Topic: Games you've recently beat

@ThereThere yeah I think it’s a particularly good game to play while a partner/friend etc. watches along. I’d be interested to here both your thoughts and those of your missus once your done.

@Jimmer-jammer I know right… it includes birds (& their the real pain from my experience so far) but not fish. Having said that, I don’t think you need every fish for the platinum (I could be wrong though).

I mean ya might as well jump ship to OS II @nessisonett if you've tried OS I multiple times but not got on with it.

It's set 1000 or so years after I and changes most of the lore introduced in it anyway so ya won't miss anything barring a character or two who returns 😄

As long as you don't chose the highest difficulty setting @KilloWertz (in which the game does tell you that you can't adjust it if you select it) then you can change difficulty whenever you like with the others.

The sequel was also published by Bandai Namco so there's plenty of physical copies that can go pretty cheaply unlike the original. At least there was here in the UK... I got OS II brand new nearly 3 years ago for only £13 😁

@HallowMoonshadow Thanks. If I do decide to get it, even if it is another game just to add to the backlog, I'll go digital for it. It seems to be long out of print here in the US, and it's on sale digitally for only $21 right now.

Splatoon 3's story mode. Taking inspiration from the last few 3D Mario games, it also has an unlockable final level that's extra long, incredibly difficult, and tests all of the skill you learned throughout the rest of the campaign.

I love that the progression structure and level design philosophy was directly inspired by Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion. In previous games, the story campaigns, while fun, don't feature a lot of design variety, and so the levels kind of bleed into each-other. Level progression itself was also fairly linear.

Here, the world is more of a sandbox, so you can progress through the campaign at your own pace, and mission goals are wildly different from level to level. In one level, you'll need to survive an onslaught of attacks for a certain period of time. In another, you'll need to get to the end of the level while using as little ink as possible. In another, you might be asked to solve some weird puzzle. And, of course, you also have plenty of the normal levels where you have to use a specific weapon and make it to the end of a 3D action-platforming course.

As with previous games, completing the single player content rewards you with stuff you can use in the multiplayer modes.

@HallowMoonshadow That's too bad. At least you had a better experience with the more recent game in the series. It's evolving instead of the opposite.

@RogerRoger Yep, they've all had story modes. Technically, with the expansion, the previous game had two of em. The first game's final boss is probably actually a top five one for me, since it's challenging in a very satisfying and old-school sort of way. But this is the best of the pack-in story modes overall to date.

@Ralizah Well, if I ever do get Splatoon 3, I know I can stop when I unlock the extra level as I know I would have no desire to struggle through that when it seems to be a huge difficulty spike. I'd be fine with skipping it though since it's extra.

@KilloWertz Yeah, there's no harm in skipping it. Actually, with the way the game is structured, you can skip just about any level that's giving you trouble, which is good for people who aren't fixated on mastering the game.

There was one other level that gave me trouble. Almost ragequit a few times. Changing the weapon I used in the level allowed me to muscle through it, however.

@RogerRoger For the extra 24 experience, you should have put on some tense music during your dinner and toilet breaks 😂

@Kidfried Congratulations! How did you find the DLC? I thought it was actually a massive improvement on the base game, loved the villain and the 'horror' atmosphere as well.

Based on the recent State-of-Play, as well as the Ubisoft showcase, it seems that Ghost has become hugely influential for a lot of forthcoming games in development....

Valkyrie Elysium demo... or at least I think I finished it (the game did not tell me so but there doesn't seem to be anything else to do)

I enjoyed the demo but I'm not completely sold on the game just yet. It's a pretty simple hack and slash and I found it rather easy on "normal" difficulty. The demo doesn't do much in terms of characters and story so it's hard to tell whether or not there's more to it. If there's not, it might get a little boring.

On the technical side - the pop-in is pretty bad but Scarlet Nexus might've been worse and that didn't stop it from being a good game. Otherwise it's... uuhhh... fine, I guess

@Voltan That's a shame about the pop-in, as it was one of the only problems I had with Scarlet Nexus. It was pretty awful for a new game, especially one with a new gen version, but that and the bond level system not cooperating and keeping me from reaching the highest level with one character (in turn making all the work borderline useless). Tried farming one item and it would never get dropped for me, so I gave up and just finished the game.

Anyways, yeah, I still loved it regardless, so the pop-in for Valkyrie Elysium shouldn't keep me from enjoying it. There's at least some story bits in the trailers, so maybe it doesn't get going until sometime after the point you reach in the demo. Who knows, but hopefully I enjoy the demo when I try it at some point this weekend.

@KilloWertz to be fair, the pop-in distance is as about as bad as Scarlet Nexus but it's just a noticeable change in level of detail rather than entire objects appearing in front of you Stopped bothering me after a while.

@Voltan Ok, I guess that's not so bad then. Still not ideal, but better than some that I've experienced. I'll post my thoughts whenever I end up trying it.

@Voltan I also played the demo and get what you mean. I'm not wiser after playing it. As you say if it is just rue hack and slash action it might get boring after a while. I'll wait until after the review to see how the rest of the game is. based on the demo alone for me it isn't a day one buy

@Lavalera I'm pretty sure this is a "get on sale, maybe" kinda deal for me, unless it reviews crazy well for some reason

@Kidfried That's a shame about Iki, as I personally loved it more than the base game itself... albeit I too was a little burnt out by the whole experience by the end.

I do think that 'Open-World Fatigue' is very real for most/all games within that genre, irrespective of how well they accomplished they are.

(IMO, if you were to combine the best elements of Ghost, BOTW & Elden Ring - you would have one hell of an open world game )

It is definitely a nice experience to tick off the list though, and glad to hear you made your way through it!

@Voltan @Lavalera Even though I technically didn't finish the demo (I might still go back and do so at some point since it saves your progress I think), I concur with the opinions. It was fine, and it's not entirely fair to judge it based on what was essentially a too long tutorial, but it didn't wow me either. Like I've already said, me and demos for JRPGs don't work out well for some reason, but I will likely wait for reviews and other people's opinions of the actual game before deciding on whether I'll play it or not.

The pop-in didn't really bother me too much. It was mainly just the white flowers amongst the grass that would load in late, so it didn't take long to get used to it. I still say it's better than Scarlet Nexus in that regard, which might be the worst I've ever experienced (at least in a good while). The main character running with her arms never moving was a bit weird and would take me longer to get used to than the pop-in. As a whole, I thought the graphics were fine though.

Also, while I'm sure there's more to the story once you would get passed the demo portion of the game, it is unfortunately in a world that has been done many times now over the last several years with the Thor movies, Assassins' Creed Valhalla, and even God of War in a sense. I won't hold it against it too much though as, like I said, I would think there's more to it once she goes out on more of her mission.

It's been awhile since I've finished a game since I've been playing so many concurrently and I don't have as much time for gaming these days. But today I've finished not one, but two games!

LEGO Batman (Xbox 360). I first played this game back in 2010 as it was one of my first 360 games but I never got far into it. So earlier this year I bought a digital copy on sale and decided to play through it. Turned out to be much more enjoyable than previous LEGO games I've played. The lack of an open world and having simpler levels helped make me enjoy this game a lot. On top of that, there were vehicle levels every now and then for some needed variety. It's also cool that there were two different campaigns, one Hero and one Villain.

So overall, this is my favourite LEGO game thus far and thanks to it, I'm looking forward to playing more LEGO titles in the future!

Team Sonic Racing (PS4). I first played this game back in 2019 and since then I've been playing it on and off. It was definitely one of those titles that I never had the motivation to play longer than a couple of hours before putting it down for something else. But since my interest in racing games has increased significantly in recent times, I decided to take this opportunity to finally complete this game. At first it was kinda stressful to achieve all objectives and gain as many stars as I can in every level. But as I became better at the game, I didn't think much about collecting the stars. At the end of the game, I managed to collect 121/142 stars and I'm very content with that.

The story was meh, it's like a fan had written it. But I at least appreciate the effort of including a story in a racing game. As for the game overall, I think I like it more than Sonic and All-Stars Racing but it doesn't come close to dethroning Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. Most of the courses in Team Sonic Racing had generic themes and weren't that memorable compared to Transformed's courses. Focusing only on Sonic characters was kinda disappointing as well. But the focus on playing as a team was really interesting and made the game more unique than the previous entries.

So all in all, I enjoyed my time with Team Sonic Racing but I'm glad that I've finally finished it after all these years.

@RogerRoger I do hope they'll continue making Sonic racing titles in the future. I wouldn't mind them build upon the foundation of Transformed but with different tracks and the addition of more characters. Just focusing on the Sonic universe makes the games feel less special. Sega has tons of IPs that can be used in a future Sonic racing game. Because at the end of the day, I feel like these games are not only great kart racers but also a celebration of all things Sega.

Playing Team Sonic Racing has actually made me rather excited for Sonic Frontiers. Here's hoping that game turns out great!