Topic: Games you've recently beat

I played the first chapter of the game and loved it. For free it was great. I heard that the other chapters sucked and didn’t go any farther.

From what I am hearing that has not changed.

Finally got round to beating Crash Bandicoot as part of the N-Sane Trilogy. It was pretty good, classic platforming but dear lord, is it frustrating at times. The bosses are flat out annoying to be honest, you die every 5 seconds until you work out what you’re even supposed to do. I did still enjoy it mostly, although I completely cheesed The High Road. That level is evil.

@nessisonett Did you manage the Stormy Ascent DLC level? That was brutal and I can see why it was cut from the original game.

@RogerRoger Oh yes, no qualms about that one. None at all.

@Thrillho I played it a few times, died and then thought just nope. There was no way I’d beat it to be honest.

@nessisonett @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I did it after completing the game and think I used up pretty much all of my lives trying to do it. I got the gem too which isn’t too bad.

@RogerRoger I don’t think there will be a second season, mostly because I don’t think the game sold particularly well. I haven’t seen numbers, but I just get the feeling it bombed because the game pretty much disappeared from the gaming news site public consciousness after the first episode. It has had a bit of a ‘slow burn’ sales-wise I think because I was able to find a couple smaller sites that had some playthroughs and guides, but there is surprisingly little online chatter. I did find a smaller site that had the most info and I think that’s where I saw the criteria to get the good ending and how the requisite decisions involved even early episode paths which I’d not taken.

I’d have liked to see something like the Detroit Become Human or Virtue’s Last Reward flowchart system where there is more disclosure about the branching narrative, but The Council is nowhere near as sophisticated a game as those, even if it does have the RPG elements which are absent from other choice-based multiple ending story games.
Nevertheless, I think the idea warrants a second season, even if it’s to use the same mechanics and gameplay outline and just do another area of alternate history and explore a similar setting with different characters. (Perhaps instead of Napoleon, Washington, Godoy, and Co. in the turn of the 18th century they could focus on a council between Lincoln, Victoria, Pius IX, Wilhelm, etc in the mid 1800’s or something like that). A follow up season or outright sequel would be good, if they fine tune the issues I mentioned and help the flow. Unfortunately I don’t think it will happen.

A quick google search shows Big Bad Wolf Studio’s current project to be Vampire: The Masquerade — Swansong, which apparently is based on a popular table top game and a follow up to previous attempts to turn that into a video game franchise. It looks like it might play out like a narrative driven game with RPG elements so it could play similarly to The Council, I don’t know. I’m not as intrigued by a vampire game though as I am the historical fiction setting.

@Th3solution VtM is definitely worth checking out, the original Bloodlines game is a flawed masterpiece and the sequel’s looking great so far. There’s a few spin offs now so it’s pretty cool that team’s working on one of them.

@nessisonett Are you a fan of the table top game? I’ve never seen a Vampire table top game before.

@Th3solution I haven’t been massively into tabletop stuff in years but the original Bloodlines game is one of my favourite games ever. It did so much right, it just got rushed out and so runs like crap and needs about 5 patches to work.

@nessisonett @Th3solution There are actually two Vampire: The Masquerade games coming out. The aforementioned Swansong by Big Bad Wolf Studio, I've not seen much of that and don't know too much about it. And then there is Bloodlines 2, a first person action RPG which sounds like a mish mash of Cyberpunk 2077 and Dishonoured.

@JohnnyShoulder I so wish that the original Bloodlines was on modern consoles/actually finished properly. If the second one lives up to that potential, it could really be one of my favourite games this gen. Immersive sims are such an underdeveloped genre and it’s pretty crazy that games like Deus Ex and Thief are in some ways more impressive than their modern counterparts.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Awesome! Good job.

Yeah, the final boss level is just brutal without a powered-up Unmaker. Like you, I didn't collect the demon keys on my first playthrough and had to face the Mother Demon after mowing down hordes of demons, and it wasn't easy. The only way I managed to beat her initially was by continually stun-locking her with point-blank Super Shotgun blasts and rhythmically moving immediately afterward to avoid her fire attack.

Going into that final stage with a fully powered-up Unmaker in a subsequent playthrough is hilarious and sweet, sweet revenge.

The extra campaign in this game is surprisingly challenging, btw.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! I thought it addressed almost every issue I have with classic DOOM. Amazing game. Can't imagine playing through it on this controller, though.

@Ralizah One thing I’ve realised playing Ocarina of Time on a DS4 is just how accurate the N64 stick is in comparison. It’s somewhat too accurate in that it feels slippy at times but I actually like the fork controller.

@nessisonett I don't like the design, but I'm also not a three-handed alien.

The N64 stick was very... brittle. So I imagine it probably works well for smaller, more accurate movements. Still not a fan, though. And playing an FPS without either a mouse or a second analog stick seems insane to me. But then I remember people used to play DOOM games with just a keyboard. I can't even imagine!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Nice. Overpowering the thing didn't work for me, unfortunately, because normal tactics led to it throwing me around the battlefield with its attacks and quickly killing me.

It's definitely the hardest DOOM boss I've fought to date.

Still can fathom how we played games with the N64 controller without giving ourselves some kind of permanent physical damage!

@Kidfried I was super confused when I was first reading about Swansong a few weeks back as I just assumed it was Bloodlines 2.

Thanks for write up on Cuphead. It's been on my watchlist since it was on Switch, but i suck at shmups and would need to try a demo before I get it.

@Kidfried Glad to hear you enjoyed Cuphead. Despite the steep difficulty, I always felt motivated to try my hand at difficult bosses again until I conquered them. The fact that reloading feels almost instantaneous certainly helped, I'm sure.

The Expert boss difficulty isn't too overwhelming if you're just trying to beat them. If you try to S-rank (only achievable on Expert) all of the bosses, though... you basically have to become perfect at the game. I can't even manage to eat a single hit in this difficulty, since I've found that the HP charms tend to lower my DPS just enough that it's difficult for me to kill the bosses quickly enough.

If you want another insane challenge to look forward to, the game also tracks the Run'n'Gun levels you manage to complete without firing a single shot. If you manage to achieve the "Pacifist" ranking on all of those levels, you'll be able to unlock a Black and White filter for the game... which sucks once you realize it makes it impossible for you to tell which projectiles you can parry off of.

I managed to 100% Crash 2 there. I really enjoyed it, way more than the first game. The warp zone structure just suits the game better since you get an element of choice. There were also more secrets, some well hidden ones but nothing too frustrating. That being said, there were some truly brutal gems to get towards the end of the game and I don’t even know how I managed it. Great game though, onto Crash 3!

Finished Nioh 2, or the main campaign at least. One of my favourite games of this gen, I enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish.

@Gremio108 I loved the first game but have had no inclination to pick up the sequel whatsoever. I have no idea why.