Topic: Games you've recently beat

@nessisonett So like Campanella, McBurn and Bleublanc?

The thing is that you get to meet these characters a lot in the Cold Steel games that I didn't feel lost about who they are whenever they showed up. If I never learned that they were from the previous games, I would've easily believed that their first appearance was in Cold Steel. That's how much they're integrated in the Erebonia arc.

I just want to clarify: if you are interested in this series and are willing to start with Trails in the Sky, then you should absolutely do that in order to get the full experience. However, the way @Ralizah described it, it doesn't sound like you want to play the Sky games. And at the end of the day, playing through nine full-length JRPGs is a massive undertaking which will surely discourage even the most passionate gamer. Not to mention that playing through so many games might make you burned out on the series and you might even get frustrated with the later titles as they reuse the same formula. Moreover, the Trails of Cold Steel games will get longer and longer. I think it took me 60-70 hours to complete 1 and 2 respectively, while it took over 100 hours to finish 3 and 4 respectively. And at the end of 4, I was just fed up with the same formula. So I can't imagine how it must feel like when you've already played another five games in the series before Trails of Cold Steel.

It's definitely not as clear-cut as to say that one should play through all of them as it depends on your mood. I would personally recommend to play Cold Steel 1 and 2 (as they're basically one story) just to test the waters and see if you're even going to like this series. Then before continuing with 3 and 4 (as they delve heavily into Liberl and Crossbell), you can decide whether you want to play Trails in the Sky, the Crossbell games and/or jump straight into 3. Because what's the point of starting from the beginning if you're never going to see this through due to lack of motivation. I made that mistake with Final Fantasy and I realised that now that I'm playing through FF7 that I should've just started with the game that I actually wanted to play. I get that FF games are standalone compared to Trails so they don't rely on past knowledge of the series, but the point is that you should also factor in what game you absolutely want to play right now.

@LtSarge The first and third ones you’ve mentioned show up quite a bit in SC. You might say that you didn’t feel lost but you also probably didn’t get the full experience as there are several enforcers that come back later such as one in Ao and then the other apparently is back in Kuro.

@nessisonett I think the amount of enforcers, anguis etc. that show up does increase in Cold Steel 3 and 4, but in terms of Cold Steel 1 and 2 there are very few returning ones. I mean, the whole point of CS1 and CS2 is to introduce Erebonia to the players so naturally there won't be nearly as many references to past games as in CS3 and CS4.

On a side note, I don't have a good way of playing the Trails in the Sky titles but I definitely want to play the Crossbell games when they come out on PS4 next year. Out of curiosity, which arc would you say is the most significant one to the overall story, Liberl or Crossbell?

@LtSarge Well, both are important really. Liberl leads directly into Crossbell but then Crossbell leads directly into Erebonia. The Sky games are on Steam but I played the translations of the Vita versions which I imported. I also did the same with Zero but with Ao I’m playing the translation of the PC version by Geofront that’s coming to PS4 next year. Your best bet is PC if you’re wanting to play the other games.

@nessisonett @LtSarge

Appreciate the advice, y'all.

I'll give SC a chance and skip it if I'm still bored and just watch an LP or something.

That might be my next PC game after I obtain Aloy in Genshin Impact. Just six more adventure rank levels to go!

Might go for Cold Steel after that, since it seems to stand okay on its own.

Credits are rolling on A Plague Tale: Innocence as I type this.

Honestly, I heard good things about this but I didn't think it would be this good. Also thought it would be shorter and it's actually a full length story driven game.
I didn't get all the trophies so I guess I'll have to replay some chapters.

@Voltan Glad you enjoyed it! Took me by surprise also on how good it was.

I really did think they would be swallowed up by MS, seeing as they worked on MS Flight Sim, so was pleasantly surprised when the sequel was also announced for PlayStation!

@JohnnyShoulder Right, I forgot it was the same studio - such different games.
I'll definitely pick up the sequel.

@Voltan I though it might be different studios when I first found out, like there are two named Avalanche (Studios and Software).

@Voltan Glad you enjoyed it as well. Near the end of the game nearly broke me though, with the cart section especially. I died so many times I lost count, especially since it took me several hours. Killing the boss at the very end was frustrating too, but that cart section was ridiculous for me.

It was disappointing since I otherwise loved the game. Obviously I still highly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the sequel. I just doubt I would ever play it again because of the last chapter.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yep. It's actually quite fun. My plan is to just ignore the gacha elements for as long as possible (although I'll do pulls when I happen to acquire enough materials in-game to do ten at a time so I'm guaranteed a 4-star character) and see if it eventually impacts the core experience of the game. My guess is that endgame minmaxing is heavily reliant on gacha, for the best weapons, materials, and characters, but my plan is to mainly do the story stuff and daily commissions. I'll probably play in small bursts after I hit adventure rank 20 and snag Aloy, so I'll probably remain behind story updates enough that the gacha won't be an issue.

So far, it still feels like a proper game to me. Really enjoying it, even though my new bluetooth adapter doesn't want to play nice with my controllers, so I'm forced to use the Steam Controller for a proper pad + gyro experience. It took a bit of getting used to, but this game actually feels pretty good with the Steam Controller (something that has been locked up in my closet for years because I hated the weird trackpads and tiny in-set buttons). DS4 would have been my preference, but I'll probably be hanging that up as my go-to PC controller until Sony has the sense to mass produce another adapter for the PC like Microsoft does for their Xbox controller.

@Voltan Hopefully you didn’t get too frustrated with the combat in the enemy rush sections!

But yes, I was very impressed with it, especially as a PS+ freebie.

@Voltan It is a great game so good to see you enjoyed it. The game was so similar to TLoU in terms of the way it played, well except for all the rats. Definitely a welcome surprise for a PS+ game.

There were a few bits like others have mentioned where the combat gets a bit frustrating but I’ll forgive that considering the budget.

@KilloWertz @Thrillho I needed probably 6-7 attempts for that one. My biggest problem with some of the combat sections was that you would often respawn just before some unskippable cutscene and also if there were some resources in the area you’d have to collect everything again.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy A few of the males in this game probably violate the CCP's new standards on depictions of gender, but Venti is especially interesting since he seems pretty integral to the plot thus far. It's not like miHoYo can just strip the character out to comply with chinese regulations.

I guess they could always substitute pronouns and voice actors to 'change' the gender of the character, which would suck.

It is a little depressing seeing China's patriarchal communist government trying to drown the country's burgeoning game industry in the bathtub.

Well, for the moment, I'm able to ignore the 'wish' menu and it's fairly indistinguishable from $60 open world RPGs I've played in the past otherwise, so we'll see if the gacha stuff ends up tainting the experience for me.

Good shout on that review you did. I think I'm going to go back and re-read it!

@Voltan Yeah, both things did kind of suck. That also didn't help the cart section that you had to keep watching the cutscene over and over. I wish I could have done it in 6-7 tries though.

Overall, still a pretty good game. It's more or less just unfortunate that there were a few issues, obviously the last chapter of the game being a bigger deal for me.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I'm not surprised at all. Years back some sort of Hindu group got angry at the game for depicting the deity Krishna wearing a fedora and allowing him to be fused and used in battle.

😂 IV: Apocalypse is a gem.

As I haven't seen too many people mentioning Alan Wake I just thought I'd do a quick writeup now I've finished it. I was coming at AW from the point of view of being a big fan of Control, which for me had a great mix of gameplay and story elements. The environments in Control felt quite varied even though they were all taking place in one building, and as you unlocked the different abilities the gameplay really opened up.

Alan Wake definitely feels like the opposite of this in many ways. While the story is well done and the characters within are interesting I didn't feel that there was nearly as much mystery in the world as I was expecting. That was possibly due to me playing the AWE DLC in Control and that being centred around the happenings in Bright Falls but even so I guess I was just hoping for a lot more.

The biggest problem I had with AW though is that the gameplay is just really frustrating. The enemy types don't really change throughout the entire game, and the way you go about fighting them also remains the same. It gets especially annoying when there are bigger mobs of enemies coming at you from all around. Because the combat relies on two elements - first staggering them and then shooting them - you are constantly juggling between the two things and having to reload each of those elements gets really old quite quickly. There were some points were I felt I'd really got the hang of it and actually start to enjoy it only for it to be disproved a moment later when slightly more enemies than you can handle at once appear.

The environments don't help as there's not really any change between the start of the main game and the end of the DLC, it's all very samey - dull forests and wooden barns / cabins. There are collectables available but at some point I just gave up on those as I just felt I wanted to get through the game and see out the story.

Anyway long story short I did enjoy this game on some level just no where near as much as I was hoping I would. It's definitely not the classic it was made out to be but I'd still recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Control universe and enjoyed the AWE DLC. It's one I'm glad I played but not one I'm likely to play again.

Just finished Tearaway Unfolded on PS4. Such a great game, it was really relaxing to play, which is exactly what I needed now. I'd already played the original game on Vita so I was familiar with most of the game, but I did notice all the new content they added, which was cool! Furthermore, the transition from Vita to PS4 controls was well done. It felt just as natural to play with the DS4 as with the Vita. The only issue I had the game was the camera, which was absolutely atrocious some of the times. It would zoom in too much on the main character and I could barely see where I was going. Other than that, I had a great time with the game and it's definitely one of the most creative 3D platformers you can play on PS4.