Topic: Games you've recently beat

@ralphdibny It's no bad thing knowing what you are going to be playing for the foreseeable future but it does sound like you might be playing Yakuza games till the end of days. I will make sure that the release window looks pretty barren before starting them I think 😜

@ralphdibny I am certainly a Yakuza fan and completed Kiryu's saga last year and played Judgment earlier this year.

Still Lost Judgment and Like a Dragon to go!

@render haha it feels like that sometimes. Or just games in general. I think I have more games than I have life left to live sometimes.

@Thrillho nice one! I'm looking forward to seeing the end of it. Now if I can only drag myself away from Yakuza 6s Live Chat mini game to actually progress through the story 👀. Having said that, I am about to run out of in game currency 😅

Yes, this! I can’t wait until they develop those plug in devices to download memories and experiences directly into my brain. It’s the only way I’m going to experience all the games, movies, TV shows, and books I want to before I die. 😅 And they keep making more!

@Th3solution I think I just want immortality. I want to live to see star trek levels of space travel. I feel like I would just do whatever I want if knew I'd never die. I wouldn't spend so much wasted time deciding what to allocate my remaining years to

I found the first few Majima everywhere events (In particular him dressing up as the hostess Goromi was rather ridiculous and amusing) . Also Pocket Fighter's fate was kinda amusing too.

Other then that though I can't recall any funny moments @ralphdibny moments either.

Was bad dads the substory about a woman asking Kiryu, Date and... uhhh... the guy who has cameras throughout Kamurocho (I forgot his name as he was pretty forgettable honestly) some questions on how to be cool dads?

Only played Zero and Kiwami at the moment Ralph!

I plan on playing Kiwami 2 at some point in the future and honestly after REALLY not liking Kiwami (on pretty much any level) it is kinda a make or break situation for me on whether I continue the series or not (I'd maybe skip to Yakuza 7 or maybe Judgement if I don't enjoy Kiwami 2 either)

"As you like" was so good though! I loved the music/soundtrack in 0 in general and Kiwami's was SUCH a disappointment with it's rather bland as hell techno tracks all throughout it 😂

@HallowMoonshadow Kiwami 1 does feel kind of dated but links Zero into the main story line and has a lot of story that acts as groundwork in future games. Kiwami 2 was much more fun and has one of the best antagonists in the series for me so I hope you enjoy that one!

I'd really recommend Judgment though as I played it recently (and did one of my rare reviews in the Impressions thread) and it is great at feeling more up to date on the PS4/PS5. It also has a cracking story and doesn't get weighed down with all the baggage that the Yakuza series ends up with.

And it's The Florist you can't remember

It's been a long time coming but I've finally finished Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. I started playing this game 1-2 years ago but I wasn't really into strategy games back then so I kinda rushed through it with extra health on each level and just played it sloppily. This made me lose interest in the game rather quickly (I only played it halfway through). However, after having played through Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones last year, I've become more interested in strategy games and I decided to give M+R a proper go this time from the beginning. I enjoyed it much more now as a result of that. It was fun taking my time and analysing the best approach for each battle. The progression system was really satisfying as well, as you could buy new weapons and upgrade skills through a skill tree. There were so many different moves you could perform during a battle and it made for a really fun time. I also really enjoyed the boss fights, they were unique and creative.

I do have to say though that the campaign started losing steam after world 3 (i.e. the second to last world). At that point I felt rather powerful and the battles started becoming repetitive with the same kind of objectives (defeat all, escort someone etc). The game just stopped introducing new things at that point. Even the enemy variety stopped after world 3, as they just reused the same enemy types as before but stronger. So sadly, the last world wasn't as interesting or compelling to play as the first three worlds.

I really liked the music in the game though. I vaguely remember reading that Grant Kirkhope composed the soundtrack for this title, which I could definitely notice. The music reminded me a lot of the soundtrack in Banjo-Kazooie for example. It was really cool hearing tunes that were reminiscent of a Rare game.

So overall, I highly enjoyed my time with this game. It took me roughly 30 hours to beat it but there's still a lot I could've done on the side, such as challenges or revisiting previous worlds to find secrets. However, I feel content moving on from the main game now. After all, I still have the Donkey Kong DLC left to play, which I'm excited to experience. But yeah, this was an excellent strategy game, I highly recommend it if you have a Switch and I can't wait until the sequel comes out!

@HallowMoonshadow haha I love The Florist but I think his part of the bad dads sub story may have sealed that for me 😅

I think it was similar for me in that playing Kiwami after 0 dampened my resolve for the series. That said, like with my unenjoyable first ten hours with 0, the high praise and encouragement to play the rest of the series kept me going.

Kiwami 2 is another serious one. But it's a good serious not boring serious like Kiwami 1. It gets pretty intense. Even then though, I was teetering off the series with it but I think the brevity of 3's length helped me push on. 3 is a lot more light-hearted but some of the emotional moments hit harder because of it. 6 is quite similar to 3 really in terms of plot(ish), characters and locales. 4&5 tie together quite nicely though and are just brilliant despite players being initially thrown for a loop with new random characters . Great stories, great characters, great comedy and good mini games for those 2 games.

Edit: I forgot to add that Kiwami 2 has an extra mode where you play as Majima. It's like a mini campaign but it provides a nice coda to his story in 0!

@RogerRoger It's a great game and definitely worth playing through until the end, that's for sure. There are so many moments that genuinely made me smile, particularly the boss fights. Even if you struggle with the game, it gives you plenty of options to make things easier such as more health during each battle or going back and collecting coins/skill orbs to improve your characters.

I've even started the Donkey Kong Adventure DLC and it's pretty dang cool to be playing with Donkey Kong in your party. Although I'm sadly not liking that you feel so weak after the main game since you start over from scratch in terms of progression. However, one thing the DLC has most definitely fixed from the main game is the variety. There are a lot more different objectives for each battle and the characters in your party all have unique abilities, which make the fights more refreshing. So I highly recommend getting the DLC as well if you ever decide to give this game another shot down the line.

Finished Guardians of the Galaxy and yeah, easily one of the best games I’ve played this gen. Surprisingly fantastic writing throughout that puts the movies to absolute shame. Loads of love poured into it and you could really feel that in every detail. The incidental dialogue is beyond impressive, it feels like you’re an actual crew who chat instead of having periods of awkward silence. The gameplay is honestly pretty fun, reminded me of a mix of Control and Mass Effect. I’d love a sequel with the crew at the end of the game, there’s an interesting bunch including a surprisingly comics accurate take on Nikki come late-game and finally an adaptation of Adam Warlock.

I don’t think I really have many gripes at all with the game. Loved it from start to finish, especially how it handled the linear structure to basically deliver a playable 20 hour blockbuster movie. Great soundtrack too of course! Genuinely might prefer it to both Spider-Man games so we’ll see if Insomniac really bring it for their upcoming games now they’ve got a bit of competition on the Marvel front.

@nessisonett That sounds really good. I need to move it up the list. Too many games to play.

@Th3solution Too many games, or you're just a slacker.

I second the thoughts of @nessisonet. I'm not going to declare whether I liked it better than the Spider-Man games as I love all 3 Marvel games, but Guardians of the Galaxy would probably be in or close to my top 5 games released for this gen (not counting re-releases like Final Fantasy 7 Remake that would be above most from this gen so far). Not trying to overhype it and raise expectations too high, but I definitely loved the game.

@Th3solution I'll third that, thought GoTG was a great game with the best bit easily being the banter. I missed a few collectables so had to go back through the game to finish them off but it didn't feel like that much of a chore, so that says something.

Edit: Change that to "forth" that as I didn't see it had rolled over onto another page

Just beat Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin on hard mode. I liked it a lot. The story starts very vague, barely making any sense but really comes together in the end and the conclusion was satisfying.

Now let’s see how much grind is actually required for the plat:..

@Voltan do you need any knowledge about final fantasy 1 for it make sense?

still don't know if it's a re telling or a prequel.

@jdv95 I never played the first FF (5 was the oldest one I played). I believe there are some characters and areas that would be somewhat familiar but I don’t think you need to know any of it.
I think the game is deliberately unclear on how it relates to the original through most of it, but judging by the ending it’s actually a prequel (edit: I actually read up a bit on FF1 story and I change my answer to "a bit of both, somehow")
I also don’t think FF1 was particularly story-heavy. It was mostly just 4 characters going through a bunch of dungeons

@Voltan I got spoiled about the plot of that game and I’m just happy that I totally predicted it in the comments when it was first announced 😂

@nessisonett I mean… the outcome of Jack’s journey is hardly surprising but there’s more to the story than that
I thought it was pretty cool and definitely very Final Fantasy

Anyway… there are 3 new side missions available post-game, so I’m starting with those (to get the “complete all side missions” trophy). Managed to beat one of them already but the 2nd one is kicking my behind…

@Voltan It was more Jack’s companions’ links to Final Fantasy I that I predicted!