Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

@Tyranexx Yeah I replayed this one not too long ago and appreciated it a lot more. The game doesn’t give you too much to explore at one time. The world opens up to you slowly as you progress and get the upgrades. It could’ve been overwhelming but that design choice made the experience more digestible. Granted their are some points where you feel “stuck” but you figure it out eventually.

The environmental storytelling is also great, and subtle shifts in the soundtrack give the experience a sense of momentum.

@NotTelevision Crazy as it sounds, I like games that restrict player access this way without railroading them and gradually open up as you go along. It's a heck of a lot better than "Hey buddy, we can go that way another time!" restrictions. That's a bit of a sore point for me in Monster Hunter Stories right now. XD

South Park:Stick of Truth on Switch

It's a turn base rpg that lets you pick a class, level up your character and equipment, just to name a few. It's essentially a South park tv show that's turned into a game. All( most) of your favorite characters are in the game at one point or another. The town has all the houses and stores you'd expect to see as well.

The story is that you're the new kid trying to make friends with all the usual kids. They play a game of elves vs humans centered around the stick of truth. Cartman is the leader of the humans and a wizard, Kyle is the leader of the elves. You're automatically paired with the humans and they teach you how to battle and use magic ( most of which is being a master of flatulence believe it or not 😂).

That bring me to my next point, hopefully you're into crude humor, fart jokes, nasty cut scenes, and some moments that almost make you turn away for a minute in shock( usually funny though). If you're not into the tv series, you probably wont understand the games humor at all. It's been years since ive watched an episode but it's like I didn't miss a beat.

Moving onto the battle system, I'm NOT a true rpg fan, especially a turn based one, although I will mostly give it an attempt. This was the first time I was completely engulfed in a turn based rpg. I would play 2 hours a pop minimum which I never do for most games, especially a turn based rpg. You'll end up solving puzzles with all your abilities which was a neat change of pace and even stumped me a few times.

The story line is unsurprisingly wild and out there, but....its actually really good. I never felt like skipping a cut scene or dialogue. I was glued from start to finish and was even sad to see it end. On a side note, I played on easy and struggled with some boss fights for quite a while at some points. I loved the game so much I actually told my wife I'd like fractured but whole for Xmas. I HIGHLY recommend it if you like the show ( or liked the show, or if you're a fan of the genre and want to try something wildly different. One of the best this year for me.

9/10

@Tyranexx Yeah I’m with you. I like exploration in games but breaking the world up into smaller chunks, at least in the earlier parts of the game, is definitely the way to go.

@NotTelevision Exactly. It's why I'm hesitant with this push by some for almost every game to be open world. The format suits some genres and franchises, but not everything IMO.

@Tyranexx Good point.

Celeste

So I got to the end of this game. Doesn't mean I'm done with it, there's extra content, and things to do in the previous levels. But after beating the 7 chapters, I immediately get the hype from this game. Just as a video game, it is one of the best platformers out here. While I know there are various indie platformers in some ways like it out there (even back to freeware stuff from 15 years ago that I played). But what it reminds me of most are the really difficult parts of the recent Rayman games. The parts that are based on quick timing platforming, dealing with wind and some reasonably normal hazards, but with level design perfect for that. And because it refuses to waste your time or care about "lives", and they play kinda similarly (just replace slowly descending hovering with a quick dash in one direction, I guess). And I love those games, so no shock I love this one. But as a pure platformer, its even better. It is the perfect example of a difficult game that's still reasonable to get through.

But on top of that or any great music or the lovelier parts of the graphics. it has that story on top of it. As much as I love video games, most video games I would not describe as "useful" to me. Beyond the general positive qualities and escapism of playing a fun video game in general in the world of current year. But there are some that I'm really glad I've had in recent years. This is a big reason I got behind both Hyrule Warriors and Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (yes, that game). But those were largely just better than other games at getting me to relax despite everything. But Celeste is gonna stick with me for a long time because of how it handled some of its themes. And yeah video game about IMPORTANT THINGS. Y'know depression, anxiety, blah blah. I dunno about the latter, I'm pretty certain I don't have the former. But I'm still kinda bad at dealing with things some times, and way they showcased both the intrusive thoughts where you needlessly worry about everything and trying to (and sometimes failing) to deal with that, and accepting that part of yourself is something I'm not gonna forget anytime soon.

Though weirdly, its not like one of my favorite video games stories. It's great in a number of ways, but its not one that grabs me quite like my favorite stories ever. But certain parts of it I found genuinely useful to me as a person. Which is probably more important than that.

@kkslider5552000 It’s definitely a very good twitch platform game. Well designed levels that gradually unfold various mechanics to the player.

It also has an unwavering commitment to its metaphorical world. Celeste and the Badeline character serving as symbolic “roadblocks” on your path to success. Ultimately your appreciation of story comes down to whether or not you think those are compelling narrative devices or if you think that is a bit too “on the nose” and predictable. GRIS, Sea of Solitude, and Hellblade have a similar conceit in the world being the total reflection of the character’s psychological state.

I found it a bit too obvious for me. I also typically prefer playing a main character that exist within a community of other characters with lives and thoughts independent of you. But I respect the opinions of those who find solace in those sorts of stories. Especially those that battle with mental illness, isolation, and various other sorts of traumas the games depict.

Just beaten Assassins Creed Origins a few days back, and it was alright. But I must say Ubisoft wanted to drag on with Origins. Ubisoft just wanted you to stay in this boring, repetitive loop they conjured up for this title.

I say that the cause of the enormous open world and the leveling system Origins has. The open-world is your typical Ubisoft style world, it's bigger but with more nothing in it. You will do three things in Origins, explore boring loot locations, doing awful side quests(quests that don't even have a satisfying conclusion), and Hideouts/forts with A.I dumber than bricks. That's it, that's all you're going to do in this game. And you're going to have to do all of this. Why? The RPG system stops you in your tracks whenever you're not in a high enough level, and it's frustrating!

Gameplay-wise, it's your typical Creed game with mediocre, uninspiring stealth mechanics, but the difference between this one and the others is Senu. Senu breaks this game, here's why. She sees anything and everything and marks them for you. They can be on a horse, sitting or behind a wall, it doesn't matter. The A.I is already dumb enough, and you can see them anywhere? It's over, and there's no way they can combat that — the only way they have a chance if you screw up.

Now for the combat, it's alright it's a ton better than the AC3,4, and Rouge where you can one kill counter everything!. But has it's problems as well, the animations look stiff, you can't do combos, and it's basic like God of War. Which is sad, it has potential, and I hope they improve the combat in later titles. One final thing is the perk system; it's terrible. Like many of perks are mediocre and unnecessary, Syndicate(another average assassin Creed game) did it better. They were more rewarding, and it improved your character, which is something it's supposed to do, not Origins.

I want to touch upon the story. I like it; it's your typical revenge story; most of the characters are dull and forgettable. I feel like some needed more screentime and better dialogue. Except for Bayek, he was great; he was delightful and caring. I was rooting for this man, and it helped that his VA did an excellent job. Shame, we're never going to see him again; that's stupid, but what can you do? To wrap this up, this is an okay game. I don't think I recommend it, and there are so many cons it outweighs the pros. If you like action RPG's, love grinding & farming, this is the game for you. Hell, this game was fun as an action RPG, but the many problems this game had diminishes the experience for me. I can only hope Ubisoft this formula. Cause as of this moment, Assassins Creed is dead, we're never going back to its roots, and I have sadly accepted that.

I already beat the last Shovel Knight campaign. King of Cards...King Knight...yep.

It's expectedly great. Shovel Knight is 4 for 4 with these campaigns, which is unsurprising as Shovel Knight started as one of the best 2d platformers ever made. It's also definitely the longest, for better or worse. Mostly because of the card game they added. Which even they know is not the best in a game, since you can cheat as an ability if you want to (which is funny). Real quick, I kinda figured this would be the 3rd best out of the 4, and I was right. It's a Wario Land-y take on this game, its about as great as those games, but not as great as the best of Shovel Knight I guess. Frustrating at points but not needlessly difficult to master like Plague Knight was. Enemy placement was slightly questionable at points though. But I still enjoyed it a ton and Shovel Knight as a whole is my 2nd favorite game of the decade.

I'm mostly just glad I got to beat a game in a reasonable amount of time. Twice.

@kkslider5552000 yea i finished it last night too. I think you took the words out of my mouth. I Loved it, but it's not as good as the original or spectre of torment. Still a solid 8.5-9 though in my book

lol I beat Megaman 11 too. It's bizarre having me beat games consistently. I think I finished like 6 games last year...maybe.

I liked it but I can't help but think that it could be so much better. I don't think this will be good enough for the next game when you have the Original and X collections right there.

Batman: Return to Arkham City, including the Harley Quinn's Revenge story expansion (PS4) - Remaster of the PS360 era game. My first time playing it in any form.

Pros:

• The core beat 'em up gameplay is solid, and while at times you can still feel Batman's gameplay wasn't made with them in mind, the bosses are all definitely a few notches higher in quality than they were in Asylum.
• I loved the expanded gadget inventory, especially the new options available to deal with armed thugs.
• While it does lose some of the tense atmosphere from Asylum, I do think I prefer the more open world approach (not that open worlds are inherently better, it's just that I think they're a particularly good fit for superhero gameplay). Plus it helps that the world itself is a manageable size that's pretty easy to memorize compared to others in the genre.
• I enjoyed the expanded roster of villains involved in the goings on (many of whom were only foreshadowed in Asylum).

Mixed:

• While most of the sidequests are both manageable and decently interesting, there are WAY too many Riddler challenges. I loved that they unlocked tons of lore, concept art, and character trophies, but at the same time they definitely feel like bloat for the sake of bloat.
• After getting a small taste during the Harley Quinn's Revenge expansion, I really wish we got to play as Robin more.

Negative:

• There was occasional slowdown while grappling through the open world in certain spots (not often enough to be a real detriment), and it crashed on me once.

Overall a pretty good time.

Star Wars Battlefront II, including the Resurrection story expansion (PS4) - Current gen shooter based on the irreverent sci-fantasy series. I've stuck mostly to single player, and as such is what I'll be focusing on.

Pros:

• The on foot gameplay is no Titanfall 2, but it's still pretty solid.
• Ship missions/segments are genuinely great. Nothing to complain about here.
• As expected of a big AAA production, it looks great and it nails the Star Wars vibe down great.
• While I mentioned that I'll be focusing on single player mostly, I do want to mention the few Hero VS Villain multiplayer matches I engaged in were actually good fun (it's the only multiplayer mode I've dabbled in as of yet).

Mixed:

• Story won't win any awards, but it gets the job done and the cutscenes look great.
• The gameplay is obviously suited best to gunplay, so the token Luke Skywalker & Kylo Ren missions feel a bit off, though not bad.
• The on foot missions had way too many instances of "leaving the mission area, please turn back". I'm not sure if this is a result of them reusing multiplayer maps for singleplayer (yet want to funnel you down a relatively linear path), but it's a bit counter intuitive since many missions have collectables for you to find, so you think a bit more exploration would be encouraged.

Negative:

• Long loading times. Nothing too terrible as far as I'm concerned, but it was just enough that I was getting impatient at times.
• It can get pretty glitchy. Nothing game breaking, and more humorous mostly (enemies glitching through walls or floating in mid air after being killed). The worst one being Luke falling through his level upon loadup, but that was fixed by simply reloading the checkpoint.

It won't go on a list of my favorite games, but all in all I had a good time with it.

@RR529 While I haven't played that particular version of Arkham City, I've played the Armored Edition on the Wii U. It was a very enjoyable game that I feel captured Batman's essence just right. I may be biased towards my favorite DC hero though.

I personally wasn't a huge fan of the Riddler challenges, but some of the side content with some of Batman's Rogues' Gallery was pretty enjoyable. I think my favorite things were the Calendar Man Easter Egg, that trippy side quest with Mad Hatter, and the stuff involving Hush.

I did find the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC kind of underwhelming.

Finished Axiom Verge for Switch

After all the hype surrounding this game, on this site mostly, and with the recent announcement of AV2, I figured I'd give it a try. Especially since it was on sale and the cheapest ive seen yet.

I'm sure most of the people on this site know what it is, but if you don't, it's a metroidvania that has 8bit graphics. Thankfully, it really doesn't hinder how nice the game looks. It isn't ground-breaking in terms of looks, but it does a good job. It really feels like you're playing a metroid game from start to finish from the bosses, to the exploration, The corridors, and the power ups. It's your standard go as far as you can until you can't go any farther, then go somewhere else until you find a new way in via getting a power up.

The story line was probably the best part of the gAme, even though there wasnt that much of it. Without spoilers, there's an accident, you awake in a strange place, you need to find your way back home repairing certain beings.

The gameplay was pretty good for the most part. I will say there was a lot of areas that had some difficulty spikes that felt unwarranted. If anything; certain enemies were just annoying. Part of the problem was odd controls coupled with relentless enemies. For instance, a power up you get is a teleport power up that has you double tapping a direction on your joystick and then you'll teleport that direction. Only problem is that sometimes it worked and sometimes it didnt leaving me to die plenty of times that way. The other thing that bothered me was that there was no teleport stations in the game. There is a form of quick travel via riding on a giant head(yea I said giant head). And its not even something I'd consider a quick travel. Its Still a pain to trek across the entire game which you have to do quite often.

I know it sounds like I'm iffy on the game, and that's because I am. I think it's a good game. The fact that 1 guy made it all by himself, makes it a great game. But if you take that last part of the equation, and i didn't know how many people worked on it, I'd say it's a good to mediocre game. I guess I just had high expectations for the game since NL have it a 10 ( which is giving it a MUCH higher score than I think it deserves, but that's my opinion).

Overall, I enjoyed it, and the fact that 1 guy made it, blows my mind quite frankly. But it wasn't earth shattering by any means. It's a good metroid game to hold you over until we actually get metroid on the switch( minus nes and snes online games). It's a solid 7/10.

Pokémon Sword
Finished this game couple of weeks ago. I really liked some parts of it and I didn't necessarily hate anything about it but in the end, it just wasn't that special. I'd rank it pretty low on my favorite Pokémon game list but it's still far from a bad game.

The absolute best thing about Sword & Shield are the new Pokémon. They have really strong designs and I found them fun to use. Except for Impidimp and Morgrem. They were a pain to train since they were frail and lacked move variety. They're Dark/Fairy, yet they didn't learn a Fairy move by level up until they were fully evolved. It was refreshing to see such a big selection of new Pokémon. And it was also fun to see new takes on old Pokémon.

While I liked the characters and heavier emphasis on the gym challenge, the story itself was barely there. I was fine with it at first since I liked how the gyms felt more important this time around and the gym challenge was a story in itself but then they tried to do some story stuff at the last minute and it just got in the way. The pacing was all over the place.

There's a lot more I could talk about, like the Wild Area which is just regular routes blown up and glued together, but I think that's enough for now. Despite its shortcomings, I can see this being a game I want to revisit later thanks to its huge selection of Pokémon right from the get-go.

Culdcept Revolt
I guess I can list this one. I bought the game some time ago when it was cheap on the eShop but didn't have time to play it right away. I haven't played any of the earlier Culdcept games, most of which are Japanese exclusive. I started earlier this month and saw the credits yesterday although I feel like I'm only halfway through the story.

To give a short explanation on what this game is, think of Monopoly or Fortune Street, but with card battles. Whenever you land on free square, you can use your creature card to summon a creature to defend the land and whenever someone lands on a space that is already guarded, they can choose to either pay you or try to steal the land by using their own creature card. Add some item and spell cards into the mix and that's Culdcept.

My fear when I first started was that the game would get too repetitive too fast but that's not the case. You get new cards all the time and the boards have new special spaces added once in a while. My first real battle took about 45 minutes so I was scared the time commitment would go up as the game progresses but it stays pretty much constant and they go faster once you know what you're doing.

I wouldn't say the story is amazing but it's better than what I expected. You can progress the story fast if you want to but I always take on every side mission before going to the next story mission. The side missions are a bit weird. I can't quite explain what I mean by that. They are pretty much just excuses to have more battles but at the same time, they make me care more about the characters. I also like how each character seem to have its own AI quirks. For example, Zonx is a comic relief character who always tries to steal a land if he has a creature card in hand, even if it's impossible for him to win the battle.

I'll continue playing until I either beat all missions and collect all cards or get bored of the game and switch to something else. I'd assume there's still a lot of content left so it's probably going to be the latter. Either way, I'm thinking of moving onto Bravely Second next since I want to finish it before Bravely Default II comes out.

Luigi's Mansion 3 (Switch)

Pros:

• Luigi has a nice set of abilities that enables some creative puzzles & boss encounters. Some of the gems in particular are devilishly hidden, and I'm yet to find them all.
• Though the first couple aren't anything to write home about, it mostly has a real solid lineup of bosses, outside of a couple annoying ones.
• Attention to detail is immaculate. There's a wide variety of environments on offer, with your surroundings being full of things to interact with & destroy, whether they be common things like vases, sinks, & trash cans, or unique elements such as a punching bag, billiard table, or a telescope (even the least interactive elements of an area will oftentimes still creak & moan at the sucking/blowing effect of the Poltergust), with the lighting system in particular offering some stunning moments.

Negative:

• The polterkitty segments were clear padding, though never too intrusive or long.
• While the quality of the game's environment is evident (as I've mentioned), I'm not a big fan of the art direction. While the core Mario series characters have that clean cut, round "Disney" look about them (that has been very influential and popular in Japan, where the series originated), the ghosts and environment have sort of an uneven, angular look more reminiscent of some random cartoon you'd see on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, and it's a dead giveaway that this wasn't developed by a Japanese team (heck, one boss is even a redneck stereotype). Now, feeling western isn't necessarily bad, but it just feels like there's a bit of a disconnect between the core Mario characters and everything else IMO, and I don't think I care for it in this instance. Clearly a personal preference though, and not really a knock on the game's quality.

Overall it was a really good time. I don't put it quite up there with the system's best exclusives, but it's second tier for sure.

I usually don't end up finishing many games because my backlog is so big and I end up jumping around from game to game a lot, but over the past few days I've actually managed to finish 2 games, and not just short games that last for a couple hours either!

The first was Assassin's Creed III Remastered. I did not 100% all the side quests and everything, but I did 100% the main story, completing all the optional objectives in the missions. It was a huge pain, but I'm glad I did it. The plan now is to gradually jump back in and take care of all the side stuff and DLC, and eventually maybe 100% everything. We'll see if it really happens. There's also Liberation to tackle.

Overall, I'd probably give this game a solid 7/10. On the one hand, I think the setting of the American Revolution is probably my favorite out of all the AC games, which is why I feel a little disappointed that they squandered it on such a meh story. Connor's story was serviceable enough as a means to keep throwing missions at you, but I never really felt so drawn in that I had to keep playing to find out what happened next. The story in the present with Desmond was just not interesting at all to me, and it sucked that you would periodically get ripped out of the past to deal with him. If I had played more of the earlier AC games, maybe that part of the story would have made more sense or been more compelling, but as it stands I didn't really like it. But otherwise, I thought the game looked great, definitely better than on Wii U, and when everything was working, the gameplay was mostly pretty satisfying. Some objectives were really frustrating in that they were simple enough to accomplish, but you had to fight against the finicky controls too much. There were things that required more precision than the controls really offer, and sometimes it was hard to get the character to respond how you wanted him to. But that was only in a few missions. Otherwise it was a joy to explore and experience this world, and I look forward to diving back in.

The other game I finished was Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (also 100% with all Lorestones). Oh man, this game was amazing! Despite the fact that the visuals were clearly toned down for the Switch, I think it's still one of the best looking games on the console. The subject matter of the game was handled very well, and the sound design was key to this. I still regret not trying it with headphones, but even on the TV, it was really unsettling. The story was very interesting. At first I had no idea what was really going on (which was probably intended), but the game gradually lets you figure everything out without making it too obvious, and I found the ending clear and satisfying. The pacing felt great, combat was satisfying despite not being very complex, and the whole thing was just an awesome experience for me. I'd probably give it around a 9/10, and maybe higher had I played it on a platform that made it look even prettier.

@klingki I'm playing thru ac3 too but only a few hours in. How long did it take you? Main story only obviously.

@NintendoByNature I'll check my playtime when I get home from work, but I want to say it was probably between 30-40 hours. But that's with a lot of replaying in order to get tough optional objectives, spending some limited time on side quests (not much though), and just generally playing at a leisurely pace and exploring a bit. If you stay really focused and just bang out missions, I bet you could shave a lot of time off that and finish in like 15-20 hours.