Topic: Games you've recently beat

@colonelkilgore Great work. Guac 2 is also a great game and just as fun as the first. This was what me and the wife went on to play when needing a new Metroidvania fix after Hollow Knight. It's difficult finding something as good as that game but these came close.

@colonelkilgore Hi there friend.
Guacamelee is a great MetroidVania tittle and so is the sequel.
I played and finished them both in my Laptop. I think the sequel is even better with all the new crazy shenanigans Drinkbox Studios made. Other great MetroidVania tittles I´ve played are:
Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dust an Elysian Tail, Blasphemous, The Messenger and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
I´m playing right now Deaths Gambit Afterlife and Sundered.
I played the original version of the first, but Afterlife is like a brand new game. And it´s coming to PS4.
Well worth it.
Cheers, stay safe and have a good one

@RaZieLDaNtE @render @Thrillho @colonelkilgore I’m really starting to question my video game intelligence quotient given how much I disliked my time with Guacamelee. Couple that with the fact I could barely make it past the first 5 hours of The Witcher 3 and I think I’m starting to get a complex. And I won’t even mention how I thought Assassin’s Creed Black Flag was the worst of the series.

Honestly, I do think I might need to try this Guacamelee game again. Clearly I wasn’t playing it correctly. 😅

@Th3solution Maybe my enjoyment was boosted by playing Guacamelee couch coop with the missus, but even so I think there's a lot to like here. I loved the characters and the humour, the varied enemy types, and most of all those challenging points where you have to remember what special skill to apply at exactly the right moment.

You should definitely go back for a second look 😀

Edit: And I kind of get you on Witcher 3, I liked it and did finish it but thought the best bit was playing Gwent!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Heh, well ironically, Dark Souls is another one of the games I’d consider putting on the heap of “Games Universally Praised that Sol Actually Hates” but I think my issue with it years ago when I tried it was more an issue of not being a patient enough gamer and not understanding the Souls formula. That, and I think plenty of people jump off of their first Souls game after a few hours, so I’m probably not alone in that.

At least you made it nearly to the end of Nier Automata whereas those games I mentioned were all abandoned in the opening few hours.

And ditto my feeling on DLC. I rarely partake in them. Often they can feel like either — A) lesser content that was originally carved out of the game and picked up off the editing room floor or B) quickly thrown together cash-grab content assembled after the team realizes the popularity of a game means demand is high enough that any related expansion will sell. 😄

@Th3solution Obviously there are exceptions where the DLC for a game is still quite good, but I also miss the old days where DLC for at least RPGs was exceptional and was actually longer than some other games. Oblivion comes to mind as it's Shivering Isles DLC was roughly 30 hours. That was also 15 years ago, but only some modern games here and there have ever approached that since.

The Witcher 3's two expansions were supposed to be fantastic (I have sadly not played them yet, but plan on it next year finally), Assassin's Creed Odyssey's DLC was generally pretty good (especially The Fate of Atlantis), and I'm sure there's something else I'm just being too lazy to think of right now.

@Th3solution Hey there friend.
You know, sometimes, games don´t quite "click" with you. Some games take awhile to get interesting. You keep especting you´ll eventualy find the "hook" of the game and sometimes it doesn´t happen.
Same thing with movies, books, tv shows and anime.
It can be anything that either motivates or keeps you to play a certain game. Art and visual style, characters, gameplay mechanics, storyline, soundtrack.
I enjoyed my time with guacamelee 1 and 2, as well as The Witcher 3 and both dlcs.
@KilloWertz mentioned them and if you like the main game, your gonna like the dlcs.
Heart of Stone is one of the best dlc I´ve ever played and Wine and Blood gives you a completely new map with really good sidequests and a braching main story. But I´m biased. I love the world of the Witcher because of the books and I love story driven games.
Oh, I also didn´t like Assassin´s Creed Black Flag so there is that.
Give Guacamelee another try. Maybe it will "click" with you this time.
Cheers, stay safe ya´ll and have a good one

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah — there is something to be said about perseverance. The fact that Bloodborne eventually clicked and other Souls-likes were enjoyable (Jedi Fallen Order) means I think Dark Souls might be something I’d like on a revisitation.

Oh, And I thought you stopped just short of the final 3rd playthrough “true” ending. I remember it as you put it down in silent dissent of where the narrative was going. 😅 So you made all the way until the end credits combat section where you were given aid by all the online players who have sacrificed their game save and you were given the opportunity to sacrifice and delete your game save in order to help others?. If so, then I am impressed with your stubbornness! 😉 I stand corrected! 😂

@KilloWertz I have heard about the famously superior W3 DLC. It seems like it could have been it’s own game.

@RaZieLDaNtE I agree that sometimes one has to hit a threshold before a game ‘clicks.’ I have not been a Metroidvania fan traditionally, but I’ve warmed up to the genre lately — mostly due to support from the community here. I played Guacamelee before I became active on Push Square, so I expect another attempt might be different.

@render @RaZieLDaNtE yeah it was great fair play. Both the combat and the movement were so intricate… and designed using the same moves for both… it’s pretty genius tbh.

@Th3solution nah mate, it’s definitely not just you. I fell off Hollow Knight really quickly a few years ago, and that is supposed to be most aficionados number one metroidvania. I think it really depends on the mood you’re in when you start something. I never thought that I’d give the genre another go but I kept seeing strong reviews and glowing praise, so I thought I’d give it another shot. I’ll be playing a few more of them now for sure.

@colonelkilgore The thing with Hollow Knight (which I only played for a while and didn’t love tbh - but maybe I should give it more time, some other time) is that it’s not exactly a typical metroidvania, as it’s clearly inspired by the Souls games too. Which is obviously part of the reason why it’s so popular

Good job on beating Guacamelee btw, it’s obviously not a huge game but that still seems pretty quick

@Voltan cheers mate, think beating it took around 13 hours and then another 7ish on top for the plat.

So what you’ve said there about Hollow Knight makes me think that I definitely should’ve clicked with it being a souls-fan and all. I’ve picked up an absolute load of metroidvanias lately though, so I think I’ll leave HK until last… once I feel I fully understand the whole genre and it’s many facets.

@colonelkilgore I actually thought it might've been shorter, 13 hours is not bad for an indie platformer

@Voltan oh it definitely could’ve been quicker… I just had quite a few moments where I had to do combat rooms many (MANY) times before I got through if you know what I mean.

I’m still unsure if I was better of doing the one playthru on Hard, or if I should’ve played through on normal first and then played through again on hard after.

@colonelkilgore @Voltan I found with Hollow Knight that it took me a long while to really appreciate it. I was playing it alongside something else and kept bouncing between the two. Eventually something clicked and it became my main game. I guess thinking about it it must have been my first souls-like as well as first metroidvania.

One of the things I remember from the beginning of the game is how limited you are in what you can do. It was quite frustrating that I just had to keep going over the same bits again and again and it was only after I’d beaten the first boss and got to the next area did I actually get it.

I’d love to go back and platinum it but my skills are definitely lacking to polish off the remaining trophies 😆

@render so playing through Guacamelee has definitely gave me reason to return to Hollow Knight at some point... it’s just that having done a bit of research it’s Platinum is off the charts in terms of difficulty.

So I’m gonna play most of the others over the next few years (Castlevania: SotN, Bloodstained: RotN, Axiom Verge, Yoku’s Island Express, Ender Lilies, Salt & Sanctuary, Sundered, F.I.S.T., Blasphemous... and obviously Guacamelee 2) and then I’m gonna have a proper crack at plat’n Hollow Knight after I’ve played pretty a large chunk of what else is available first. I just watched The Completionist’s video about it on YouTube and it looks INSANE! Insane... but phenomenal too.

It’s strange, I honestly never thought I’d be that into metroidvanias... but having finished with Guacamelee, I feel a bit obsessed with them already 😅

edit. Also, does anyone know anything about whether Grime will release on PlayStation... it looks class?

@colonelkilgore Hi there friend.
It´s like they say, once you try it you can't go back.
MetroidVanias have existed for awhile now and there are some really good ones out there.
Games like Hollow Knight (probably one of the most difficult games to Platinum), Castlevania: SotN (my personal favourite Castlevania game), Guacamelee 2 (dimensional swapping), Blasphemous (very unique art style) and Death´s Gambit Afterlife, wich is a free update that changes the game completely.
It literaly becomes much more like a MetroidVania game. And it´s on PS4 now as well.
I´ll be playing Sundered on PC. I´ll get you some feedback on it when I can
As for Grime, it´s a PC and Google Stadia game only for now.
Cheers, stay safe and have a good one

@RaZieLDaNtE hey buddy, thanks for the info. I have been tempted to make Castlevania: SotN my next metroidvania actually... i think you’ve just sealed the deal with your ranking. Gonna try and play it sometime in the first half of 2022.

Just added Deaths Gambit to my wish list too 👍

If you hear anything about Grime for PlayStation definitely let me know.

@colonelkilgore I adored Hollow Knight and wanted to get that shiny plat to show my love for it but it was too much for me.

Most of the trophies are fine but the combat challenges (the pantheons) were too much as you have to fight multiple bosses back to back with no respite. I stopped trying before that experience at the end tainted the rest of the game.

It does seem to be a game people utterly love or just don’t get on with though.

@Thrillho yeah, those pantheons seem to be no joke... and in all honesty, I do think the platinum will probably be a bit beyond me but I do like a ‘project’.

I do think I’ll click with it the next time I play it though. When I tried it back in 2018, I didn’t even know what a metroidvania was. So I had no expectations in terms of the game’s fundamentals... my only expectation was that everyone keeps saying how amazing the game was. By the time I return to it, I’ll have played (and hopefully plat’d) most of the ‘big’ mv’s... so I’ll a good idea about what lays ahead (even if HK does raise the bar in most areas).

I’m looking forward to my next one already 🤣