Topic: Games you've recently beat

Tearaway Unfolded (PS4) - A 3D platformer set in a papercraft world. Though there are exceptions to the rule, the first half of the game is light on pure platforming & focuses more on environmental exploration & light puzzles, while it focuses more on platforming later on (though for the most part it remains a pretty chill experience).

Pros:

• While Iota doesn't have much moveset variety (he/she can jump, grab & throw objects, and curl up into a ball), the game more than makes up for it with generous use of the controller's touch pad & gyro capabilities to manipulate the environment and the objects within. It really does make use of everything people say Playstation exclusives don't, including the camera (if you have it), which is used to show a tear into the real world in the sky.
• While early levels are pretty standard fare thematically, it gets really abstract later on, providing some really neat sections.
• It looks quite good, and if I hadn't known it started off as a Vita title, I would have assumed it was developed with the PS4 in mind.

Mixed:

• I'm not sure how I feel about the vibe of the game. Of course, this isn't true of the entire game, but it too often feels almost sad & melancholy, both in terms of color palette & music (similar to Unravel & I assume Ori & the Blind Forest, maybe it's just a thing with European developed platformers & as an American I don't quite "get it" compared to the more colorful & upbeat platformers that come out of Japan & the US. That said, I think the approach worked a lot better with the naturalistic environments of Unravel & Ori, as opposed to the papercraft world of Tearaway).
• Late in the game introduces gyro controlled platforms, and while they work well for the most part, there is a specific section with sheets of foil formed into circles that rearrange and invert themselves based on gyro movements that is genuinely infuriating (maybe the correct motions just didn't click for me, but I died so many times here).

Cons:

• Nothing game breaking, but I ran into quite a few bugs along the way. Mostly stuff like objects being invisible (though nothing necessary) and enemies or myself getting stuck inside the environment.

Overall it was pretty decent and well worth the sale price I paid for it. It's a step above Knack, but below Astro Bot & most first party Switch platformers IMO.

@RogerRoger, to be fair, most of the bugs I ran into were in a specific level. The two invisible boxes & the time an enemy got stuck in the environment were all during the Barn/Attic level, and were minor annoyances more than anything (I could have just gotten unlucky, as I've even had Spider-Man somehow load bad guys inside a skyscraper once, so things are bound to happen ocassionally in any game).

The few times I got stuck in the environmet were all during a little open world paper airplane section. There are little islands you can land on, but only after you've first landed on the mainland for the first time (the game doesn't tell you this though). If you try to land on one of the smaller islands first you'll just skid along it's surface until you slide off or hit something (at which you run the risk of getting stuck to it). Fully avoidable if you just land at the big port town first.

the Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch).

Pros:

• Classic Zelda gameplay that's a mixture of action, adventure, puzzle-solving, and a smattering of other activities. Granted, it's never too difficult or complicated (due to a mixture of the era & machine of it's original release), but there's something enjoyable about a game you can get right into without much fuss.
• There's some welcomed QOL improvements, particularly due to the fact that the Switch has a lot more buttons than the GameBoy, so many items/abilities now have dedicated buttons and are permanently equipped, so you're not spending nearly as much time in the menus switching out items.
• While some may bemoan it's relatively short length by today's standards, much like it's chill nature, I found it to be a refreshing change of pace. Some of the later dungeons may have taken me about an hour or so to clear, but otherwise it always feels like you're on to something new every time you pick it up, and I liked that.
• The art direction is pure magic, particularly in motion. The game has always had it's own unique vibe amongst the series (especially some of the more off the wall stuff like the plentiful Mario refrences), and I think the new toy/dream like aesthetic really helps to tie it all together.
• Music is iconic & catchy, as is par for the course when it comes to classic Zelda.

Mixed:

• While it's appreciated, the new content doesn't add a lot to the package. There are now a series of figurines to win from the claw machine mini-game which are used to decorate the houses in Mabe village (a new one is available to win after every dungeon you clear), and of course there's the much touted dungeon builder, which won't add any major time to your playthrough, but it's a fun occassional diversion.

Negative:

• As has been much discussed, the framerate briefly chugs whenever you enter a new area (whenever the area name appears on screen), and anytime you're in Gapongo Swamp for some reason. I found it to be a minor irritant at worst, and quickly came to be able to pay it no mind.

Overall, this was a game that had me smiling from beginning to end, and while I have no specific love for the original (I played it years after it's original release), the remake has suprisingly gone on to be one of my favorite gaming experiences of the year.

@RR529 I think your review is pretty much how I felt about the game. Very much enjoyed its length - to me it was just perfect.

@Rudy_Manchego, @RogerRoger, thanks!

In refrence to Roger's comment, out of curiosity, which points did you diagree with? I'm guessing maybe the art style?

With the vision being good again, I had some fun with WipEout recently and thought it time to get back on the shmup-wagon!

Finally 'finished' Jamestown+. Beautiful game. Nowhere near trophy completion, but I might give it a try 😊

The Touryst (Switch) - Indie 3D platformer with a tropical vacation theme, with many of the worlds (islands in this csse) being loosely themed around real world locations (such as Fiji & Hawaii, in the forms of Fyjy & Hawayy, for example).

Pros:

• It's kind of a mix between a 3D platformer & Zelda-like (each island has dungeon to tackle in the form of the Monuments), and for the most part it works pretty well.
• It looks fantastic. I'm usually not one for boxy looking games like this (voxel style, I think), but it has a really high level of polish in this area, with the lighting in particular being gorgeous.
• While as barebones as they come, it does feature a photo mode.

Mixed:

• There are quite a bit of side activities on offer, and while a handful of them are great (such as the fantastic F-Zero, Bomb Jack, and Breakout clones in the arcade, the latter two of which are pretty full featured), most are simple distractions that you won't be interested in once you've done them once (such as quick fetch quests, a drone obstacle course, soccer target shooting, pull-up challenge, drum themed rhythm minigame, etc.), largely because they only last a minute or less.
• While I personally don't like knocking a game for this, I think it's fair to point out that it's a quite short experience (it took me longer to complete games like Devil May Cry, Onimusha Warlords, & Blaster Master 0).

Negative:

• There's some platforming challenges in the Twyn Monument that were bad. They feature you having to jump on balls no bigger than your character to progress, and what makes them so hard is that you have to land on each one at least once in order to clear the room, they change positions each time you jump on one, and they explode if you land on them more than once. It's the kind of pixel perfect platforming that isn't really intuitive in a 3D space (made worse by the fact that you have limited camera control in the Monuments).
• A couple of the bosses are terrible as well, specifically those of the Lyfta & Gravyty Monuments. The Lyfta boss is a real test of patience, as in order to pass you need to cover up 5 geysers with rocks, but as long as you're on the ground with the boss it will instantly knock any rocks off the geysers, so what you have to do is put all the rocks up on an elevated platform & try throwing them onto the geysers from there, as the boss won't move when you're up there. However, if you miss judge even one throw, even the last one, the boss will knock off all the other rocks when you go to retrieve the one missed rock, resetting the whole thing. As for the Gravyty Monument, it's boss is the final one, and sees you trying to ride floating platforms over glowing spots (you need to cover each spot with one of the platforms to hurt the boss), and you have to do it a total of three times to beat it. The first phase isn't too hard because the boss will simply try to block your path (though trying to line things up is also a bit unintuitive due to the limited camera control), during the second phase the boss will shoot lasers at you to knock you off the platforms as well (it's the only time in the game anything actually attacks you, and while you have no way of knowing this because you don't have a life bar, you die if it hits you too many times, I think 5), and during the the 3rd phase boulders will start falling from the ceiling as well, one-shotting you if you get hit (these are easy enough to avoid in the one other fight they show up in, but are harder to avoid here because you're trying to guide around the relatively slow moving floating platforms). Any time you die, you have to restart the boss at the first phase.

Overall, despite some really irritating sections, it's overall quite the well made game. Not a must play, but maybe worth looking into if you're into 3D platformers.

Reached the end credits on Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It's an excellent game and I really enjoyed it. There's a lot of depth to the world and the plot, making it easy to care fod the characters.

I might have a few days or a week or two break from it, then I'll like to give the expansions a go. After all that I may write a longer post detailing my thoughts.

@Arugula Ha, good effort! I'm still so annoyed from my play through that I chose to kill Apostate the dredge in the second game so missed out having him in the third.

That series really does show Telltale how to make decisions have consequences though!

@crimsontadpoles I've said it many times on here and I will always say it again; the DLC alone would win GOTY most years, it really is that good. They're quite meaty too; a quick look at my trophy list and it was two months between my first trophy on Heart of Stone and the last in Blood and Wine.

The price you can get them both for as the season pass (if you don't have them already) can be scandalously low too.

@Kidfried I mostly enjoyed Forgotton Anne (no idea why they spelled it that way) and would probably play it again, but there was his niggling feeling that it was missing something. The world is gorgeous to look at and the music is really nice so they nailed that aspect. I also liked the themes regarding consumerism and the modern throw-away nature of society. Still don't really get the bits with the talking crystal with the silly voice, which felt out of place. While the thin gameplay in and of itself didn't particularly bother me and I'm fine with light puzzles, I like to explore areas and make sure I don't miss anything - yet this is a game where if you even go a step too far in one direction you're locked out from going back. The controls were definitely my main issue while playing, and the player choices are sometimes poor and don't always relate to what actually happens.

@KratosMD I agree with most of the points there, and it's similar to what you wrote the other day before finishing the game. I thought the story was fine but got a little silly towards the end as everyone seems to turn out to be Korean mafia.

The music I didn't think was any different to the other games which I quite like in some ways but in others it doesn't help make the games feel overly different to one another (although quite hard to do with the same characters in the same cities).

I think you have to remember that Y0 came out well after Y1 and Y2 so it is more likely to have had more in depth gameplay etc as it did come out almost ten years after the first game!

I finished Life Is Strange 2 last night. It was ok, but no where near as good as the 1st one. I felt like the ending was very bitter sweet.

@RogerRoger my biggest issue was that the episodes felt very dis joined between each other.
I felt like I had missed something between a few episodes but it was just how it was written

Finished the story in Assassin's Creed Origins last night. Although I thought the story was just 'ok', I'm gonna continue playing and clear the rest of the map. Which is unlike me as once the story is over I'm usually done with the game.

@JohnnyShoulder What do you estimate your play time was to get to the end of the main story? And how many more hours do you figure you’ll spend mopping things up? I am wondering because I’m not done with the story yet (probably around 20 hours into it) and I can’t decide if I want to just power through this one or spend a bunch of time wandering around chasing icons.
I think howlongtobeat had it at around 40 hours for a basic run.

I recently finished Days Gone, Cat Quest 2, Dark Souls 3 and Pode. Next on the list to get through is Death Stranding and The Last Guardian; also maybe Dark Souls Remastered and Dark Souls 2 if I have time.

@Th3solution You can check on Club Ubi (or whatever it is called) and it will tell you all kind of stats, including how long you have been playing. Last time I checked it was at about 59 hours, so I reckon it will be close to 70 hours. I will have a check when I get home later, as I meant to check last night. I reckon there is a good 10 - 15 hours left to clear the map, but that all depends on how much is left whay you have finished. But I was generally leaving most of the side quests and stuff towards the end, and only doing them when I felt like it. I reckon the platinum is quite achievable too.

@Simon_Fitzgerald Death Stranding is the most relaxing gaming experience I have had in ages, I am now at 85 hours played and have loved every second of it.

@DonJorginho I'm about 15 hours in and am enjoying it but I can also see why people would hate it. It's a very unique game and I'm intrigued to see how it pans out.