@RogerRoger That’s a great point! Tackling Burning Shores would be the perfect time to reassess both whatever I have left to clean up and my motivation level to do it.
I was surprised just how well realized Kotallo was as a character. What seems your typical cliche warrior archetype on the surface slowly gives way to a much more believable and relatable person. It moved me to see him lose something so vital to his identity, truly grapple with this loss and then eventually embrace the necessity of help and technology while also accepting what has happened as an integral part of who he is moving forward. I must have been in a mood or something as it just really got me.
“Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” C.S. Lewis
Tomb Raider Chronicles is done. Really liked the first two chapters, the back half was dreadful. Truly rubbish. The final level was just evil, as if it hadn’t been tested. I actually had to use a guide in order to avoid a corrupted save. Ah well, the first two chapters really were a good send off to the PS1 games.
@Jimmer-jammer Kotallo ended up being a firm favourite of a lot of folks, myself included. He's definitely an example of how to write your NPCs and really stood out to me (which is good because, let's be honest, a lot of the extended Horizon cast kinda blends together). His story hits close to home in a number of ways for me, as well, so to see it pan out the way it did... yeah, compelling stuff.
***
@nessisonett Congratulations! Yeah, let's all pretend that Chronicles is only two levels long, shall we? It's for the best, I reckon. Moving very swiftly on!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Yakuza Kiwami 2. I've beaten the main storyline on regular difficulty. It definitely feels a bit more rough round the edges than 0 or Kiwami 1, and the story doesn't quite hit the dizzying heights of the past games, but it was still great fun. My highlights include Ryuji Goda, who's a great villain, and a funny scene involving Majima and an unlucky subordinate diffusing a bomb.
I still want to do more of the cabaret club and Majima constructions mini-games, and potentially do all of the sub-stories, but I won't try to do absolutely everything left in the game.
I'll definitely give Yakuza 3 a go at some point. As that's only been remastered instead of a full on remake, I'm expecting there might be a dip in quality, but it should still be full of weird and wacky yakuza fun.
Beat Dark Souls Remastered, I've beaten this game a ton of times already but I'm surprised how fast you can go when you know what to do, took me about 10 hours to reach the credits, my first playthrough took me about 60 hours.
@edwinjoe450 Having just recently beat the game for the first time, I can relate with the 60+ hour timeframe for the first run. There’s a lot of backtracking and wandering around in the first half and also a lot of trial and error when it comes to visiting the different areas since there’s little by way of direction. No also took my time to grind and farm souls so I was sure to be overpowered enough to keep the game from being too frustrating, which added a lot to my playtime.
Still, I had an absolutely stellar experience with DSR and I can see why you’ve returned to it for replays. I assume your many replays have been to try different builds, or are you mostly doing NG+ playthroughs? The way the game drops you straight back at the beginning for an NG+ run without taking you back to the menu makes it tempting to just keep playing. I went to far as to take on the first boss Asylum Demon on NG+ and it was quite satisfying to see how easy it was compared to my first battle with it. 😄
Do you have as much experience with the other Souls games?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
I did complete a game from my backlog, The Stanley Parable.
I say I’ve completed it, but I actually am not sure. The game is such a unique experience that is best to not spoil, so suffice it to say I’ve spent a fair amount of time with it and definitely found it charming, as well as clever, and even profound. I definitely had a big grin on my face during much of my time with it. I’m trying to decide whether I want to go through the trouble of getting the platinum. I don’t think I will as there’s just some weird trophies involved, but suffice it to say, the game was really good and an effective palate cleanser between larger games.
Tagging @RogerRoger since you had expressed some interest when I bought the game a couple months ago. It’s a tough one to talk about, but the narration was so well done and his delivery nailed the intended dry humor. I laughed out loud at so much of the 4th wall breaking antics. I just did the “Click on Door 430 five times” trophy and this epitomizes the absolute genius writing which is so effectively poking fun at gaming culture and development. I’m not sure I have all the “endings” but I’ve done most of the pathways, I think. I’ll probably boot it up a few more times for a 30 minute diversion now and again between sessions of other games, just to see if I can trigger other dialogue
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Yeah, I've tried almost every build possible, except a lvl 1 build, because I don't have the skill for that, I'm still surprised how different the second half of the game feels, I hope one day From Software goes back to it. I've played every souls game, they're like drugs to me haha, how about you?
@Th3solution Huge thanks for the tag, buddy! Am glad that it made you smile so much; since the game defies so many traditional critical measurements, I reckon that's the best takeaway it can hope for. That's definitely its reputation online, I've found, with lots of folks discussing things that made them laugh or think, or pointing to hilarious YouTube clips as examples of how to define the whole thing.
Because you're right, it is tough to talk about otherwise. As with a lot of these walking simulators, it still relies on what the individual player brings to the experience, even though its wit, intrigue and ingenuity does a lot more heavy lifting than usual. It also nails the art of the wider reference, I thought.
I don't think anybody's ever gotten all the "endings" (even if there's a quantifiable amount of 'em, which I'm not convinced there is) and no, I haven't gone for the platinum, either. Supposedly you can muck about with your console's clock to trick the "play it for an entire Tuesday" one, but that just feels rather cheap and grubby in the wake of the game's well-made observations about such things. I got enough and did enough to feel satisfied without overstaying my welcome, as I feared getting frustrated with the narrator if I stuck around, and really didn't want that to happen. It felt right to walk away when I did.
That being said, you at least saw all of its The Stanley Parable 2 stuff, right?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@edwinjoe450 Dark Souls Remastered was my 3rd FromSoft game. I started with Bloodborne a couple years ago and then played Demon’s Souls last year. I really ended up enjoying both, after acclimating to the gameplay. I hadn’t planned to make a run through the whole From library, but I had serious FOMO when Elden Ring set the gaming world on fire last year, so I decided I definitely needed to play it but wanted to get some of the older titles under my belt before experiencing the magnum opus. At the urging of some of the Push Square forum regulars I was pushed into trying the remaster of DS1 as many people still feel like it’s the pinnacle of game design from the developer. I can see the argument because the game is a masterclass in level design. Still, I agree that there is quite a contrast in the second half of the game after acquiring the Lord Vessel, but I see the value in doing it the way they did. Wandering into areas you have no business being in yet is part of the charm of the early hours. 😅
The games are like crack and after just playing 3 of them I can feel my eye twitching from withdrawal after being away from the game for a couple weeks. I’m trying to hold out but plan to play either DS2 or DS3 later this year, perhaps in the summer or fall. I’ve got a ton on my gaming plate this year.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@RogerRoger No, I haven’t experienced anything about The Stanley Parable 2 yet, but hopefully I’ll see that on some of the subsequent playthroughs I do in weeks to come. I have seen a couple references to this “Ultra Deluxe” version, namely when I accidentally fell down to the bottom in the mind control room and there was the hilarious exchange about this being where gamers were so proud of themselves for finding this “bug” in the game and so they had the whole narration about it now being an ending. Hilarious stuff.
I know there’s other new content (it’s all new to me though) and so I’m going to try to see as many of the endings and diversions that I can. But it’s going to be more of an occasional dip in and out, as the game seems a perfect set-up for that.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Just completed Detroit: Become Human. Certainly, an underrated game and gonna do a second playthrough to make the decisions that I didn't in my first playthrough. Some of the backdrops and animation at certain parts of the game are still really good today.
@Th3solution I read on a reddit post that smoeone went directly to the Catacombs, defeated Pinwheel and then walked into the Tomb of the Giants, without the lord vessel. he quit afterwards xD can't imagine the struggle to get back. You should try Dark Souls 2, especially Scholar of the First Sin, it's differente but really good. Dark Souls 3 was a great ending to the trilogy and if you have played Bloodborne, you'll notice the switch to a more aggresive approach.
@edwinjoe450 The catacombs initially freaked me out when I went down there early on and so I turned tail and ran out. But then when I went there late game, Pinwheel was a complete pushover for me by then. One of the easiest bosses.
I was originally going to skip DS2 because of its reputation of being the weakest entry, but good to hear your endorsement. I’ll see how I feel in a couple months when I’m ready for my next Souls-like.
Have you tried any of the knock-off Souls-likes, such as Mortal Shell, The Surge 1/2, etc? I played Jedi Fallen Order which was really very good, and a Souls-lite because it had difficulty sliders but borrowed a lot from the FromSoft games, and tried Code Vein last year, which is an anime souls-like and I didn’t care for it much and gave up on it after a few hours. I am looking forward to Jedi Survivor, and am curious about Lies of P and Wo Lang.
Finished off Yakuza: Like A Dragon which really is fantastic. Up there with my favourite JRPGs of the last few generations. The camaraderie between party members is the best part, it’s weirdly nice to see this odd group of middle-aged people end up friends. Just need to do the post-game dungeon and that’s me got the platinum too!
@Th3solution yeah, DS2 is the weakest but it's still a great game, there's some cool bosses and the DLC is awesome! I've played Mortal Shell, wasn't really a fan but it had cool ideas, The Surge was alright for me, a little bit generic with some nice combat. I really liked Jedi Fallen Order, except for the map, it's really bad and made going back for collectibles a pain, looking forward to the sequel, IGN released a couple of minutes of gameplay and it looks a bit more polished. Haven't played Code Vein yet, I bought it but never started it, I'm really excited for Wo Long, Nioh is GREAT, it's kind of sad more people haven't tried it out.
@Th3solution Oh, darn it, I'm real sorry if I spoiled something there for you! Figured it would've been inevitable for everybody but thinking about it, the entire point of the game is that your choices lead you down wildly different paths, so of course it'd be possible that you missed it. Again, huge apologies for my idiocy! Really hope you enjoy going back as-and-when, and trying to see new things.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@nessisonett Yeah, I loved the game too. It was just weird that Eri was just sort of there as a companion and excluded from anything out of combat or her side story.
The nod backs to the Kiryu games was nicely done but damn if the Majima/Saejima fight isn’t one hell of a difficulty spike! I was also slightly disappointed that Kiryu has such a main role but it makes sense now that he’s going to be involved with the series again
Good luck with the final dungeon run! I spent hours grinding to get characters up to scratch and get them as many useful attacks and secondary perks from different careers.
Luckily, if you do get beaten by the final boss in the dungeon, you can restart just before him rather than doing the whole tower again.
@RogerRoger Not a problem, buddy! 😄 I went in blind but I’ve played through quite a lot of it now and had already started spoiling a few things myself by scouring the trophy list and looking at a guide, so it’s not an issue. There’s a couple endings I already know about that I haven’t seen yet. Theres so much packed in this little game that it lends itself to those “did you see the part where (such and such) happened?!” and I think that’s the developers intent. In fact, I’m not sure if you did the whole broom closet part but the game actively pokes fun at this phenomenon and the narrator says something about talking to your friends about getting the broom closet ending 😂
In fact, as far as spoilers go for games in general, I’m not much into worrying about them. I don’t go seeking them out, mind you, but small Easter egg spoilers don’t bother me. For large narrative games with major plot points I try to stay relatively spoiler free, but even then I don’t usually worry too much if I see something before I play it. Probably the most famous example is the ubiquitous spoilers for TLoU2 back at release and I tried to stay spoiler-free but passively was exposed to a couple major plot points and yet they still had substantial emotional impact when I experienced them in the context of the game.
Often I do a pre-game trophy list assessment and consult a guide and usually have a few spoilers that way. I respect that some people get disappointed when even the slightest thing gets revealed (like what a boss looks like or the name of a character) but personally I find that level of commitment excessive. To each their own though.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Phew! Thanks for the reassurance. Oddly enough, I know exactly what you mean, as I'd already accidentally heard about the broom closet sequence and so didn't bother experiencing it for myself, as I figured I could use my time working towards seeing something new instead!
It's good that you can still enjoy narrative-driven games after seeing a few spoilers. Sometimes they're just inescapable, no matter how careful you try to be. I agree that different kinds of games require different levels of caution, as well. I'm absolutely gonna stop looking up Star Wars stuff around the time Jedi: Survivor lands, for example, but wouldn't care if I saw that they'd added some secret ending to the new We Love Katamari remaster before seeing it for myself. The Stanley Parable sits in an odd sort of middle ground, I suppose, because its experience is so unique. It really does defy definition!
Yeah, I'm forever checking the details of hidden trophies, although I'll try and restrain myself 'til after I've finished a game's story (again, when story is its most important aspect). Usually all the hidden trophies are the story-related ones anyway. I like that PS4 and PS5 lets you take a peek without having to Google, because that's often when wider spoilers crop up in a sidebar or something!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
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