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.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
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.
@Kairu I hadn’t really taken any special interest in GoT before launch but it quietly entered my ‘top 5 games ever’ list after sinking over 100 hours into it. It still feels like such a special experience to me over two years later. I really can’t wait to see what direction they take a sequel in. Where do you suspect they’ll go with it?
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
@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
@Kairu Concerning a sequel, nothing has been officially announced that I’m aware of, though given it’s success, I won’t be surprised at all if one surfaces (perhaps around the same time as said movie?). With that said, I agree with you completely that it doesn’t really need one. It’s a beautiful one and done. While we’re hypothesizing however…
I do feel strongly about one character carrying a future instalment, Tomoe, who leaves in a cryptic enough fashion as to leave one wondering. Whatever the case, I’d like to see more of a focus on survival - living off the island - in the future. Anything that drives home that connection to the island and it’s inhabitants that you’re fighting for. It’s what GoT did so well.
@Kairu A return to the island to track down the elusive Ghost could be cool. It’s outright stated in the finale that Jin would be hunted for the rest of his days. It could be a neat setup, and would open an avenue to see the Ghost’s influence on the island from a more removed perspective. As you say, time will tell.
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
@Jimmer-jammer@Kairu Just to add my two pence to the whole "Where could a sequel go?" conversation if I may, the fact that Jin is the 'Ghost of Tsushima' means he could travel to the mainland, or another island, and carry that legacy (and therefore the game's title) with him. He could be called forward to answer for his actions, or be recruited by another troubled land which needs his protection, or he could chase down some of those illusive threads y'all mentioned. So long as it furthers the whole narrative about Jin's vow to protect the innocent, or evolves it in some meaningful way, then they could go anywhere!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger@Kairu For a game I love so much, I actually kind of agree with @JudgeDredd that the story was a bit of a drag, though I wouldn’t say it quite that way. I firmly feel that the overarching plot was straightforward, predictable and cliché - cartoon villain and all - by design. The game’s world is presented more as a dream, or a memory - a surreal, romanticized version of real events and real locations separated just enough from reality so as to avoid any on the nose political commentary about any specific group or event - allowing the narrative to laser focus on the emotional aspects of Jim’s coming of age. Such a simple narrative framework provides a large window of entry for the player to then engage the game’s many deep and complex themes through the gameplay itself. Whatever the sequel brings, I hope at the very least that they continue in this vein.
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
@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 😂
@CJD87 Yeah, I’m always open to something new, especially when, for all intents and purposes, GoT is a very complete and accomplished work made, agreeably, even better by the excellent DLC. The way you put that, “…let it’s hair down…” really encapsulates what set the expansion apart and why it worked so well!
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
I did at first too with it's Star Trek like premise of earthlings exploring outer space for a new planet to call home and having planet (monster) of the week like story arcs with a overarching narrative bringing it all together.
But there comes a point (which you can easily pinpoint) when the writing (which was solid enough at the start) get's thrown completely out the window and it just spirals out of control.
It goes full anime... and ya never go full anime 😧
There's a reason why nobody in the unskippable near 10 minute long credit sequence takes credit for writing the story from the utter dreck it descends into.
And it's not so bad it's good either. Just plain bad.
Good grief.
... I didn't think the english voice acting was as bad as people make it out to be though (Well except for Sarah who is, unfortunately, rather terrible). Bad voice direction for definite and the writing/dialogue is utter rubbish whether you're playing with JP or Eng voices.
@HallowMoonshadow Ouch. It's one thing to derail a perfectly good premise, but quite another for nobody to take credit for a game's terrible writing! Sorry to hear that things didn't turn out better, especially since you wanted to like it from the get-go.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Yeah the credits just has "Original Story: tri-Ace inc." @RogerRoger like everyone was immensely embarassed by it
It's especially annoying when some of my critiques about Star Ocean 3 (Nearly all it's cast being human (Or very humanoidy) and it taking place on one planet for 85% of it's runtime) are actually addressed via the Star Trekky space voyaging plot of SO TLH.
I must've set off every monkey's paw in the world off in order to get that though. I seem to be having a lot of bad luck as of late with me not really getting on with the stories of games I'm playing either...
On the plus side I have a new found appreciation for Star Ocean 3 that I treated like I was almost embarassed to say I enjoyed it 😅
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@HallowMoonshadow I too want to like The Last Hope if I ever decide to play it and I think the best approach would be to play it with Japanese voiceovers if the English ones are that bad. Have you tested what they're like during your playthrough or maybe it wasn't possible to switch VOs during a playthrough?
I don't really mind a game that "goes full anime". After all, that's what the Trails of Cold Steel games do and I absolutely love them!
You can change the voiceover from Eng to JP at any point @LtSarge. I never tried it but I was going to give it a little look at some point.
I did immediately switch from the absolutely ugly "Modern" CG models used in the character/battle potraits to the "Classic" anime artwork though...
... I think it speaks for itself 😅
There's a lot of options in it's menu to tweak to get the best performance out if it as it's not a stable 60fps with everything up on a base PS4.
And as for the full anime thing... Well... It was partially just a riff of the line from the film Tropic Thunder that I'd rewatched a couple of days ago
But yeah Last Hope does use some bad anime tropes and I really can't stress enough how badly written it is in general, let alone compared to Til The End of Time.
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