Topic: Games you've recently beat

Boltgun - Some frustrating moments for sure but overall fun game. Great shotgun.

Bulletstorm - just wanted more when I finished it. A sequel could've been amazing. So much potential.

Vanquish - desperate for a remaster. It doesn't look great these days. Tons of fun regardless. Some amazing sequences.

Onimusha - just finished this game 10 minutes ago. Loved it. Ready for more.

I beat The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on Switch 2 and it's still a fantastic game. I even had fun collecting all the Triforce pieces because the world is a joy to explore. I don't think I've played a more up beat game in recent memory.

Just finished Life is Strange 2, so, yeah... I've been weeping...
I enjoyed it quite a lot, but I must say that the story was quite uneven and I vastly prefer the first game. That being said, if you like story-based games that packs an emotional punch, you can do a lot worse than this. I would recommend playing the free demo/prequel The Adventures of Captain Spirit first as it makes the encounter with young Chris and his dad only more powerful.
As I mentioned, the game was quite uneven, but it was all worthwhile and Episode 5 was a doozy!

There were two moments worth highlighting that really impressed me and as they are story related, I'll spoiler-block it just to be safe:

Firstly, David... I did not catch on that it was the same David from the original LiS, in spite of him telling me his backstory, until I entered his trailer and saw the photo on the fridge. That just gave me all the feels and listening in on his phone call with Chloe misted up the old peepers quite good.


Speaking of moist eyes, one tiny detail that enhanced a scene immensely for me was when Karen was cleaning Sean's eye in Episode 4. The game calls absolutely no attention to it, but if you watch her, you can see a silent tear rolling down her cheek as she works, making you realise that she is so incredibly pained by seeing what her son has gone through. This made me understand that she still deeply cares about her kids, no matter what her previous actions may indicate and really cemented me on the path to try to make Sean forgive her. Excellent moment. And great pay-off when they hugged when leaving Away (which teared me up, again)

Next up I'll go for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, as I had such a blast with Uncharted 4 recently

@FuriousMachine Good luck with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy ,I loved it and Uncharted 4 , even though I rarely tend to deviate from my FromSoftware diet. Be sure to take lots of photos, I don't think that's a spoiler 😉 and I'll see you over in 'Music' or 'Books' on this we bsite, and always remember "En garde, D*ckhead!" (if you don't get the reference I apologise - it's from Uncharted 4 and is a line that I found hilarious and feel will stay with me for a long time) Long live Nate!

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Thanks mate! There is indeed some inspired and choice dialogue in that game and that one will stick, absolutely! I also love that it made me realise that the most useful phrase to learn in any language is "When is your husband coming home?" 🤣

Figured you might wanna know @Ralizah but I ended up finishing Master Detectives Archive: Raincode.

My thoughts honestly kinda remained the same to be perfectly honest.

I did think the 4th chapter was actually pretty good. The final chapter not so much and really dragged on despite the case being solved like 30 minutes beforehand.

There's so many characters though that are severely underdeveloped and underutilised. Honestly kind of a waste that some really good character designs that get like 2 minutes of screentime.

Honestly the whole thing is easily the most stupidly written game I've played in a good while. Lazy Deus-Ex-Machina's at the end of each chapter that don't make sense given the context of the setting... Honestly it's just bewildering how poorly thought out the whole thing is trying to justify the mystery Labyrinth segments when the results never actually matter?

Onimusha: Warlords. That last boss was brutal because I hadn't managed to get the sword that all of the guides insisted I needed. Happy I managed to finish it and I'm looking forward to Onimusha 2

Just rolled the credits of the best ending in Chronicles of the Wolf.

I am both pleased with the game and disappointed.

Pros:

• The environments are beautiful and charming.
• The game is long, which for a MetroidVania is a good thing for me.
• The exploration is really good.
• The music is really good.
• Again, has Robert Belgrade's voice in it

Cons:

• The combat system is the same from Lecarde Chronicles 2. Actually, the game is 90% similar with it. Ofc it is Mig's creation so that is understandable.
• The progression in the weapons path is laid out and you get the better weapon by just playing. Not many gear items are gated or rewarded in a unique way.
• The spikes in frustration varies per boss or enemy.
• No depth in equipment except for the pendants.
• With those progression faults there is very little replay value. You can't just play the game with a favorite weapon like in the Castlevania games.

Still, I bought 2 copies (Switch 1 and PS5) just to support this awesome indie game dev.

@graymamba I'm jealous! I tried to do a no kills, no alerts playthrough for my third playthrough of Dishonored, but had the unfortunate luck of my game bugging out resulting in it ruining the run. It was in the Lady Boyle mansion level where any time I would exit the mansion, I would be automatically seen across the map by all guards. I don't know what triggered it or why it bugged out like this, but I'm sure entering an empty rooftop normally shouldn't get me instantly noticed by about half the map. I'm glad you had more luck on your journey and were able to get through the playthrough unscathed! I'll still have to try out the Deus Ex games at some point, as they seem like they would be up my alley.

@FuriousMachine I'm glad to hear you enjoyed Life is Strange 2 despite ultimately preferring the first entry! It doesn't sound like the game had the emotional impact for you that it had on me (I wrote a whole post on here about how depressed it made me feel after finishing), but I'm happy you still appreciated it for what it is. I hope the non-stop action of Uncharted managed to wipe the tears away a bit, though I've heard the fourth one can be depressing in its own right...

@Tjuz ahh that’s gutting… I had a similar, if less glaring issue with my no kills/no alerts run(s) on Deus Ex: Human Revolution I think I ended up having to do 4 or 5 playthroughs in the end before the Foxiest of Hounds trophy actually popped, even though I was extremely careful and was unaware of any kills or alerts throughout all my playthroughs.

If you do play the Deus Ex games… and I’d highly recommend them, I’d play the vanilla Human Revolution version as The Directors Cut seems to have been the most likely culprit for the issues that I faced.

So I finished The Witness on PS4 after about 15 hours of playtime. This is quite possibly one of the most challenging puzzle games, at least that I've played. Its open world certainly doesn't help towards alleviating that as it's not clear which order you should do the areas. Apparently, I did the most challenging ones first and finished the easiest ones towards the end, lol. To put this into perspective, it took me a day to get through one area early on and yesterday I finished three of them.

To be honest though, I lost patience towards the end because of how long the game is. You make progress incredibly slowly due to how challenging the puzzles are and the vast amount of them. So I decided to use a guide for the last few areas as I just couldn't be bothered.

I'm still happy though that I solved hundreds of puzzles on my own, which was enough for me. I couldn't even imagine finishing this game back when I bought it in 2018. I only managed to finish two areas (out of 11) before giving up back then.

The puzzles are incredibly satisfying once you figure out the rules behind them. But that's another challenge of the game, i.e. figuring out the rules. The game doesn't tell you that. For example, one type of puzzle is about two suns. The rule is that you need to divide the board in a way where each piece has a pair of suns. I couldn't for the life of me figure that out on my own.

But that's what makes the game so good. If you have the patience, then there's a lot of content to be enjoyed here. Not to mention it's a very addicting game. I could play it for hours on my Portal before forcing myself to put it down.

All in all, I'm very glad to have finally experienced this brilliant game. Not the most exciting start to my time off from work though, so now I need to play a game with more action lol.

I just finished The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion this morning and got the platinum for it. Phenomenal game. I’m going to set it to the side for now, and tackle the DLC later this summer. My focus now is Death Stranding 2!

I actually beat Diddy Kong Racing. Wizpig can suck it, bloody difficult but I can’t believe I did it.

@HallowMoonshadow Pity the game doesn't sound like it ever comes into its own.

Thanks for the report. I may or may not return to it someday, but, honestly, I have too many really interesting games to play atm to waste time on one that's really not grabbing me and doesn't seem to improve tremendously through the experience.

Yeah no I'd forget about it @Ralizah... Or find someone you like and watch a stream/playthrough of it if you must know how it ends.

Only reason I finished it was the scorching heat a week ago made it too tiring to play anything too complex... And I kinda had to justify the purchase of the special edition i bought

... Really REALLY wish Hundred Line was ported to PlayStation instead of this

I recall you playing chapter 1 at the very least so I figured I mention that on the plus side I bought Deltarune's official release and beat chapter 3 (Including doing the stupidly hard Sans level of difficulty fight that typically wipes your party in two/three hits) and am partway through chapter 4 which is REALLY popping off!

@Tjuz Only joy with "Uncharted: The Lost Legacy" so far Though, I still have a few chapters to go, so thing may turn pear shaped before it's all over. This game reminds me that Claudia Black really should be cast in everything, to be honest

Deltarune

I got the platinum trophy along with beating all 4 currently released chapters.

However I'm far from done with it just yet as I've missed chapter 4's secret boss amongst other things~

Needless to say I enjoyed it. You can really tell there's a whole team behind the development & programming of the game now rather then just Toby Fox (As was the case for Chapter 1 and I believe 2 as well?)

@HallowMoonshadow Yeah, Hundred Line is supposed to be really good (I enjoyed the bit I played so far). No idea why they don't just make a PS5 build, honestly. A publisher this small should be getting sales wherever they can. Honestly makes me wonder if PlayStation sales of previous games were bad enough they didn't think it'd justify the cost of the port. 😬

My nephew is super into Deltarune. I told him I'd play it when the entire game releases in another five years. 😛 Glad you seem to be enjoying it.

I liked Undertale enough that I'll give this one another chance eventually.

I watched the first hour or so of Hundred Line @Ralizah and was quite hooked. Here's hoping it gets a port to PS4/5 in a couple of months and they don't go belly up!

Fair enough regarding Deltarune. At the moment I would say where it leaves off is a rather good halfway mark and stopping point for the time being. Took me a good 35 hours or so playing Chapters 1-4 (With me doing everything I possibly could) But I can see the merit in waiting til it's done too.

There's some absolutely fantastic songs in the new chapters, chapter 4 especially has two of my favourite songs from the entire soundtrack so far~

@Herculean Yeah, it's absolutely turning into a favourite of mine, as well. I've enjoyed all entries in the series, but this (and, to a large degree, "A Thief's End") felt a cut above, in my mind. I love these types of games and I'm sad that I'm reaching the end of the road with this particular series. Thankfully, I've still got the final game in the Tomb Raider reboot and the new Indy game to look forward to after this and hopefully the success of Indy will greenlight more games in the genre.