Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Ralizah Trust me, after playing most of the series - you do not want puzzle dungeons. Some games are utterly brutal with their checkpoints which means that having to do the same puzzles over and over would grate very thin.

I finished my play through of A New Beginning. And yes, it has some flaws like voice acting and animation that are lacking. And yet, despite all of that being completely true, I had fun playing the game. It’s worth buying if, like me you get the game cheap.

Pluses, the static backgrounds were quite pretty, the game does not crash and I didn’t detect any major game ending bugs.

I know I'm a bit late to the party but congrats on finishing Ys III @Ralizah! Happy to hear it ended up becoming a much more enjoyable experience for you and seemingly enjoyed the plot twists it took? (At least that's what I assume that spoiler tags are covering!)

Major respect for getting through a fair bit of the game without dashing! I probably would've done the same not realising a potion granted such an ability. I wonder if it was done that way so people could attempt a "no dash" challenge of the game or something along the lines? 😄

And I appreciate the answers to the questions I asked in the other thread too of course!

Resident Evil 0. It was a fun game. Not the best of the bunch but the mansion was really cool and atmospheric!

The dual character system was bad. I did not like it at all.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Thanks!

Less "plot twists" than "plot developments that were handled in a mature, cohesive fashion." It's not an amazing plot, but, despite my (still valid) complaints against how some minor characters are written, the game managed to create an interesting cast of personalities that all fit well into the overall narrative. Really impressive considering how old the source material is (there are some large differences in terms of how certain aspects of the story play out, but, as far as I can tell, the broad plot developments are the same between 2005's The Oath in Felghana and 1989's Wanderers from Ys).

It's funny, because while Falcom has been behind in terms of keeping up with industry standards for a while now, their stuff from the late 80s and early 90s seems wildly ahead of its time.

And yeah, I dunno why you have to drink a potion to dash. To be fair, the item description tells you it gives Adol the ability to dash, but I just... assumed it was a consumable! Never played a game where core abilities are locked behind random potions in your inventory before.

It would be interesting to go for a "no dash" run, now that I think about it, but certain late game fights would be incredibly frustrating if you couldn't. Most likely doable, though. I'm sure the fights I struggled with in the middle of the game probably assumed I'd be dashing as well.

... I don't know why I'm shocked to learn the original was from 1989 when I clearly know how old 1&2 were from your previous Ys reviews @Ralizah 😅

It's pretty cool to learn that despite some changes it keeps with the main story beats (At least from what you can tell) from a game that old... And it certainly seems so with what Falcom were acomplishing back then.

Ha ha I'm sure there's already something out with someone not only doing a no dash run, but also doing the macrena or something whilst using the Donkey Kong Bongo controller... Some ridiculous handicap at least lol 😄

Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls. I finally got round to getting all the achievements. It's a spin-off of the main Danganronpa series, and plays as a third-person shooter instead of the usual visual novel style.

Overall, I think the main games are still the strongest part of the series, but Ultra Despair Girls is a welcome addition. I very much enjoyed my time with it.

I’ve now properly completed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey after killing all cultists and doing the artefact thingy. I have to say, those two endings are so, so much better than the normal ending. Tied really nicely to the rest of the series and set up Valhalla. I was beginning to somewhat lose interest (80 hours!!!) but it’s come good in the end. Totally didn’t see the cult leader coming either!

@Jecht_Ultima See, I never had even the slightest issue with grinding. I reached level 50 with half the game felt. Although I have cleared every single question mark in the game out of some weird need.

@Jecht_Ultima You need to do it in AC Origins for the platinum but in this one it’s optional. I actually quite liked the monotony of it.

@nessisonett Unlike those damn feathers in AC 2!

@JohnnyShoulder My brother recently finished AC2 on PS4 and I was going to get the platinum while he moved onto Brotherhood. Collected a feather and it said 21/100 feathers. Not amused.

I can't recall if you mentioned it before... Is Persona 5 Royal your first Persona game @Arugula or have you played others in the series?

Good to hear you quite liked Ultra Despair Girls @crimsontadpoles

I said before when I finished it myself back in March but I think this game did wonders for Toko Fukawa whom I did like the idea of but felt they were vastly underutilised before and rather one note.

Quite liked the puzzle rooms too though I wished they were a bit harder to figure out personally as they were a bit on the easy side for me.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yes true. I did like Toko Fukawa even before now, but the extra development did wonders.

I was also very fond of the villains in this game. Having children as the antagonists isn't a common thing to do, and each of them felt unique in their own right.

I know you're a man of few words @Arugula from those corking movie reviews of yours so I'll take it you'd give the edge to P4 Golden? Or did have some problems with that too?

They had a great chimstry with Komaru too @crimsontadpoles (who had some pretty great lines herself)

As for the villains? Yeah... The whole kid angle really made me quite uncomfortable being both a primary school teacher and a mother. Especially with the backstory of Kotoko (Which I saw coming after Masuru's breakdown before the boss fight) and yeah... That made my skin crawl.

Half-Life: Opposing Force on PC. It's a standalone expansion of the original Half-Life, and was released in 1999. Opposing Force takes place during the events of Half-Life from the perspective of one of the marines sent to Black Mesa.

Overall, it's a fine game. I'm not too keen on first person survival shooter games against horrific creatures, but I still somewhat enjoyed this.

Resident Evil Village. Definitely in the top 3 of my favorite Resident Evil games. It borrowed all the right things from Resident Evil 4. Loved it 9.5/10

I take 0.5 from the score because I can't revisit the boss areas like the Castle, Beneviento House, Reservoir and the Factory.

Finally beat the original DOOM, a game I can check off my bucket list. Well, I haven’t attempted Thy Flesh Consumed yet but that’s a bonus thingy so don’t know if I’ll attempt that or move onto DOOM 2.

Ahh I see @Arugula! Well I appreciate you taking the time to give me a nice long answer (I actually wish I could talk so succinctly as yourself at times because I just can't seem to stop waffling most the time... Like right now!)

I agree with you on the first palace, defintely the highlight of the game for me. Did quite like the fourth palace as well, though the resolution to Futaba's arc seemed a bit rushed and brushed aside, getting over her problem far too easy.

I actually didn't mind the randomness of the dungeons in the previous games... But I wasn't a big fan of mementos myself as well. Especially in just the vanilla version of P5. The boring music for the area didn't help either.

And I most certainly agree with you that the art direction is rather nice and the game oozes style.

As I've already said before on the forums too many times to count I'm not a big fan of everything else it does though myself... Like the story being a bit of a damp squib.

And I'm not quite sure how to this end this rambling... So... Here it is I guess! 😂

That's Miles Morales finished for me at around the 22hr mark.

Really good game that looks fantastic too (I even loved the MCU style credits!). It feels just as good as I remember the original being but the venom attacks give it something new. The story is well done and the relatively short length of it means that it doesn't feel like there's too much filler in there at all.

That final boss is a bit of a step up though! I think I might have died once in the game up to that point but then five or six times in that fight.

Will definitely go back for NG+ at some point as that will be a fairly quick affair to knock off the final trophies.