@nessisonett I actually really liked Chronicles.. it had its problems but I just remember getting really into it back when it released. Looking back, that and FF9 were both nice ways to round out that generation of games (for me).
@nessisonett Real sorry to hear that The Last Revelation hasn't grabbed you, but I totally understand why, and can guess exactly where you're currently stuck wandering. I don't mind admitting that I reached for a guide on more than one occasion, and my enthusiasm to play a classic Tomb Raider was pretty strong. Given that you recently blasted through the first three games, I'm not surprised that you're finding it more frustrating than charming, and wouldn't blame you for skipping ahead.
Chronicles is far more linear, and pretty short, so you might be alright, but I found its last levels to be needlessly obtuse and cruel. Its first half is great, though. Angel of Darkness is an enjoyable game if you spend the entire time seeing its potential and dreaming of what it might've been. If you can play it on PC and fix it with mods, then it becomes a marginally better experience.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Rage on PS3. Replay of a game I first played in 2012. It is open world but much smaller than Rage 2 and is simple without huge inventories and skills/perks to manage. Crafting never feels like a chore. The driving would be much better if the camera auto centering could be disabled. Combat with wing sticks is fun, easy, and unique
The game looks good and the frame rates are smooth and are suppose to be 60fps. Overall one of the best looking and performing games I have played on my slim PS3.
Rage can be streamed now on Plus. However beware of losing save files and or not being able to even make a save file. I called Sony support and was told problems like that get high priority. My suggestion is play a little and see if making a save, backup cloud save, and loading a save is possible.
@RogerRoger Yeah, I’m enjoying Chronicles a bit more given that if you’re wondering where to go then there are at least not as many paths to wander in. I did hear that the wheels totally fall off later in the game but Rome’s been a nice change of pace from going between the same three identical Egyptian environments!
Fire Emblem Engage on the Nintendo Switch. I picked it up ten days ago and have already put more than forty hours into it. While I prefer the more serious tone and grounded character writing in Three Houses and Echoes, Engage still manages to be both a technical showpiece for the Nintendo Switch and compulsively playable. This will be a minimum 60 hour playthrough, but probably closer to 80.
Speaking of the 3DS, I went back into my old save file for Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, since the demo for the PS4/Switch sequel reminded me how much I liked it. While I'm not really sold on its RPG mechanics, it's hard to ruin a rhythm game based on a series known for its amazing music like Final Fantasy. It's just a pity that none of these games are gonna have tracks based on the Pixel Remaster versions of the games, which sounds so much better than the classic chiptune tracks in the NES/SNES Final Fantasy games.
I've also been playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 on my Wii U. I've technically finished it already, since I cleared the main story and hit the credits, but anyone who knows SMG2 knows that the majority of the content in this game is either optional or in the post-game. It's one of the last 3D Mario games I haven't 100%ed yet, so I'll be pecking at it for a while.
@Ralizah I've been interested in getting Curtain Call after my renewed interest in the 3DS. While there's a new Theatrhythm game on the horizon, I just can't imagine playing this series on the Switch. I prefer touch controls and I would rather not sully my Switch screen. Even if I can avoid that, it would be rather difficult to hold the Switch with one hand. For these reasons, I really want to get the 3DS game. Would you say that that's good enough for me to get it?
@Ralizah The demo for the new Theatrhythm really disappointed me. The fact that the Switch version has no support for touch controls is annoying, that’s how I played Curtain Call and I was good enough to full Critical every song in the game with that control scheme. I’m not as good with the buttons and it made it quite hard to get into the demo.
@LtSarge Well, Final Bar Line (the one on Switch) doesn't have the option for touch controls. It's buttons only. Curtain Call is the only entry in the series that supports both touch controls AND buttons.
CC is a pretty massive improvement over the original Theatrhythm, so if you want to play on 3DS, that's the one to get. It's, like, 70 songs in the original vs 200+ in CC. It's supposed to be a rhythm RPG where you go on quests, collect items, customize characters, etc. But, in my experience, those aspects don't really matter if you're just playing through normal songs, and only come into play when you're doing long quests on high difficulty settings, where you're more likely to screw up while going through various tricky stages.
So, IMO, if you're looking for a meaty RPG-adjacent experience, I don't think Curtain Call does a good job of offering that. If you want an excuse to experience various Final Fantasy songs in rhythm game form, though, it does the job well enough. My only real issue is that the sound isn't especially loud in the 3DS games. It was like night and day going from playing the demo for FBL on my Switch OLED to playing my cartridge of Curtain Call.
To be clear, Final Bar Line is going to be the superior experience in nearly every way. Out of the box, it has 167 more songs than Curtain Call, and its way less expensive to expand the song list via DLC if you go with the digital deluxe option (no idea what DLC pricing is like outside of that for FBL). It also has superior audio quality and improves the RPG aspects in some minor ways. If you'd still rather just play Curtain Call on 3DS with a stylus, though, you're not going to have a bad time. It's almost undoubtedly the best rhythm/music game on 3DS.
@nessisonett It seems like a missed opportunity not to patch touch controls into the Switch version when played undocked, at least. Nevertheless, I've always preferred button controls, so that aspect doesn't bother me.
Well, after twenty-five years of waiting, and thanks to the incredible patience of my partner, I finally got to play through the entire single-player campaign of GoldenEye 007 yesterday.
It's a remarkable landmark in terms of console FPS games, and its silky-smooth gameplay still holds up, allowing you to balletically blast your way through bases and clear corridors with graceful ease. There's a nice variety of weapons and sure, the A.I. isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer any more, but it presents enough of a challenge when met in numbers. All of its escort missions are badly designed and frustrating in the extreme, though, and its needless re-use of a couple levels makes the overall pacing drag (which is something you never wanna be saying about a two-hour game). These are some hard lessons that gaming has learnt over time, probably thanks to this game, but they were the only instances where I truly started to feel the game's age, which is a testament to its overall playability.
But, whilst it's a superb FPS for its time, it's an awful Bond game. It does nothing to represent the charm, sophistication or jack-of-all-trades variety inherent in the character. When it does try to add spy-themed objectives, you're just swapping a weapon for a gadget and pulling your trigger at a thing instead of a person, or you're left fiddling in your inventory with invisible items. There's no (real) driving, no flying, no skiing, no gambling, no stealth and therefore, alas, no fun beyond "kill these endlessly respawning enemies and then head for the goal". Should've been a Rambo game. Then it would've been perfect.
That being said, with the sole exception of Oddjob (who was blatantly supposed to be Nick Nack anyway) I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all of its wider Bond references were taken from the Roger Moore era. Which makes sense; the twenty-something and thirty-something developers of the late 90s would've been kids in the late 70s and early 80s, after all. And I'm not just talking about the obvious bonus levels, either. Whether it was being given the camera from Moonraker, using the magnetic watch from Live and Let Die, wearing Bond's snow gear from A View to a Kill, or playing as May Day in the multiplayer, the whole thing's a treasure trove of nods and winks to Moore. Which is no surprise, given the fact that you can say the same thing about some of EA's later games, as well.
And the soundtrack still slaps, obviously.
Speaking of which, I also played the first half-hour of Hi-Fi Rush and was blown away by its stylish visuals, world-building and overall presentation, to the point where its gimmicky rhythm-based gameplay felt like it was getting in the way. If it'd been a movie, I'd have stuck with it.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Finished both Rome and Russia in Tomb Raider Chronicles and really enjoyed them actually. They feel like condensed, purely distilled Tomb Raider in that a lot of the irritating fat has been trimmed but they remain true to the original games. After playing the first two levels of Ireland, I can’t say the same for that chapter! It’s bizarre, it barely feels like a Tomb Raider game. Hopefully the last chapter is a bit more interesting than wandering round a forest with no weapons.
@nessisonett Yep, I hate to be so negative, but you've seen all the best bits of Chronicles now. The wheels come off in Ireland and then the rest of the game just disintegrates like a clown car during the fourth quarter (although it's a much better premise, I'll give it that). Rome and Russia are short, sweet blasts of classic Lara Croft, and are great for scratching that retro itch in a spare afternoon.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Yeah, I’ve been wandering around The Old Mill for what feels like an eternity which has cemented Ireland as one of my least favourite locations in the series so far. I’ve heard some bad things about Red Alert so we’ll see if I actually finish the game!
@nessisonett Guides are your friends. When you know what you're doing, Ireland is just as short and simple as the previous locations. That being said, please don't think I'm advocating that you stick with the game, as there's far worse to come! If you ain't havin' fun, save yourself and bail, before it's too late!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I at least actually finished The Old Mill so now I seem to be playing Syphon Filter. They really tried to make any game other than Tomb Raider at this point!
With me having finished Tomb Raider Chronicles, I gave The Angel of Darkness a go this afternoon and yeah, the controls are diabolical. That being said, there’s a sort of odd wonky charm to it? It’s clearly very ambitious and I quite enjoyed wandering around Paris even if it was a bit obtuse. Putting in mechanics from old PC adventure games is an inspired move, I know that the reboot used Metroidvanias as a base instead but I really liked that sorta Broken Sword or Gabriel Knight feel you get from talking to NPCs around Paris to find out where you need to go next. There are some truly mind-boggling decisions though. Lara not being able to hang long enough so she has to train her upper body strength? Great idea. Doing this via shoulder barging a random door elsewhere in the level? Baffling. It’s the weird way it’s presented too, I pushed a box as her later on and she just said out loud ‘My legs feel stronger now’. It’s truly absurd.
@nessisonett [nods along to all your Angel of Darkness thoughts] Yep, sounds like you'll land somewhere close to my opinion, when all is said and done. It's not a good game, but that doesn't make it a bad game, if that makes sense? It's a weird one. I find it fascinating myself.
Of course, after those last Chronicles levels, anything's gonna feel like an improvement!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I’m onto the archeological dig now after beating The Louvre and I’m actually really enjoying the game. If you accept the controls as rubbish then it’s easier to see the many positives. I’d guess that most detractors probably didn’t get past the first Paris streets section because it becomes a much more traditional Tomb Raider after that. There’s a bit less combat than I expected though, which is a shame because the ragdoll physics are hilarious.
@nessisonett It's unfortunate that Paris is so underbaked and unfinished because you're right, as an experiment it's kinda cool but I can imagine a lot of folks being put off. Perhaps if it'd been more engaging, people would've gotten into it and given the rest a chance. You're playing my favourite parts of the game at the moment, so I hope you continue to enjoy!
Oh, and the soundtrack is perfection, isn't it? Really helps sell the atmosphere!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
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