Topic: Games you've recently beat

I finished Sniper Elite 3, which was one of the first PS4 games I played way back in 2016, along with the PS Plus games from that time like the Transformers game, Journey and REmake. It’s an alright game although a bit of a step down from V2 now that I’m revisiting it. Just isn’t meaty enough to rival V2’s linear campaign and isn’t open enough to rival 4 and 5’s more sandbox approaches.

@RogerRoger It’s always interesting to see what old games hold up all this time later, and it sounds like Syphon Filter is one that definitely has lasting appeal.

Somehow I never really got into the series. I think I played one on PSP but honestly am not sure. I always get it confused with Splinter Cell, which has more to do with my brain’s inability to separate an item from its title. (Is Valkyrie Elysium a sequel to Disco Elysium or Valkyrie Profile? What’s the difference between Dead Rising, Dead Island, Dead by Daylight, and Dying Light? And don’t even get me started on The Outer Worlds and The Outer Wilds. 😛) I know the two retro stealth franchises that start with the letter “S” don’t have anything to do with one another, but it was always just easier to stick with Metal Gear Solid to keep from getting confused.

I believe Syphon Filter is a Sony IP, right? So it would make sense to revive it, given stealth espionage games seem to be lacking nowadays.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon

I've seen the end credits. Not done the extra post game dungeons yet. I'll most likely do the one at the very least. No chance in hell I'll be doing the one that requires maxing every job to lvl 99 just to stand a chance lol

Dargon Kart was kinda annoying at the end thanks to the slightly wonky physics (like getting stuck on a curb). That Yakuza guy took forever for me to beat thanks to that awful track with ridiculously tight corners you have to race him on with the drift mechanic being kinda terrible. 😅

But I'm very pleased to see Pocket Fighter return (even if it was kinda obvious he was the receptionist) and be the final racer. In his old outfit too which made me smile and his slip up of saying Kazuma instead of Ichiban and doing his old animation was a nice touch (Really wish I could restart the race whenever it was clear I was never gonna win then have to fail each time and go through all the menus and dialogue again to retry).

The job class system could do with some work too. There's far too many redundant attacks, not enough variety in the move elements (There's a LOT of strike moves and fudge all for lightning moves) and they could really use showing the hotboxes/attack areas of moves that hit a certain area.

Also that difficulty spike in Chapter 12. 😅 Though Majima is worth it lol. And yes whilst all the other poundmates/summons attacks might just be in Ichi's head... Majima really does his move. You can't tell me otherwise.

Oh and the soundtrack was very weak. Like 70% of the time i was rather underwhelmed by it. There was some flashes of brilliance but... I dunno it felt a bit like the composer was a bit creatively drained for most of it.

It was better then Kiwami's at least but nowhere near as interesting as Yakuza 0's with all the different styles and instruments where most of Yakuza LaD was electronic/dubstep that wasn't all that interesting.

Honestly not much more to say really about it for now. I've enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. It has flaws and I still think Yakuza 0 has a better plot/is a better game overall but it was SO much better then Kiwami 1.

@HallowMoonshadow The first post-game dungeon is a decent test and should be beat-able with your endgame team. The ultimate tower is a bit of a nightmare; most fights aren’t that bad but the final one still relies on luck, no matter how good your team is.

The karting I thought was a cool new minigame with a fun mini-cast for it but I found it all really easy and don’t think I ever finished anything other than 1st.

I didn’t find the array of jobs that lacking. The lightning attack Ichiban got from finishing the business side story was super ridiculous but came with an MP cost to cover it. My mine gripe was the limited jobs for the female characters with only hostess being that useful for the healing moves.

Glad you enjoyed the game though! I thought it was a really good job at freshening the series up and the RPG mechanics/combat worked better than I thought they would.

Just finished the main story on Tales of Arise and yeah it was decent. Not what I was expecting… and not as ‘good’ as I was expecting (my fault really, as I probably should’ve done a bit more research to properly set my expectations) but a nice change from Rockstar open-worlds, which is all I’ve known for the last couple months.

People have mentioned a drop off in quality during the second half but I actually enjoyed that part quite a bit more. Much more epic combat… and they ‘went-there’ with the story too, which I really appreciate. I’ll play the next Tales… for sure… and that says it all really.

I beat Grim Fandango not long ago. I really enjoyed that, the humour was on point. Excellent voice acting. Some puzzles were a little frustrating but overall a great game.

@RogerRoger hahaha yeah that bit was great!

I also loved this bit, where you press circle to pick up something in the kitty litter:

Good to know @Thrillho regarding the dungeons!

I've played quite a few J/RPG's and I personally think it could do with some work myself. Good for a first try for the team though.

There was a number of times though where I wanted to switch jobs without having to go to Hello Work (even a mid battle change would've helped so much) and I personally think the move coverage was a bit one sided! Like there being no gun moves at all aside from the absolutely rubbish Dealer job for the girls and Joon's assassin/hitman job.

I quite liked the main cast with there being some great chemistry between them all. Zhao becoming a favourite of mine despite his small runtime. Joon Gi-Han (Or rather his body double) was cool too and Saeko was fun. Poor Eri not being intergrated into the main plot at all though

Just finished Castlevania: Rondo of Blood from the Castlevania: Requiem collection… I found it extremely difficult tbh. Never played a Castlevania game before this and have heard that the original trilogy were even harder… I can only imagine 😅

Had to play through it again, as I missed pretty much everything on my blind… funny thing is for all the difficulty I suffered through yesterday, this second playthrough was an absolute breeze! 😃

edit. Also, I really appreciated the game during this second playthrough. I reckon that if I had played this during the 16-bit era it would’ve been one of my favourites.

Just finished my Richter playthrough on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and for someone who used to really struggle to fire off a Ryu/Ken fireball back in the day… this was a test of my digit’al dexterity for sure. Great feeling of satisfaction in having navigated Richter around the castles using his tiger-uppercut followed by shoulder-charge though (down, up+jump followed by up, down, down-diagonal, right/left+attack).

The Last of Us Part 1

Finished this a week ago, but anyways, I definitely enjoyed playing it more than I did back on the PS4. While I was vocal about how I felt highly mislead and borderline lied to about this release, getting it for free makes it a lot easier to appreciate it. Right up there with Horizon Forbidden West as one of the best looking games I've ever seen, and the better AI and frame rate does help the gameplay some. It still doesn't play as good as The Last of Us Part 2, and that's a shame, but it was still a pretty solid experience given how good the story and graphics are.

On the story side of things, I unfortunately did not appreciate the latter part of it anywhere near as much as I did back on PS4. Knowing what happens in Part 2 did take away from it significantly, which is a shame as on it's own this story is still one of the better ones in quite some time, even if it is like playing a season of The Walking Dead.

Just finished FEAR on Xbox 360. Loved it! Fun shooter, plenty of jump scares, basically an overall great horror experience. Looking forward to playing the sequels!

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch) - Finally watched the credits roll after nearly 150 hours (about 3 months of playing nothing else but this). Great game, I have some minor issues with it (I wish it would tell you when there are new quest related convos available in a colony that way I didn't have to run through them multiple times, and I would have liked more outfit customization, the DLC swimsuits are nice but too late), but otherwise a very engaging experience. Definitely feeling a bit of that "content" bloat though (not sure I want to pour that much time into a game again, lol).

TOEM (Steam) - A nice, briskly paced experience after XC3. A very chill, "photo adventure" game. Think I have a handful of optional objectives left, but I'm satisfied with what I've done (main story + free DLC world).

Astro's Playroom (PS5) - Another briskly paced adventure that I worked through now that I got a PS5. Absolutely brilliant little platformer that stands right alongside Odyssey & Forgotten Land IMO. Really felt like a celebration of PlayStation history (gave off a vibe I only thought Nintendo would be able to pull off until now), and the company would be fools if they don't have a larger Astro adventure in development. The final boss in particular was fantabulous.

Just finished Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Spectres on 3DS after 22 hours of playtime. Enjoyed it a lot! I liked it more than the first game thanks to a more interesting story and more variety of locations (even though it would get annoying having to constantly fast travel to different areas). Definitely a very chill JRPG series just like Pokémon. It's also great to play a JRPG that's not 70 hours long (like Persona 3 Portable which I finished a couple of weeks ago). So yeah, good game and I'm glad that I'm playing more titles on 3DS now. Hopefully I'll start up something like Fire Emblem Awakening next!

On Switch- Return to Monkey Island - beat the game this weekend after approx 11-12 hours of play.

I’d ultimately recommend to anyone that enjoys the genre, or has familiarity with the older games in the series (and presumably had fun playing these games).

A fun romp and a nice change of pace from more action-orientated games, nice to actually use my brain for once… and fortunately most of the puzzles are solved through cerebral rationalities - instead of obtuse/random solutions.

My only critique would be it’s a little on the easy side… and only really ‘hits its stride’ in Act IV (total of 5 acts in the game).

Act IV has a lot of moving parts, location variety, and ramps up the challenge…. And it is a real shame that all the acts don’t follow this blueprint!

I set out to avoid using the in-game hint system …. But let myself down and had to utilise the hint book for the very last puzzle in Act V (in fairness I was totally barking up the wrong tree in my solution/tactics… probably would have had me stuck for a few days!)

Overall I’d give it a solid 7/10, and maybe 8/10 if you are a huge fan of the genre.

@RogerRoger I’m still beating myself up over this…! But in hindsight I was barking up the wrong tree big time, probably would have spent hours ‘brute forcing’ my way through lol

Love this genre though, think the Switch is an ideal platform for these kind of games. Would be keen to play another similar

@Jimmer-jammer I'd be inclined to agree, and certainly where the 'base' game is concerned.

Don't get me wrong, Ghost is an immaculate game - and I very much enjoyed my time spent with Jin & co... but the base-game narrative did feel very drawn out at times. Its simplicity, alongside the necessity to be 'grounded in reality', did affect my engagement somewhat.

However, I'm a big believer that this game really steps up in the Iki DLC - in regards to both story and gameplay. Iki Island seems to almost lean into Resident Evil's brand of campy pseudo-horror, and for me it just worked so well! It was almost as if Ghost finally 'let its hair down' and embraced a little bit of weird madness.... and was all the better for it.

Nonetheless, whatever Suckerpunch roll out next is likely to be a surefire hit... but personally I'd like to see a new IP. There seem to be a lot of Ghost/feudal-inspired games on the horizon, and it would be nice to see something more unique from this studio. (Although I suppose they could be forgiven for developing 'Ghost 2' as it will basically print money)

Finally rolled the credits in Trails of Cold Steel 2. Great game, but wow it certainly rivals RotK for most lengthy ending. Been saying to my wife since Saturday that I'd be up to bed soon as looks like credits are about to roll. Only to still be playing till between 11 & 12 each night 😂

@Jimmer-jammer Haha for sure mate It's like Resident Evil 1 going all the way - - - -> RE Village (!)