Topic: Games you've recently beat

@colonelkilgore It’s been years since I played FFXII and I only played the original, not the Zodiac Age edition, but it has a really unique battle system, as others have mentioned. It’s depends what you dislike about turn-based combat that will determine your opinion of FFXII’s system. One one hand, there is not much spur of the moment skill based combat, a la Souls games. However the gambit system rewards a tactical approach with good preparation and applying some logic before a battle. If you set up your gambit (the auto instructions and reactions that your party members follow) then the battles basically play themselves and you can breeze through most of them. If the aspects of turn-based battle that repel you is the lack of being the actual executor of the action, then you’ll probably hate the FFXII gambit system. For me, it was great and I really enjoyed the ability to invest time and strategy setting up my team and then just watch them lay waste to the enemy. 😄

@colonelkilgore Gambits are a way to control your party members indirectly. It's like a simple scripting language: IF Health < 30% THEN use a healing item, etc.
As you progress through the game you unlock new conditions for the gambits as well as the ability to set a larger number of them.

@colonelkilgore Additional thought...
For me the gambit system was a bit of ‘trimming the fat’, so to speak on the usual turn-based combat. So, for example, when your main character’s health drops below 30%, don’t you want your healer character to execute a healing spell? Well, of course. You’d probably do that 9 times out of 10 anyways. If the enemy is known to be weak against a certain element, wouldn’t you have your mage use that offensive spell? Sure. So you’re just pre-arranging to do all the things you’d normally do, and then only getting involved when you have a curve ball thrown at you, but the mundane decisions are all automatic with the gambits.

Edit: @Voltan beat me to it a little 😄

@Th3solution I am 'interested' as I enjoyed 7R and particularly 15 (I know right) so much... but I just have so many games scheduled that I know I'll enjoy, I guess there just isn't enough upside to taking another punt on something that lends its self to a style I struggle to click with.

I appreciate everyone's (yours, @Voltan & @JohnnyShoulder) though 🙏

Congrats @JohnnyShoulder on finishing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age!

For having a double and quadruple speed up function that still was a hell of a lot of hours ya spent on it, but glad you enjoyed it quite a bit!

And well done on felling Yizamat too, especially after your first time against him unfortunately crashed... I would've probably just thrown the towel in myself with the stupidly long super bosses

I almost did @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy, or at the very least just continue to finish up the story. Even with quadruple speed and all the tecniks setup to gimp his damage and so on, it still took the best part of 2 hours! 😂

That was definitely the longest boss fight, the end of game boss was a breeze in comparison. Part way through the final stage I set loose my best summon on the final boss, and it one hit killed him!

I've finished Resident Evil 3 Remake. It was not as atmospheric as I imagined it. Resident Evil 2 Remake was better in all aspects. Still fun game.

I've completed Persona 2: Innocent Sin. That was the PSP version, played on PS Vita.

Overall, it was fairly fun. The story was great in it. It's set in a Japanese town, and trouble is brewing as rumours start becoming reality.

My main complaints come from some gameplay issues. Selecting the different options in battle and demon negotiations feels a bit slow and cumbersome. And the difficulty was very easy for much of the game, even on Hard difficulty.

But overall, it was quite enjoyable.

I have been playing Spyro's trilogy for the last week; and finished the first game.

Some takeaways:

• What I love about so many of those 90s and early 00s games is that their length is just perfect in relation to its gameplay. What I mean is that those games usually end at the exact moment you feel like you've seen everything the game has to offer.
  Many modern games just have as much content as the developer had a budget nowadays. Big budget game? Sure, we'll make it in a 50+ hour game, even if it means the gamer will be bored about 30 hours in (I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed!). In that regard Spyro hit all the right notes. The game was over, before I got bored with the admittedly simple formula.
• The flying levels are great. They're just the right difficulty, and I loved planning a run.
• Graphics and sound are really good. Enough has been said about them, but what I feel is it's greatest accomplishment is that I had to look up how the old games actually still looked, because I couldn't imagine them looking anything different anymore.
• I personally would have liked if the developers had taken just a tiny bit more freedom with the source material to improve the feel of the game and some quality of life stuff. The game over screens are meaningless and could have been taken out (the penalty is merely two loading screens, which take forever), dash controls are imprecise, not being able to breath fire and glide at the same time is a bit of a bummer.

This game gets a... 7/10 from me.

While enjoyable, I think the game just isn't memorable enough, looking back. I played Mario 64 a lot this year, and that game has all these very weird and memorable levels, like tiny huge land. In comparison Spyro's adventure plays it way too safe: a swamp, a forest, a desert, a castle.

And Toys for Bob did everything they could to make all these levels special, so it's certainly not a slight towards their work. Just wish the source material was a bit more special!

@Kidfried The first game is pretty safe but I loved it. A nice platinum too.

Much like the Crash trilogy, they do start to put more filler in the other games. Some of it works, some doesn’t.

If you’re going for all the platinums, I remember one boss fight in the second game that you have to do without being hit and I swear it was harder to do that than beat most of the bosses in the Dark Souls games

@Kidfried Wholeheartedly agree with all of your positive points regarding the first Spyro, which I enjoyed sticking around to platinum. I also agree with @Thrillho in that the sequels start to suffer from gimmicks and filler, and I suffered a bit of burnout when trying to play the whole trilogy from start to finish, so be warned and maybe queue up something different to take a break with (and yeah, that trophy for beating a boss without taking any damage... well, frankly, it can do one).

@RogerRoger Don't worry about me suffering from Spyro burnout. I've already switched up to another very Roggie game: Miles Morales! It's been a lot of fun so far.

@Kidfried Oh, awesome (although of course I'd say that, it being a very Roggie game indeed)! I should make a "Roggie Approved" list of games, and a label to stick on 'em.

Glad you're having fun with Miles, and hope you continue to do so!

The @RogerRoger seal of approval! Now there is a scary thought!

@JohnnyShoulder Actually, good point, I wouldn't stick it on anything. We've had enough developers go bust in recent years. I don't think I could live with the guilt.

Man of Medan. It was enjoyable enough, but I think Little Hope is better. And Until Dawn is even better than them both.

I did fairly well, and kept most of the main characters alive. Julia was the only fatality, as I mistakenly stabbed her at the very end. Conrad was probably going to die too. He escaped earlier, but came back to help after everyone else had left.

Miles Morales. Simply the better Spider-Man game. A way more interesting story and a better pacing. And I thought all game gameplay tweaks made sense too.

@Kidfried Yesssss!! Knew you'd enjoy it, but still really glad to see you did! Awesome!

Managed to complete Headhunter (PS2) and y'know, I've played far worse. Some of its late-game puzzles became a bit obtuse but otherwise, it kept things tight. Ridiculous camera and cumbersome motorcycle controls aside, I found the fun. A good example of its era.

Just completed Wreckfest on PS5. All races done, and all 70 cars won or bought. Just 4 trophies to go for the Platinum