spent today picking up rings, trinkets, throwables etc.. that I missed. I played a strength build which isn’t my normal style with Souls games, I like swords but great swords I usually leave alone as I find them a bit slow for my chaotic gameplay style but the greatsword was good fun.
I briefly started NG+0 and have respec’d, now using Pieta sword which seems to be a fan favourite.
I mostly liked the level design, shortcuts etc.. and it certainly has the discovery factor that FromSoft do so well but there were certain areas that were overly confusing, probably because they weren’t unique enough to differentiate from other sections, plus with the shadow realm it was just compounded. However I do think the Umbral realm was a great design choice, hopefully they can get the games’ brightness adjusted accordingly with LotF2 as some areas were just too dark.
@CaptD Congrats! The swamp area sucks ass haha. Seems to be a Souls-like tradition. Pieta's sword is a lot of fun to use. Slices and dices better than just about everything - I used it on my Radiant build.
I also love how they handle NG+ and MP. Completely modular and customizable.
I'm legit excited for LotF2, even if the dev leadership keep saying cringey stuff online.
@Th3solution Thanks mate. If you enjoyed Tsushima then I couldn't recommend it enough. It's basically a polished version of it. You know what you're getting, which isn't a bad thing when it's this good. They did a great job in enhancing what was already a premium experience in my opinion.
Yes it's a strange one in terms of the narrative. It's still a really good story, but it's a typical type of story if you get me. Jin's felt a lot more of a personal struggle between honor, duty, family and survival and doing anything necessary, how far would we all be willing to go. So I think it just hit me more on a personal level mabye.
Yeah your right, the market seems saturated with these types of games lately, feels very much like the early 00's when every other game was a zombie game.
What have you been upto lately? It's been a while since we last spoke, how did you fair with Horizon Forbidden West?
@MaulTsir Believe it or not, I’m still working through Forbidden West. But I am thoroughly enjoying it. Like Yotei (and most of the first party sequels, it seems) HFW feels like a more expanded and polished evolution of the first game. I had heard a lot of criticism of the story, but honestly I like it, and perhaps like it even more than the first game’s story. I feel like the characters are more relatable and authentic. As far as Aloy’s character being less likable, that hasn’t been my experience. Overall it’s been a really nice solid journey, and I’m probably about 60-70% complete, and closing in on 80 hours invested. The game is really big. It might completely fall apart in the closing act here, but I haven’t felt bored or discouraged so far.
In the interim over the last couple months I’ve played a few smaller games on the side, between sessions with Aloy. Completed Nobody Wants to Die, Exit 8, and part of Alan Wake Remastered. None of these have rocked my world but each has had its moments. A little disappointed in Nobody Wants to Die and Alan Wake, and Exit 8 was pretty good, and very short. I’m only halfway through AW, so the jury is still out on that. I’m going to push through so I can have a more complete Remedy background since there’s bleed over into the Control games. And also AW2 seems like a jump up in quality.
Not sure how long until I can complete these games but my next game(s) will likely be either Saros, GoW Ragnarok, Dark Souls 3, Witcher 3, FF7 Rebirth, Indiana Jones, Hades, Days Gone, or maybe none of these above…. 😂 Oh gosh… I think I’m giving myself a panic attack 😵💫
@Th3solution Glad your still enjoying playing through HFW, I looked at my time with it and it's 90hours and I didn't get the plat but did a lot, so substantially bigger than the first one. One thing they do really well is the world building, I think you could spend ages just getting lost wondering around.
I am one of those who disliked what the did with Aloy's personality, she just comes across as very arrogant and condescending a lot of the times, I remember specifically there is a side quests where someone needs help finding their wife/girlfriend and he's saying will you help me look for her and Aloy says something along the lines of No I wont help you look for her, I'll find her but you will stay here because I'm the hero and your Joe blogs, but not in a caring way like the first game, more of a cockey fustrated way, it felt very out of character from the first game, and I felt the theme crop up a lot with her. All personal preferences I guess and I'm not trying dissuade anyone into thinking otherwise but I just remember a lot of interactions with Aloy in the second game had me cringing a little bit. Almost like the writer tried to hard to convey that Aloy is the main character and the hero. Her actions speak that, I don't need a constant reminder of Aloy telling me that.
That's just me though, I seem to like the silent hero types 😂
But I'm glad your enjoying it, and I'm glad even after all this time your still seeing it through. One of the things that's really helped me enjoy games more and not feel so stressed about the backlog is really slowing down and taking my time with games instead of rushing them just to get to the next one, sometimes felt like some games didn't get a fair crack of the whip.
Seems like you've still managed to check a few games of your list. I must admit that Exit 8 and Nobody wants to Die are games I haven't really heard of before.
That by the way is one heck of a list to pick from 😂 I haven't played Indiana Jones, Saros or Dark Soul's 3 myself but they are all well spoke of, and any of the others well all I can say is you can't really go wrong with what ever you choose next 😂
@MaulTsir Yeah, that’s spot on about the world building in HFW. It’s such a unique mixture of modern day references, especially with the setting being here in the U.S. with locations I’m familiar with like Las Vegas and San Francisco, and then also being Sci-Fi. The setting is ancient/historical, modern, and futuristic/post-apocalyptic all at the same time and there really is not another backdrop like that out there. The mixture of old and futuristic, wooden spears and arrows with lasers and technology, tribal and simplistic with large corporate conspiracy, thatched huts with space travel… it’s fantastic. The writing gets a bit convoluted, especially with the cloning and the all the complex personalities and AI subordinate functions. I felt that the first game got so complicated with its storyline that I just got lost, and this game seems to have kept the interwoven storylines a little easier to follow. The dialogue is much better organized and delivered, and plot points receive their due attention before jumping to the next major twist.
With a story and lore as detailed and entangled as this, there’s inevitably been several points where I have to just suspend disbelief and just not focus on points that are clearly unrealistic and at times, even silly. But that’s the issue with any Sci-Fi that tries to stay rooted in believable science and technology and yet has to weave in the imaginary and fantasy elements — some things are just going to end up illogical. Like why are all these structures clearly hundreds of years old, and yet the batteries and electricity for all the devices are still perfectly operational. I mean, the “old world” of the game is still the future for us, so much of the technology is supposed to be futuristic but yet the people were still driving regular looking current day cars and buses, and using what appears to be current day cell phones, tablets, and military equipment. In a near future world where space travel is accessible, holographic gliders, shields, and weapons, human cloning is perfected, and complex AI that can build entire ecosystems, and yet, people still drove around in their Chevy sedans, and buildings still had turn valves for their plumbing that look like 1950’s design. 😅
And why, in 2026, can I not even do the simplest of electronic transactions without two-factor authentication, a zillion passwords, and biometric validators and yet apparently in the not too distant future, one can get access to the highest level of global security through electronically locked doors and databases with a simple voice recognition or with a simple key that you find in the room next door. 😂 But I get it, what fun is there if Aloy travels across the continent to find a secure data center and then the story ends when she tries to log into the server and it asks for a code that was sent to Elizabet Sobeck’s Microsoft Authenticator on her cell phone. Or if Aloy is in the heat of battle and goes to scan an enemy and her Focus has run out of battery and needs to be plugged in overnight to recharge. 😂 We have to keep the game fun and playable, but sometimes I just have to shut off my logical brain.
I also have to suspend disbelief with the language they use (and again this is not unique to Horizon and applies across the board to Sci-Fi) where the people talk in the same vernacular and even slang that we use in 2026, despite hundreds of years of the passage of time and an apocalypse causing a complete rebooting of human civilization. It’s like if you traveled back in time and visited 1826 and talked to people would their language and phraseology sound the same as today? Of course not. Especially in the more remote and secluded parts of the world. But I get it, in order to make the story relatable and understandable we can’t have the people talking in an odd reformed version of future evolved tribal dialectical English. They have to talk like they just walked off the street in 2026. 😅
Regarding Aloy’s personality, I will admit that there’s some inconsistency in some of the interactions. I’ve seen a few of those times when she comes across rude or patronizing. It’s a contrast to the humility she showed by being an outcast in her origins in the first game. Now she’s ‘the savior of Meridian’ and people are constantly treating her with either awe or criticism for her fame and notorious deeds. I guess I can see how that might creep into a person’s psyche, similar to how celebrities nowadays will have a shift in their personality when they become famous and suddenly are too good for their former lives. So I give Aloy a little leeway to be pompous from time to time, and even though she comes across annoyed and ‘unheroic’ sometimes, I can see a reality where that would be accurate. But like you I prefer my heroes and heroines to be noble, charitable, kind, and more the silent type. My issue is when she will be a little pompous and impatient in one interaction, and then 5 minutes later will treat another character differently and act all motherly and caring. I’ve seen that happen and the inconsistency is hard to rationalize. Part of it I try to explain away by considering that her origin and DNA of being Elizabet Sobeck, who I imagine to be like many powerful and brilliant academic and accomplished people — they tend to be pretty condescending and brash to regular folks. And yet Aloy has a humble beginning and an altruistic side, so there’s this constant conflict of her scholastic DNA and her meek upbringing.
The interaction with Beta is a similar issue. That clone is so different — an anxious, timid mess and one who Aloy is quite annoyed with, and yet they have the same DNA. I think it’s an interesting narrative theme about how experience and environment sometimes trumps our genetics, as far as what kind of people we can become
I’ve carried on way longer than I intended, but suffice it to say I’m getting a ton of enjoyment from HFW. 😄
On the subject of what I might play next, what do you think of GoW Laufey? I forget how you got along with Ragnarok, but I think you were pretty high on it. Are you fully pumped for the new one? Hearing that it’s coming within the next 8-10 months has me feeling pressure to get Ragnarok done sooner rather than later, just in case I want to jump into Laufey at launch. So if it’s not my next main game, it will be soon thereafter. I just have to decide if I can justify doing two large first party games in a row.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
I wanted a non-sweaty game in this hot weather, and I decided on Dredge. Totally fits the bill, as most of the time it is pretty chill, even when there are threats around. I wasn't sure at first as I was getting a bit bored, but it eventually started to get more interesting the more stuff I unlocked.
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.
@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Glad you've been able to carry on with Jedi: Survivor and yes, if memory serves, you're about to undertake the last major set-piece built around a dedicated platforming challenge. You'll still have plenty of game left afterwards, but everything becomes a lot more urgent and combat-focused as the story takes centre stage. In what you'll have left to complete, there's only one traversal-related puzzle that springs to mind, and it's a minor one. Methinks you'll really enjoy the rest of the game!
Thanks for asking about 007 First Light. Unfortunately, this past week's heatwave has prevented me from gaming, so I haven't been able to return to it (or anything else) yet. Given that it's gonna get some big updates down the line, I might wait a little longer regardless, to see what gets added. I have quite a large backlog so, once my apartment cools down, I'm looking forward to being able to play... well, anything!
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@Th3solution Apologies for the delay, but I just wanted to say that your reply about immersion and wanting to "do what Aloy wanted to do" during Forbidden West really made me smile. That's the magic feeling that separates games from movies, TV shows and books for me, that combination of curiosity, connection, and control. Even if they lead nowhere (or, in your case, a cluster of greenshine) those moments of pure exploration are what I remember best about my favourite open-world games.
I'm also pleased to see you get involved with crafting new gear and armour, and to read that the system is both balanced and rewarding. That's something I rarely focus on, both in Horizon and games in general, since I'm a "pick a favourite look and stick with it" kinda guy (mostly due to my obsession with Photo Mode). I'll even lower a game's difficulty if it means I can stay in a character's default outfit, or adjust my playstyle to suit any fancy new threads, although Forbidden West does have the advantage of being able to apply one outfit's appearance while secretly rocking another's benefits underneath, which I always appreciate. I think other games call this a "transmog" or something...? While I can't recall what specific armour the Keruf side quest rewards you with, I do remember the quest itself, and definitely completed it because (as we were discussing about immersion) I really liked all the characters it involved!
These were my favourite, and therefore semi-default, looks for Aloy in Forbidden West. I'm almost certain you're far enough along in the game to have seen these specific armour sets but, just in case they're a spoiler and you'd rather not see them until you know you're safe, I'll cover 'em up.
I'd be curious to see what your favourite armour ends up being! Glad you're continuing to enjoy!
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
@Werehog I like those outfits you posted, and the one I use most commonly is similar, in the sense it’s sans headdress or helmet so we get the full effect of the flowing locks of red. I don’t have a photo right now but it’s a Nora Hunter armor set, although I’ll switch out sometimes to a Tenakth set due to some of the alternate elemental advantages I might need, depending on the enemy, and its an outfit with the full regalia of ornate large headgear, body paint, and some kind of feathery colored sequins-type of chest armor.
I just finished the part where I got the Elizabet Sobeck loungewear looking outfit that Aloy is forced to wear for that mission in Thebes. I found it really funny how she hates having to wear it and at one point pulls and tugs on the shirt as if it’s uncomfortable. 😂 I was surprised the outfit’s specs weren’t horrible as far as defensive capability, but it definitely just felt wrong running around looking like someone from the Lululemon catalog.
I see from your photos that you didn’t get much into the face painting? I have done a little dabbling there, tried some of the simplistic Nora paints and some Carja ones. I kind of like the Pride one too. But I think narratively it fits to have no face paint. (Again with, ‘what would Aloy do?’ in mind 😅)
@Thrillho Congratulations on the Typhon victories! All good things to those who are patient. Seems like you're in the end stretch now then, so I'll be very eager to hear your thoughts in regards to the ending. Hope you haven't lost your mojo, but I think you'll be fine! You have a lost a few of the finer reflexes over the week, but Melinoë will have remained the beast you left her as. Let me know how it goes!
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@BeyondKnight Likewise, I'll be eager to hear your thoughts on Sea of Stars as you progress. I just finished the game last week myself, so everything remains fresh in mind!
@Th3solution Yeah, while I'm not personally a fan of masks, big hats or face paint, I think the Tenakth aesthetic lends itself best to that kinda stuff. If memory serves, that second armour I showed above is the Tenakth Marshal set. Swapped it out in solidarity with my second-favourite NPC, Marshal Kotallo, but stopped short of adding any of its parts above the neck. The first outfit is Carja. I wanna say it's the Carja Trader set...? Wore it simply because it looked tidy and a little more "uniform" than the rest.
Heh, I remember that specific outfit you spoiler-tagged and yes, I agree with you (and Aloy) and wanted out of it as soon as possible! I didn't even stop to glance at its specs!
Already mentioned this above but yes, confirming that I'm no fan of face paint (as a general rule in both life and games, but also specifically with regards to Aloy who, you're right, I sincerely doubt would ever voluntarily opt in to any of that nonsense... and besides, with the amount of travel she does, she'd constantly need to stop and re-apply it from region to region). I did cycle through some of the options somewhere, perhaps in Photo Mode, and didn't immediately hate some of them. I also recall liking the Pride one, if only because it seemed to feature the widest range of colours, but nah, it's not for me, thanks.
"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"
@Tjuz Thanks! After that post I don't think I had an unsuccessful run for ages and breezed the rest of both runs needed to finish the game; the extra phase for Chronos was a bit of a surprise though!
I had no problems with the end of the game and it was the easy way of setting it up for the continued runs at the bosses. I'm still going at the moment but feeling a little lost for progress. I finally woke Hypnos at least.
I've been playing the Deltarune Chapter 1&2 Demo. How have I not played this game sooner!? I didn't even really know what it was until recently. Added the full game to my wishlist straight away.
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