Topic: Games you've recently beat

@johncalmc Damn son, you're rattling through the Yakuza series!

I think the series needed the variation in Y4. It was a brave move but one that I think they pulled off well and Akiyama and Saejima are really good additions to the cast. The other bloke is a bit forgettable (and obviously not that popular to get straight up dropped for Y5). I also liked that they had the side missions for each character and slimmed sub stories down.

Y5 is a bit bloated but still great.

@johncalmc Late to the party, but felt like you needed to know I also enjoyed your Alan Wake review. There’s nothing about it that sounded unfair or biased, and your reasoning was sound for the opinions you expressed. Like others have said, I’m grateful for the candor and although I’m planning to still play it one day (based on my adoration for Control) I’ll not push it up the priority list too high.

Out of curiosity, how do you rank Control?

@Th3solution I think Control is pretty overrated but still good. Like I saw it getting 10s and GOTYs and I'm like okay, let's settle down. If I was reviewing it I'd be on an 8. If we did .5s maybe an 8.5.

The combat is rad but I think it overstays its welcome a bit. I started getting a bit bored towards the end. Less is more, sometimes.

Storywise I liked a lot of it even though it was quite confusing. I would probably play it again although I'd probably play it again on easy and just smash everyone up.

Oh, and I just remembered, the map was absolutely terrible in that game and I never knew where I was supposed to be going.

On Alan Wake, I'd still play it if you wanted to, or if you were a fan of Control and wanted more context for the AWE bit. Like, Alan Wake is a 6 to me because sure it's got good bits to it but also some really rough stuff, and you gotta review the whole thing. If you're the type of person that can stomach some boring fights to get to the cool story moments you'll be fine.

Problem is too many people see a game get less than an 8 and its immediately the worst thing ever. Then you've got too many people who desperately need validation in their own opinions for some reason. Like why does it even matter that some person on the internet who you don't know doesn't like a video game that you like quite as much as you? It's so weird.

@johncalmc I had to laugh at the people comparing the review scores of Alan Wake on Push Square and Pure Xbox like they had to be the same or something?!

And if people are only looking at one review before deciding on buying a game, more fool them. Does anyone actually do that though? If I'm ever unsure of a game I always look at a bunch of reviews to help me decide, not make the decision for me.

@johncalmc Thanks and that’s fair. With that context I’ll probably still try Alan Wake at some point. I’ll let higher priority titles take precedence and then maybe it’ll be even cheaper by the time I’m ready. Or maybe it’ll be on PS Plus my then.

I might rate Control a little higher than you, but I played the Ultimate Edition/PS5 version from the get-go and the performance was great, which I know was one thing that hampered the original release version. In fact, it was the first full native PS5 game I played (after Astrobot) so it probably gets a subconscious bump from me just for the newness of the experience. But if you’re thinking 8-ish for Control then we’re in the same ballpark so I can draw some conclusions about how Alan Wake might sit with me.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, the forums are a great way to get a lot of real world impressions. Looking over a couple professional reviews, then hearing feedback from players, especially those who tend to like the same types of game as you is the best way to go. And sometimes I just flat out have to try something myself if opinions are too varied.

@Th3solution Control was the first PS5 game I played after Astrobot, too! I waited because I'd heard it ran badly so I saved it for the new console and it ran fine.

@johncalmc Great minds and all that. 😄

I look forward to your next review. Any hints at what that might be? Perhaps it’s classified and privileged information, but how do you all get assigned who gets to review what? Is it a lottery system? Or does Sammy always get first dibs and then the rest of you fight over what’s left? 😂

@Th3solution Sammy has a look at all of the codes and then he picks the ones he likes the look of and then... well, have you ever seen the movie Battle Royale?

@johncalmc Haha! No, haven’t seen it but I can only assume it’s the inspiration for the battle royale video game genre.
Well, good luck duking it out with Stephen, Robert, Liam, and Co. for the next one!

@Th3solution They're sending me to the gulag for upsetting all the Alan Wake fans so my next review is going to be the 100 hour extended version of Life of Black Tiger or something.

@Th3solution @johncalmc Control on PS4 is one of the few games that’s made me feel violently ill. Whatever was going on with the motion blur or frame rate or something just did not sit right with me. It felt like playing a VR game. Then it outright corrupted my save. Still enjoyed it despite all that.

So that’s Metal Gear Solid 2 complete on all difficulties (apart from European Extreme, as it’s not a platinum requirement), with all the dog tags. The Harrier, the sniping section, Metal Gear Rays and Solidus were all a genuine challenge on ‘hard’… on ‘extreme’, well… they were whatever is more than a genuine challenge I suppose! ‘Good’ challenges though… particularly the Harrier and the Rays, they are some of my favourite boss fights ever tbh.

Well, I have a couple of missed trophies on the tanker so I’ll have to do a quick run on that with Snake and then onto the copious side-content.

@RogerRoger cheers buddy but nowhere near @kyleforrester87’s level as this has taken me about 3 weeks rather than just a day or two… but I’m pretty happy with how it’s gone nonetheless. From what I gather now, the only potential block on the plat will be the VR sniper missions and some MGS Classic Snake VR missions… but it’s definitely on.

@colonelkilgore I really do remember those three bosses being really tough on the extreme difficulties, and this was like.. what 20 years ago? 😂 Tbh Vamp and the sniper section were also really hard I recall.

And although I cleared it 3 times in 1 day, those were quick runs through very easy/easy and normal to pick up all the tags.

@Keith_Zissou cheers dude… and I struggle with pictures and gifs too tbh 😉

@kyleforrester87 agreed on the Sniper section… I absolutely dreaded it on ‘hard’ and ‘extreme’… and to make matters worse on ‘extreme’ they only hid a bloody claymore behind a pillar that cost me progression about 3 or 4 times as I couldn’t work out what the hell was going on for a minute.

@Iver Nice. I noticed Yakuza games are going really cheap in the current sale. I think Yakuza 6 is only $5 which seems a great price. Kiwami 2 is like $7, also seems a great deal. It makes me tempted to retry the series but I’ve concluded that I just don’t have the time to invest in all the entries. Seem to be great games though.

@Iver Nice. Yakuza 6 is great as it looks fantastic, everything has voice acting, and the story is one of the best. There are much less substories so the pacing works better too.

Clan Creator is back but works better than YK2, hostess clubs are also a little different (for the better), and new side games are fun.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the conclusion to the series!

@Iver I did play Yakuza 0 a couple years ago and just didn’t quite finish it. I liked my time with it though. But for me - it’s length got in the way. Perhaps if I tried to just mainline the story then I could justify trying to go back and wrap it up. But I’m caught in one of those weird spaces where I’ve invested dozens of hours into it so don’t want to start over, yet I think it would be hard to go back a pick up where I left off because I can’t remember the mechanics and what was going on in the story.

I like the sound of other entries being a little more focused and shorter, and so I have kept an open mind of trying the series again one day.

I have a few series that I’ve only played isolated entries, and it works fine for most when the narrative isn’t too interconnected. But when the story is one of the big attractions, I usually like to have it all, if possible, especially if it’s one continuum like Kiryu’s story.

So Judgement or Like a Dragon seem to be where the series goes away from Kiryu and might make sense for me if I did want to dip my toes again. But the price is right for Y1-Y6 which is why it caught my eye.

I cleared Tales of Arise (Steam) the other day, and it was pretty fantastic. It's more an evolution of the series rather than a table upturning revolution, but the many small changes made make it the best Tales game in a long time.

World structure isn't all that much removed from Berseria (in fact, it's probably more linear), so this definitely isn't some sort of open world transformation, however combat is much easier to grasp than the past couple games and your party will be performing fun, slick, & flashy combos of death in no time. That's not to say it's an easier game though, as I found that it was prudent to have cooking buffs active whenever entering new areas/fighting bosses to stay competitive (which isn't something I really had to do in past Tales games), and at the very start (with just 1 or 2 party members) even basic enemies could KO me with 2-3 hits. This MAY be part of a balancing push to get the player to buy the various buff/boost DLCs (of which I didn't partake), but to be honest I never once felt the need to grind for story purposes, and managed to beat bosses 3-4 levels higher than myself without much trouble. I only had one grinding session (maybe an hour long), and it was for the strongest optional boss (strongest before post game anyhow, which I haven't fully explored). The only other slight bugbear in the combat in my mind is that in late game your spellcasters get flashy screen filling attacks that can make it difficult to see the action at times.

There's a lot of other small changes that really add to the experience too (in addition to the lush modern graphical presentation). With the exception of the side quest dialogue nearly everything is fully voice acted, including EVRY skit, which by the way are now fully animated affairs (like living manga panels), and your different costume/weapon choices are reflected in all skits & cutscenes (except for the few anime cutscenes, naturally). The reintroduction of sci-fi elements to the series (in fact, I'd say the most sci-fi premise I've experienced from the series, though it's still full of fantasy too) makes the world building much more interesting than Zestiria or Berseria, and while I could see some coming, there were quite a few twists in the story & lore that were very interesting. I almost want to say it seems Xenoblade inspired (with dual low tech & high tech planets), but it still feels very much it's own thing. Character designs are generally pretty good, and their personalities play off each other nicely. Finally, while it may seem a bit heavier narrative wise than past games (honestly, I think Berseria may be just as heavy, though Arise's updated graphical presentation just makes it hit home a bit more), it still remembers to have a lighter side, in fact, I like to call it Tales of Owl-rise, lol.

For full disclosure, I did buy the Swimsuit DLC for the female party members, which does come with an extra branch to each of their skill trees. I don't believe these offer unique skills though, just further boosts to skills they learn in-game.