Topic: Games you've recently beat

@LtSarge I like trophy hunting when the process is fun and relatively straight-forward. I don't bother when games have terrible trophy lists, though. That's the reason I have the platinum for Persona 5 Royal, but not OG P5.

Also, I'm amazed how many people allow trophies to hijack their ability to enjoy games, period. Like, I've talked to several people who won't play games without system-wide trophies or achievements of some kind. Or who won't play games because they don't want to deal with bad trophy lists.

That said, I'm going through Steam and am trying to get all the achievements for new games I bought, and it's fun. Really pushes me to explore the games more thoroughly than I usually would.

@Ralizah It was fun collecting achievements/trophies back when I didn't have many games to play but now that I have a huge backlog, I'm constantly thinking about what I want to play next. So whenever I collect trophies after having finished a game, it just feels like extra time that I could've spent on another game. So when I don't make progress with collecting trophies and a fair amount of time has been wasted, that's when I start to get stressed.

My problem is that I've always had a completionist mindset ever since I started gaming. I want to do everything in a game, including collecting all trophies/achievements. So now I just need to learn to abandon that mindset and simply focus on the game. When I've beat the story, then I'm done with the game.

@LtSarge I have the same mindset as you when playing games. One issue I struggle with now is playing games for fun rather than for trophies. I have a difficult time playing games on Nintendo Switch because if it’s on PlayStation I’d like to get trophies. I’ve tried getting myself out of that line of thinking but it’s difficult. The only time I can play a Nintendo game for the sheer fun of it is if it’s an exclusive such as Zelda, Mario, and Metroid. I don’t know why my brain won’t let me separate those things.

Hello. Today I managed to beat Ape Escape 3 and will like to try write an extensive User Reviews/Impressions review that I will post in that respective thread, once I’ve done the post game and give myself time to let my thoughts marinate and properly absorb the game. Suffice to say, it’s been one of my favorite ps2 experiences thus and can confidently claim it sits comfortably of my Mount Rushmore of definitive PS2 titles alongside Max Payne, GTA Vice City and Warriors Orochi, dethroning Ratchet & Clank which is still extremely good. Review is coming “soon”-ish.

@Kraven The Switch is the only "safe" system to play on out of the three consoles if you don't want to get bothered by trophies/achievements. It's just such a nice feeling to know that the games on there don't have those. So for me, it's the complete opposite as I just want to avoid trophies/achievements as much as possible, even before yesterday. But I do agree that it's difficult to stop thinking about trophies, especially when you have most of them and there are only a couple left to get. In my case, I'm just so frustrated by trophies after yesterday's incident and I let that feeling motivate me to avoid them. Hopefully it works out with the current games I play.

@Kraven Probably because you know you're not missing out any trophies when you play a Nintendo-exclusive game. Whereas, with anything non-exclusive, a little voice in the back of your mind is whispering about how you're doing all this work in the game and missing out on trophies you could otherwise be getting.

@LtSarge You could always disable notifications for trophies/achievements if you feel that way about them?

@JohnnyShoulder You know, that's actually a good idea. I didn't even think about that lol. That way, I can play games like I would on the Switch and not think about trophies/achievements at all.

@Kidfried Blows my mind we're in 2024 and 2D Mario games still have, like, the worst boss fights. 3D Mario games get interesting, creative boss fights. Why not the 2D ones?

Wonder wasn't a terrible game, but I also didn't enjoy it much more than most of the NSMB games, tbh.

@WaveBoy Except for a small cameo in Mario Land 2 Nintendo hasn't used Tatanga at all. Heck even using Wario as the main villain would be a refresh.

I have yet to play Mario Wonder to be honest my platforming skills have diminished big time since a was a Jolt guzzling preteen playing SMB3 and SMW all day and as a result I don't find them fun after playing them for an hour or 2. Mix that with uninspiring levels that I have seen done a million times and the same plot and villains.

@Tasuki interesting perspective. Guess I’m not alone in falling out of love with Mario for reasons not too asimilar. I’ve also not picked up wonder, as I don’t think it’s for me anymore.

Wario should forget about that Mario phony. He’s at his best when he’s in his own adventures, just wish WarioWare would start getting good games again.

Recently finished Jusant which was a lovely game through and through. Not going to lie, the ending had me tear up, as I'm just a sucker for that type of bittersweet ending in things like this. And I loved the simplicity of the relationship between what basically felt like the last few remnants of hope left alive.

And last night I also finished AC Mirage which was less impressive emotionally, but there was a decent enough twist. I feel like that game was the most generic of the last 4 releases, however. It really was like a long drawn out DLC. Stunning world, yet again, great history. But it just felt a bit more "games by numbers" even though there were a few instances where you could kind of plan an assassination, but not really, as it was still pretty much on rails.

By the end it just reminded me how bat sh** crazy the plots have become, however, and I think the series needs a hard reset and a kick up the arse. The Isu stuff just annoys me at this point, but at least it will be the last of the damn "order of ancients", "cults" and "hidden ones" segment of the historical war, and it can at least get back to the state of things post Altair, I guess 🤷

Still, stuff like this was fun

And the city was really nice crafted

Just rolled the credits on The Saboteur and it’ll have to go down as one of my absolute favourite 7th Gen games. Loved every minute of the campaign and still excited to mop up all the side stuff for the platinum (which should take another 30 hours or so).

A nice open-world rendition of WW2 Paris that can be scaled like someone with the creed of an assassin. Decent array of weapons and explosives, a nice disguise mechanic and decent third person shooting for the time. If (and they won’t… but if) it was remade/remastered I’d buy it day one and look forward to enjoying it all over again.

@colonelkilgore
Nice, you whipped through that quickly.
I'm pleased you enjoyed it as it is a severely underrated gem and sadly the last game from that studio before EA does what EA does.
A few grindy trophies as I recall, I do remember standing at the top of the steps in one of the parks waiting for ladies to wander by, tbh not unlike .... hmm I will stop there.

I too would buy a remaster.

@CaptD yeah I see there was a trophy for kissing 50 women or something along those lines… I haven’t kissed one yet 😅

@Kidfried I mean, if you really love the series or craved for a smaller game I can see why people would like it. But to me it just felt a bit like a smaller version of the games they have been releasing anyway, without anything feeling particularly new or innovative.

I'm glad I kind of played it as a secondary game as it wasn't incredibly gripping, but it is still fun to tackle some areas bit by bit from time to time. I never really got the sense I wanted to explore the world like in the others games though, despite it being a really cool setting, there was no draw to go and find anything, it was literally just quests and side quests, with some giving the slightest bit of freedom in approach to make you feel more like the fact you are an actual assassin matters a bit more than in the other modern games, where the gameplay was basically the exact same anyway, but you could also do other stuff.

Personally, I got more out of the last 3 titles, even though they got progressively bigger, you could still skip stuff and focus on what you wanted, in the most part and they were more fun because of that because there was more freedom to explore.

I wouldn't say to avoid it or anything like that, it really depends on mood, how you feel about the other games and what else you have to play as well. It might even be better to just crack on and finish it in 2 weeks, but for me I spread it over a number of weeks and months here and there, despite it only being probably a 25 hour game

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - a very very good pre-2018 God of War clone that starts off a little bland and uninspired but consistently improves throughout what is a fairly longish campaign for the genre and ended up being a thoroughly enjoyable romp. Gameplay-wise it couldn’t be more similar to the pre-boy exploits of the family-murdering Spartan demi-god but any lack of creativity within the gameplay itself is more than balanced out by the incredible art-design, score and final narrative twist.

I have a fair bit of work left for the plat, which will probably involve a further two playthroughs but there are worse fates. I’ve also decided that I will definitely be playing Lords of Shadow 2 as part of my PS3 farewell tour. Though it is generally considered to be far poorer than the original. I’ve seen enough positivity (and evolution of the mechanics within the game itself) for it to warrant my time.

@colonelkilgore glad you enjoyed it. Certainly a fun action. Don’t think I’ll play 2 asap. Taking my time here. Especially since I’m bouncing back between more than one game.

@Yousef- yeah I won’t be moving straight onto the sequel, I’ll be giving it time to breathe but I’ll be playing it sometime before 01/01/2025 for sure. Similar thing happened with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed a couple of months ago… went in with no expectations and with no intention of playing the sequel but ended up having such a good time that the sequel needed to be crowbarred into an already rammed schedule.

@colonelkilgore I’m glad that so far I haven’t led you astray and that some of these PS3 action games are still holding up. It’s been so long since I played them that I could have been looking back through rose-tinted spectacles.

I guess the only one that has fallen flat was Enslaved.