Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Indoorhero @JohnnyShoulder
I would go for it (I did!). NG+ can be done in around 2-3 hours if you just mainline the story missions and ignore everything else. can even be done in super easy more if you have done with the challenge. But hey if you guys don't want platinum trophies then all the more for me I guess.

@Sorteddan It wasn't so much the time spent, more so I was beginning to not enjoy the game. And I would rather remember my time with the game with fondness rather than have it tarnished by just going for a platinum trophy and increase an meaningless number on my profile page.

I recently finished Kena: Bridge of Spirits which was overall an enjoyable game. I found it surprisingly difficult though, even to the point of lowering the difficulty to 'Story' to stop me from getting frustrated with the game. I certainly won't be going for the Master difficulty for Plat in this one.

Also despite being a beautiful and well animated game did anyone else who played this find the sound mix in cutscenes dreadful. I rarely play with subtitles but had to turn them on because half of what was being said in cutscenes was completely drowned out by music.

So a few annoyances but an otherwise good game and interested to see what the studio does next.

@BearsEatBeets Hey, somebody else that struggled with the bosses enough to drop the difficulty at times. I still played the majority of the regular parts of the game at Normal, but dropped it for every boss. It was more frustrating than fun for me, so I had to and was glad I did. I was disappointed I wasn't enjoying it like I had hoped, but after dropping the difficulty and ended up loving the game.

Yeah, the sound wasn't mixed very well. It had a fantastic soundtrack, but I played the whole game with the subtitles on. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since it was their first game. It's not really a big deal to me in the end since I've played plenty of games with them on, but hopefully they learned from it. The sound mix for Guardians of the Galaxy, the game I'm playing through now, is fantastic.

@KilloWertz I think a few of us here dropped the difficulty in Kena for some of the bosses. I didn't do it for every boss though, only the couple I struggled with.

@BearsEatBeets Weird, I don't recall any sound issues with the game.

@KilloWertz Yes I certainly enjoyed it more once I turned down the difficulty. I felt the platforming elements could still sometimes be a bit frustrating as if I needed to be too precise with double jumping. There were plenty of times Kena would plummet (sometimes to death) down because it looked like she was a few inches short of the height needed despite pressing the same button twice the same as all other times. The niggles meant it just fell short of being a great game but I'm glad I got it and played it. Like you mentioned it was still a great effort for a first game and would imagine they will only improve with time.

Guardians of the Galaxy has some great sound and music and is well mixed. I'd sometimes leave the PS5 tab page for the game open for a bit before playing because of the guitar music it plays. I hope you continue to enjoy it. I got the platinum for that today but I also turned the difficulty down for the last couple of boss fights in that too as I kept dying and they were quite lengthy. Still thought it was a great game though.

@JohnnyShoulder Like most games that allow you to individually alter the voice/sound effects/music I usually tweak it to about 100%/90%/70% (in that order) and it was fine for normal gameplay but it didn't seem to make any difference to the major cutscenes, at least for me. I don't like to play with subtitles as I find them distracting but felt I had no choice after a while as I couldn't make out some of the dialogue over the music. Maybe it depends on the tv, I should have tried it through my surround system but I often forget to put it on.

How did you get on with the final boss? I died twice on the bit where you return to the Rot God when it threw me out the edge of the area and could barely move. I didn't think to shield dash so got insta-killed before I could get back in. Hence having to all the way back to the start of the fight. And this was on the easy difficulty 😁. Got him on the third try though.

@BearsEatBeets Ah yeah I've got a soundbar with a seperate sub woofer, and also play a couple of hours a week with headphones. I didn't touch the sounds uptions either, I usually don't mess with those unless something doesn't sound right.

As for the last boss, I think I died more times in the platforming section in-between fighting the boss, especially when you have have to hit those plants in mid air. I died a fair few times, but this is normal for me. Corrupted Taro I must have faced a dozen times before giving up and putting it down to easy.

@JohnnyShoulder Oh yeah I died the first time I tried the flower point in that phase. I got worried for a second it was going to send me right back to the start for that but thankfully it's only the start of that section and not the whole fight.
I'm pretty sure Corrupted Taro was my turning point too, but I left it down after that and subsequently died much more from platforming than fights after that.

@BearsEatBeets Once Kena really clicked for me, it felt nostalgic. Yeah, like you said, it had small issues here and there, but it still brought me back to older school fantasy adventure games. I guess it also didn't hurt that it was a gorgeous looking game.

I leave it sitting on the game on the home screen just to let the music play for a while too. I think I'm near the end of Chapter 14 and I'm still highly enjoying it, so it should be safe now. I'll try to remember that if the bosses at the end give me much trouble, so thanks for the heads up.

My mum finished up Assassin’s Creed 2 today and really enjoyed it, even if the ending remains insane, when I’ve played the rest of the games and understand the ‘lore’. The whole collecting the codex pages in order to complete the game was a bit tedious and the parkour did have the tendency to go a bit off the rails at times but it’s still a classic!

Just finished Uncharted Lost Legacy. A significantly shorter experience than the other games in the series but excellent nonetheless.
Just like with U4, I will not be chasing trophies in this one (although they seem just a tiny bit less crazy)

@nessisonett Hope she stayed away from those damn feathers!

That ending perplexes me to this day. So much so, that it kinda put me off the series until Black Flag. Shame cos it is a fantastic game overall.

@JohnnyShoulder I think she finished the game with about 12 feathers and approximately 15% of the viewpoints 😂

I beat Death's Door last night and in the most part quite enjoyed the experience. This is the second isometric game I've played in the past year, the other being Hades, and I'm definitely coming round to this design decision. It works quite well to allow a good field of view and means the developer can put some good fun elements into the boss battles. Speaking of which they were all really excellent and varied but my favourite was probably the urn witch.

I read somewhere this game was supposed to be 8 - 10 hours to complete but I'm already on 15 because I spent quite a bit of time just exploring the various areas so I might as well plough on for the platinum. I'd highly recommend this game though especially if you like a fair challenge.

@render Nice. I picked up the game (along with Hades) in the current sale. I think it was @kidfried who also enjoyed the game so it’s one I’m looking forward to.

I’m guessing you didn’t go for the base weapon run only then on your first play?

@Thrillho I knew someone mentioned it recently but used the forum search function and all I found was that @kidfried had mentioned it in their top games of 2021 list. Because I remembered something from that post I checked before I started and did use the base weapon from the off.

Having finished the game I've tried a few of the other weapons and they would have made it a lot easier but as one weapon pretty much feels the same as another I don't think you miss out a great deal other than battles taking longer. I tended to use my other abilities a lot as well as melee so I think that helped me ignore the low damage and I just got on with it. I should now be able to tidy up all the other trophies without another play through so that's a bonus.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Pretty much lived up to expectations, which is something to appreciate when you finish a game you really enjoyed like you thought you would.

It wasn't perfect, like not knowing exactly what to do or where to go at times and the huddling up amounting to being nothing more than a gimmick, but they were small issues in the grand scheme of things since they nailed so much. The combat was a little over chaotic to the point where it became a button masher in a sense by just constantly spamming random skills with you and your teammates to win battles, but the voice acting, the writing (dialogue, tone, and overall story), graphics, audio (fantastic soundtrack and audio mixing) were all great. All of that came together to make one very enjoyable experience.

I'm not sure if this would dethrone Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart as my 2021 Game of the Year, but it would definitely be a contender. Small issues here and there aside, like I said already, games that end up being great experiences for you don't exactly come out left and right, but this was one of those.

@KilloWertz What do you mean the huddling up amounted to nothing?!? Get the answer right and you got to hear a banging 80s tune while you fight, what’s not to like about that? 😂

@render Well, yeah, it was still fun to do and did give you temporary unlimited usage of the pink "super" abilities. I just meant in the grand scheme of things in the game, that they have nothing to do with the actual fight and are just random. It was still funny having a certain song or two playing while you're in the middle of a big battle.