Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

@Ralizah I think you did a great job. Think we have a future NL reviewer on our hands in my opinion!

BF5 firestorm facepaint quest!

I finished Assassin’s Creed Origins yesterday, on the Xbox One X. I think it might be the best AC game I’ve played so far, and I’m really looking forward to playing AC Odyssey sometime in the future, as that one seems even better.

Now, onto the DLC for Origins, and I will also start playing Yoshi’s Crafted World today.

Astro Bot: Rescue Mission (PS4/VR) - Often touted as the first party "killer app" for PSVR, how does it stack up? Pretty well I'd say, as the only drawbacks I could levee against it would be technical limitations on the hardware side of things.

It's very much a Mario style 3D platformer with a more sci-fi facade, as you control a robot named Astro, who hops & bops his way through 5 worlds rescuing other bots & collecting pieces of their ship after it was attacked by a giant slime like alien. The worlds themselves each have 4 platforming levels (each with 8 bots & a chameleon to collect) plus a boss level (these are definitely highlights), across six different themes (there's great variety even here though, as the "nature" theme can encompass a treetop canopy level, as well as a rather brilliant graveyard level & Japanese castle level as well, for example). In addition to the 5 main worlds you have the Challenge Belt, an asteroid belt that's home to timed obstacle course & mini game challenges (there's a challenge level for each main level, as that's what the chameleons unlock), as well as the Astro Ship which is sort of a hub world you can mess about in (it has a claw machine mini game you can use your in game coins to play, that unlock new play sets, as you can redecorate you're ship's interior to represent any of the 6 level themes in addition to the base one). And yes, all the bots you rescue do reside within the ship (while having it set to the default interior), so it gets pretty crowded in there.

Levels themselves are pretty linear, but there's a lot of exploration to be had if you want to find all the collectables (this is definitely where the 360° viewing angle comes into play), and while Astro has a pretty simple move set (he can jump, temporarily hover via a double jump, and punch), things can get pretty interesting as you can power up your controller (which appears in game as if you're playing from the perspective of a larger robot following and assisting Astro out) with features like a hose, grappling hook, shurikens, cartoons Gatling gun, and flashlight that are all put to very inventive use in various ways.

The only thing I have against it (and this is more just a limitation of the PSVR itself, and maybe a bit since I don't have a PS4 Pro, is that objects in the distance look really blurry. Levels in more confined spaces look wonderful, and they do a good job with rendering only what they need to most of the time in a way that doesn't make it look like a limitation, but it's noticeable whenever there is a larger draw distance, and I think even the closer up objects take a little bit of a clarity hit when it's trying to render the objects in the distance).

@RR529 Thanks for your detailed impressions.

As a relative newcomer to PSVR, how much of a game-changer would you say it is for a game like this? Is the 'jump' to VR some revolutionary, Super Mario 64-esque revolution, or is it more of a neat gimmick, in your opinion?

@Ralizah, I'd say it sits somewhere in the middle. I think they CAN do a lot with it, but in an effort to make it as easy to grasp as possible, they didn't do much outside the established mold in terms of design (while it certainly looks cool!).

The biggest shake up were the enemies that targeted you rather than Astro. In a normal game trying to fiddle around with the camera while manoeuvring your character is a big no-no, but here it's no issue to dart your head to the side quickly if you see an obstacle headed your way (you can't get hurt, but your field of vision will be obstructed by goo or a cracked screen for a few seconds if you get hit). Two highlights are a large soccer ball kicking robot that you have to volley the ball with by headbutting it back to it, and bees you have to dodge then headbutt to defeat them. Some objects in the environment you can headbutt as well, such as grate you can knock down that becomes a walkway for Astro.

Ocassionally you'll get to throw balls at enemies & objects with Astro, and instead of flipping through lockons with a button or trying to line up a shot, it automatically locks onto whatever target is in the center of your view.

One particularly impressive piece of platforming takes place on a beanstalk that sees you carried partway up, so you have to look down at Astro from above while you're working him up, and by the end you're looking up at him from below. Mostly the 360° viewing angle is used for collectables though, as there may be platforms behind or directly above you that you'll need to turn to see. Of course, the sense of scale is really cool when it comes to the bosses, and the water levels are almost magical (in a Nintendo-like attention to detail, you can have Astro swim up to your face and get stuck on your visor, lol).

I finished Metroid: Other M earlier this week.... (I can hear you booing back there.... )

Positives

• The environments: For a Wii game, it looks pretty stunning at times. Some care was definitely taken into fully exposing the view from some morph ball tunnels, and some of the environments (particularly Sector 1) really stood out to me.
• Enemy designs: Not gonna lie, some of these were cool. Seeing some enemies make the leap from the earlier 2D games to this one was fascinating.
• Gameplay: While some would argue this is too easy - and to be fair, it often is after you get the hang of it - I enjoyed exploiting things like Sense Move and lethal strikes in combat. While I'm sure this was a pet peeve for some, I also enjoyed the fact that you can recharge the missiles and, to an extent, your health when you were running low or in a tight spot. I probably spent more time than necessary using the Screw Attack/Space Jump and Speed Booster.
• Boss fights: Some of these were more for show than substance, true, but I enjoyed the majority of them. The ones that stick out the most in my mind are Nightmare (both rounds), Ridley, that giant lava dragon thing, and Vorash.

Neutral

• Gathering items: Some of these were TOO easy to find, even in later sections, but a few were so obscure that I admit that I had to consult a guide. Some were pretty intuitive "Aha!" moments though.
• The Music: The game's soundtrack, overall, is ho-hum, but the opening Metroid theme (probably my favorite version of it), Ridley's boss fight, and whatever that music is in the chamber that contains the War Wasp Hive do stand out to me.
• Save stations: I'm honestly not sure how to categorize this one. There were times when I thought they were too few and others when I thought there were more save points than necessary.

Negatives

• The plot: Okay, show of hands, who was expecting this? While I don't think it was absolute garbage like the internet often makes it out to be, it could have been better. I didn't mind some of Samus's monologues and past reflections, but some decisions she made during the game made me facepalm a bit. To be fair, I didn't see the Madeline/Melissa plot twist coming and found her to be a tragic figure more than anything, but still....Who in their right mind thought it would be a great idea to essentially recreate Zebes on a research ship?
• Yes, the PTSD Ridley part did confuse me a bit. Not so much that Samus would exhibit that behavior to begin with given her past, but the fact that she's faced Ridley before this point (according to the Metroid timeline) with few obvious problems. On one hand, I like how they portrayed PTSD here, but I feel like they used the wrong character for it.
• Outside of Anthony and Adam, I really feel like the rest of the GF squadron could have used more fleshing out. I mean, if you're going for a narrative here, at least make me care about everyone.
• How suit upgrades are handled. While the game gives a reason for how upgrades are controlled/administered here, I don't find it to be a valid one. If Samus has these abilities already, why can't she activate them when the situation calls for it? Why should she have to obtain permission?
• Exploration: This category is a slightly mixed bag for me, but the fact remains that, while a lot of the ship opens up later, it's almost nauseatingly linear for too long. Some linearity is fine IMO as I find the very first Metroid too non-linear, but this went too far in the other direction.
• The Metroid Queen boss fight: While this ended well, the Metroid hatchlings make this one downright annoying. How on earth are you supposed to kill one that you freeze by locking onto it to perform a Super Missile maneuver, only to not even get a chance to charge said Super Missile before another one of the little suckers latches on? This part of the fight isn't a challenge per se; it's downright trolling.

While I wouldn't call Metroid: Other M a strong Metroid game compared to most other franchise entries, it is still decent overall. It has a few warts to be sure but does, at its core, feel like a Metroid game. The problem is, that core is buried and complicated by a lot of unnecessary fluff. Despite my numerous complaints, however, I did quite enjoy this game and even achieved 100% on all items. For the $6-7 USD I paid for a new copy? This was definitely worth it; I probably would have been satisfied paying double that amount. But at its launch price? Definitely not.

The internet like to gripe and moan about this one. While I find some of the complaints valid, I still find them overblown. That said, if you're looking for a 3D Metroid game, I highly suggest playing through the Metroid Prime series first. Buy this one for the gameplay and NOT the plot.

I just want to finish one game....

Not actually recently, but the last game I beat was Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn. Having the 3DS since it was released, this is probably the last game I buy for it, and the last first party title on the platform. Those last 8 years were sure great...

On the game itself, here's what I thought:

• The framerate doesn't seem as smooth as the Wii version. The graphics also don't look as great, but still are nice considering the lower resolution.
• Motion controlled stuff is now controlled with regular buttons. I don't miss it to be honest.
• it has 2 different autorun minigames. They're very short (4 levels each) and you have to unlock them by progressing in the main game
• Devilish mode is wasted potential. There's a lifebar, but no lives. If you die, you have to start the levels all over again. Not to mention the music that plays when the devils appear can become very annoying.
• The new abilities look cool, but they are just too overpowered. If you get the sword, you can destroy everything.

Overall, it's a good port of the original title, but the Extra stuff isn't that great.
Of course, I didn't expect it to be some kind of amazing 3DS sendoff as it's a port of a game you could already play, buuuuuuut... It's was great to revisit this title on a portable system. I love the soundtrack and the visuals.
If you never played it, I recommend the Wii version over this one.

Just beat Luigi's Mansion today and it's been awhile since i've beat the game (last time i did, was when the gamecube was still in production.) so, this is my 2nd run of beating it.
I Got Rank F this time. (i think it was lower last time)
i got 40 over 50 boos in this game. (41, if wanna count King Boo.)
but, i enjoy the game and loved fighting King Boo,

Neville - Gold
Lydia - Gold
Chauncey - Silver (1st Boss)
The Floating Whirlindas - Gold
Shivers - Silver
Melody Pianissima - Gold
Mr. Luggs - Silver
Spooky - Silver
Bogmire - Bronze (2nd Boss)
Biff - Bronze
Miss Petunia - Silver
Nana - Silver
Slim - Silver
Henry and Orville - Silver
Madame Clairvoya - Gold
Boolossus - Gold (3rd Boss)
Uncle Grimmly - Gold
Clockwork Soldiers - Silver
Jarvis - Silver
Sir Weston - Bronze
Vincent Van Gore - Silver
King Boo - Bronze (Final Boss)

sadly, i skipped Sue Pea. so no rank for her. if i tired to beat the game for the third time. i'll post her rank later.

now that Luigi's Mansion is finish, im off to play SMT III for PS2.

@Tyranexx That's exactly how I see the game. I would have liked to know more about the Deleter (spoiler: it's James) and how was his fight with K.G. before he thrown him into the lava. We also never find out who were the ones that hired James as a spy of the corrupted people that lurks in the Galactic Federation. There were areas that have potential to engage the player more in the story.

I hope that in the future they consider voicing the characters again, because that wasn't the problem of the story. The problem mainly resides in that Samus should already have overcome PTSD after facing Ridley 3-4 times. Perhaps if they have given the PTSD to someone like Madeline Bergman or Melissa, it could have gone better. Melissa, despite being an (spoiler alert) android, she got humanized due to her interactions with the humans and (story spoiler) the baby metroids.

@SamusLv7: Yeah, I was also surprised that they didn't elaborate more on the "Deleter". It was a missed opportunity IMO. Part of the reason I played through the epilogue was in the hope that they'd address that. Oh well....

Overall I didn't mind the voice acting; IMO the bits with Anthony were pretty well done. If only there had been a better plot for that voice acting to adhere to....

I finished Steins;Gate Elite last night with the true ending. It is an outstanding visual novel. The way the adapted the anime back into VN format and then added in all the cut content that wasn't originally in the anime, including all of the alternate endings, is superb! This is simply a must play for anyone who likes visual novels, hard science fiction, or strong character driven stories! It's a difficult story to talk about without spoilers, but I can say it is without a doubt the best depiction of time travel I have ever seen in fiction. It examines the concept very deeply and manages to portray a sci-fi story that is both believable and fantastic at the same time. The likable, quirky and very memorable cast drive the story so well. Characters evolve and change throughout without losing a core that makes them who they are. There is a great deal of good humor, but this is not a happy story and likely several of the endings will leave you heart broken. But not all of them. #spoilers.

There are a few flaws however. For one thing, it isn't even clear, if you are going in blind, that this is a game at all. If you bought it blind you might think you just bought an anime where you need to press A to move forward. But ultimately your choices do matter. Another minor drawback is how heavily steeped in Japanese culture the story is. There are some things that will likely just not make sense to a western viewer unfamiliar with them. But these things are rare and shouldn't detract from the experience much. And the final gripe was the amount of science-babble. Steins;Gate does an excellent job of writing sci-fi from a very real science position, almost too good of a job. There are a few points that felt like sitting in a physics class. However that stops about a third of the way through the story.

The story does start slow, but once you get pulled in it becomes extremely hard to stop. By the end I flat out couldn't and played the last 2 and half chapters in one sitting, staying up several hours later than I intended.

If you like science fiction and anime, you owe it to yourself to experience Steins;Gate in some fashion. You could totally just watch the anime online, but if you want the full experience, Elite is absolutely the best way to do it!

Final note: VALUE! this VN is effectively the entire anime, plus all the alternate endings, at a price far cheaper than it would be to buy the boxed set new.

Title: Yumi's Odd Odyssey (AKA Sayonara Umihara Kawase)

Platform: Nintendo 3DS

What is it?: The 3DS (and eventually Vita/PC) entry in an obscure, Japanese cult classic series that started on the SNES where you play as a girl named Umihara (or Yumi in this localization, I guess) who uses her fishing rod to grapple her way through levels that pose a variety of platforming challenges. Levels are completed by finding doors, and the structure of the game is such that you open up alternate routes through the game by way of somewhat hidden doors in certain levels. There are optional backpack collectibles to find as well, along with alternate characters to unlock.

Level of completion: 3/5 endings cleared; 39/50 total stages completed; 17/40 backpacks found. I could play it more, but, honestly, I feel like I'm pretty much done with the game.

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What I liked

• The gameplay hinges almost entirely on the manipulation of a complex, physics-based grappling system which is your primary means of platforming through the various levels in the game. Lengthening and shortening your fishing line at various elevations and arcs of your swing will wildly alter how you progress through the level. I became proficient enough to progress through most of the stages, but truly skilled (primarily Japanese) players can perform awesome feats of skill and blitz through the most brutal of levels in a manner of seconds.
• Alternate characters to unlock. Some of which have special abilities.

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What I disliked:

• There's little enemy variety. Just a couple different types of mutated fish monsters that eerily lumber around the stages. They're totally at odds with the cutesy design of the rest of the game.
• Of the special abilities available to your characters, only one, which adds a single level checkpoint which you can re-spawn at once, is of any real use. And then that is often poorly implemented, because it often doesn't reset other elements within the level. If you die from a fish monster boss near a checkpoint, for example, it's not uncommon to immediately die again upon re-spawning because the fish monster is literally standing in the same location where you re-spawned.
• This game is ugly. Very bland visual presentation with squat character models. Very little variation in the backdrops, and they never seem to have any rhyme or reason to the way they're arranged. The level design is unimaginative as well, with platforms feeling like they've been arranged almost at random at times.
• While I understand that the developers wanted to make your platforming success solely dependent on your ability to manipulate the complex physics related to your fishing line, I wish that controlling your character didn't feel quite so clunky as it does.
• The performance, at what feels like a sluggish sub-30fps framerate, is disappointing as well.
• There's no context for almost anything that happens in this game. You swing around, capture horrifying fish monsters, find backpacks, and enter hidden doors... cuz. This extends to boss battles as well, if they can even be called that. The game will just unceremoniously dump you in another level, except this time there's a larger fish monster lumbering around, and you have to find a way to get stuff to fall on its head. In the case of one particularly evil level, you have to grapple onto loads of fruit in the ceiling and use your body weight to spill them out onto the boss below (if you're, indeed, lucky enough for the boss to happen to lumber far enough over for this to happen). The fruit will knock you down to your death if it hits you, however, which means you have to swing away a split second after activating the spill. This, on its own, would be manageable if it wasn't for the fact that nine-tenths of the floor wasn't covered in spikes that insta-kill you. And even that would be OK if the swinging wasn't entirely momentum-based, which doesn't play well with split-second evasions.
• For a game where death can come at any time, it's annoying to continually get booted into the level select screen upon dying.
• Here is a screenshot I took of my 3DS on the results screen of the third ending stage. This game is brutally difficult just to play. This is a perfect encapsulation of the futility of my struggle. By the way, all 310 attempts took place in the same excruciating day:
  

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Final thoughts: The game isn't unplayable, by any means, and I can see how this might appeal to a certain type of player who is taken in by the unique system of locomotion in this game. With that said, even if I were a big fan of the game in this respect, it wouldn't excuse the lack of effort and polish in nearly every other aspect of the production.

Score: 3/10

@Ralizah another sound and detailed review. Great job!

Just finished my first play through of darksiders on switch. And wow, did that game blow me away. And very unexpectedly. Never knew much about the series going into it other than it being a zelda like. It was such a well done game from combat to puzzles etc. Some cool bosses and whatnot. I did love that alot of the extras and collectables werent so far out of your way which makes for easy gathering. Everything was fairly simple to learn and the game flowed rather smoothly. Might even give darksiders 2 a look now. 9/10 from this guy.

Just finished Pikmin 3 for the first time. This is a funny one. I preordered it back when it was coming out since it was only 30€ for some reason. I played the game for 2-3 weeks and absolutely loved it. Now, why haven't I finished the game if I played it for so long? Well, I actually only played the first 4 days of the story mode and everything else was multiplayer. Me and my sister got the best rank from most of the fruit collecting missions and played all enemy focused maps as well. My sister wasn't that into bingo battle, though. There was a little bit of skill gap so we didn't play that mode much. I still love it though.

Now we get to the actual single player story mode. There have been a lot of Pikmin videos lately, at least from the people I watch on YouTube, and I've been meaning to go back to Pikmin 3 for a while, so I finally did. I think the game had a bit of a slow start but it wasn't long until I started saying to myself "I still have so much left to do, just one more day". I really enjoyed my time with the game. But then I entered the last area today and it just wasn't for me. I lost Pikmin left and right, sometimes because I left them on one job so I can continue exploring and then I notice I can't easily get back, sometimes because of bomb rocks, sometimes because I'm just stupid and then the rest on the final boss. I basically tripled my dead Pikmin count in the last area. Once I dealt the final blow, I was just happy it was over. It wasn't the way I wanted to finish the game.

I'll still continue my adventure and collect those 10 or so fruits I have left. I still have some places to explore in earlier areas when I didn't have access to all Pikmin types. The game is great. The idea behind the last area was good too. I just didn't like the jump from casual exploring and fruit collecting to stressful and lengthy boss battles in general. I had the same problem with previous bosses too, just not quite to the same extent.

After on and off, I've finally finished zelda: spirit tracks for the first time. It was better than phantom hourglass but not nearly as good as other entries in the series. I did love some of the puzzle solving in the game. The battles were kind of tough. Not because of the enemies or anything like that. But it due to your hand covering parts of the screen at times with your stylus. The last few hours honestly dragged on though in the tower of spirits. I still loved the game nonetheless, 9/10 I'd say, maybe 8.7/10 at the worst. It's worth a play through if you never have.

@Ralizah Yumi's Odd Odyssey isn't a stellar game by any stretch of the imagination, but the 3DS port was indeed pretty bad. I bought it for full price and it felt like I was scammed...

Finally finished The Great Ace Attorney/DGS:NRnB, many moons after first starting. Because of the timespan, my thoughts might not be as joined-up or cohesive as they could be, but I’ll scribble a few of them down anyway.

In short, I enjoyed it. It’s basically the classic Ace Attorney setup retrofitted to the backdrop of turn-of-the-century Victorian London, with Sherlock Holmes and chums thrown in for good measure.

I’d like to say, “it’s as whacky as it sounds” (and does have its fair share of whack), but given the level of zaniness on display in the series’ more contemporary entries, I’d say it actually takes a more somber and grounded tone for the most part, which the Victorian setting lending the game a sense of historical weight and importance.

You follow our titular/eponymous/dude-whose-name-is-in-the-title protagonist on his adventures from Japan to the distant shores of the British Isles at a time when Japan is beginning to open up to the world and engage in wider international diplomacy.

Setting the game between two countries engaged in very new and delicate international relations is a fantastic device for ramping up the tension, as your actions not only have ramifications for the individuals involved, but threaten to being the whole diplomatic situation crashing down around you.

As for the individuals in question, I’d say they’re a slightly mixed bag of charming and likeable characters mixed with somewhat overblown caricatures who never really develop beyond a punchline. There’s quite a variety of character designs too; while most of the main cast looking relatively human, many of the side characters adopt rather more eccentric proportions. It’s a mix that is occasionally jarring but also equally often quite amusing, so I suppose I’m generally happy they allowed a little artistic license with these designs.

I won’t give too much away, but the story starts and finishes on a high note in my opinion; setting up your adventure by throwing you straight into the deep end of your own trial. The story is nicely tied together in the final trial too, although not without some unexplained mysterious (to nicely lead into the second game). There’s perhaps a little bit of sag in the middle where the plot doesn’t feel quite so driven, but it generally keeps rolling forward with enough pace to kee you interested.

Altogether, I’d say it’s an enjoyable romp. There’s something quite epic about sailing the stormy seas to distant lands at a time of equally tempestuous diplomatic negotiations, then trying to establish yourself in a whole new world. There’s also something very interesting about seeing Victorian London from the perspective of a fledgling Japanese exchange-student/defence attorney. It’s really just a very interesting setting to have chosen.

I picked up the second game at a secondhand bookshop, and I’ve heard people be quite positive about it, so I’m looking forward to getting stuck into that. But got the time being, I’m just proud to have seen the first journey through to its completion!