Topic: Games you've recently beat

Monster Hunter World Iceborne. I've completed the main story and did a bit of the post-game things, but missed plenty of quests and other side activities. I really enjoyed the expansion, but after playing so much of it I now want to move on and give it a rest.

The core gameplay involves hunting down these huge monsters, in what feels like epic boss fights. There's a variety of different monsters to battle, and plenty of weapon types to choose from (Hammer and Insect Glaive are my favourites). The basic gameplay loop involves battling monsters to get materials, then using the materials to craft new weapons and armour in order to be able to defeat tougher monsters.

Iceborne is an expansion which takes place after the main game, and involves travelling to a new icy area and encountering new monsters.

My favourite thing about Iceborne is the monsters. Whereas the base game was a bit lacking in the weirder and wackier monsters, the Iceborne expansion had a good selection of unique monsters. My main issue with the monsters was that a lot of the returning monsters from past games were revealed before the expansion was released, so there weren't many surprises.

Iceborne also features a new hub area. This is quite a nice quality of life improvement, as it is much smaller and more compact then the hub from the main game, so hunters won't need to run as far to get to where they want to go.

My main gripe is that, as a solo hunter, the game is more pushy about encouraging multiplayer than past games. As well as some pop ups, there's a few monsters that are next to impossible to complete solo, such as the Siege monsters.

But overall, the game was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed it.

So I've been completely taken down by a chest infection this last week and only now managed to get online properly. Before being laid low by the lurgy, I did manage to finish off Devil May Cry 5 in an initial story run.

I know a few people mentioned that they struggle with these types of games, especially with chaining combos etc. and I would put myself into that camp. However, I had the game at 'Human' difficulty which is I guess either easy or normal of the two starting settings and that was a level I was comfortable with which meant I could make some mistakes and it not cost too dear so there was some forgiving.

Overall, I really liked this game as daft as it was. Having not played much DMC since the original on PS2, I wasn't up on all the characters etc. but the story was ok for what it was, there was some interesting ideas. There are three playable characters that you have to take on for different missions and this gave some great variety and did mix things up though sometimes I'd get used to one character and have them down and then have to swap out for a different character but overal this was balanced well. Action is over the top, completely ridiculous, as was the various weapons and upgrades. Obviously this isn't subtle.

One thing I would say is that this game is absolutely GORGEOUS to look at and so smooth. The character models in cut scenes are incredibly impressive and the action is so good even when there is a lot on screen. I was playing on a Pro in 4k and it looked great and I got zero slow down. It was one of those games where you look at it and have to stop to admire how wonderful it looks.

So another really solid Capcom game!

And Claudia Black - who makes everything better!

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.

@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.

@nessisonett yeah agree that ending was pretty awful. The DLC is a decent overall package. The one where you control Chris was probs my fave.