AI: The Somnium Files - As a huge fan of Zero Escape, I bought AI day one and stopped playing Astral Chain so I can fully focus on it. Now I finished it last week so how was it? I don't really know yet.
I liked the story. I liked the characters. I didn't necessarily dislike anything. Well, maybe there were a bit too many perverted jokes but that was to be expected. Though Zero Escape series never had this many, even with all three games combined. And also the long pauses when the game was loading some scenes for one or two lines of dialog. Other than that, the game was all around good. The visuals were a nice upgrade compared to ZTD which had really stiff animations.
This may take some time to fully sink in. It didn't have the same kind of impact like Ghost Trick, Phoenix Wright or 999 but I'm happy I experienced it.
Art of Balance TOUCH! - This is a game I bought years ago. I play it for couple of days and then I don't touch it for months. It's perfect for that type of play. Relaxing game that you can play whenever you feel like it without worrying about where you left off.
I decided to play it again on Sunday and noticed I only have the second half of last world left so I finished it. Now I just need to get the last two achievements that require you to beat certain amount of puzzles in a row in Endurance Mode. Give it a year and I'll probably have it completed.
Return of the Obra Dinn Since I beat AI just in time for this game's release, I decided to continue with another mystery game. I'd heard of it before and knew I'd like it. I finished the game today and it certainly was a unique experience. The story of the ship and its crew wasn't what I was expecting going in. I had fun unraveling the story but I felt like it ended too soon and I had only just begun discovering who's who.
The latter half of the game was me going back to earlier deaths and making mental notes on things. I guess writing things on paper would've made the process bit easier but oh well... I liked how many things you had to pay attention to. I had to come up with new ways to identify people all the time. My main issue with the game was the navigation. Finding the correct page in the book was tedious at times, especially when you had to flip back and forth and going around the ship trying to get back to the body you wanted to check again had similar problems. I also had some trouble trying to identify people thanks to the art style. Part of it was probably intentional.
Overall, a game worth playing but might cause you some headache.
Check out my Gaming Nonograms thread here on Nintendo Life if you are into Picross or other similar games.
I just got a 112% on Spyro Reignited Trilogy. I have never played the originals so this was my first outing with Spyro, (aside from skylanders which hardly counts). And let me just say that I loved my time with this game(s).
With that said however, I think 3 full size collection games is to many for me. By the time of the 3rd game I was almost kind of sick of it. That's not to say it was bad by any means, if anything it shows just how much Spyro you get in one package. I do have to say the first game was my favorite.
All in all aside from a bit of 3D collectithon fatigue towards the end, I had an absolute blast with this game and would totally recommend it.
The humor was on point like always. IVs driving takes a while to get used to, but I think it's very unique.
The game actually is a lot more colorful than regular IV. There's even clear skies!
A lot of action missions. Not a big fan of helicopter missions.
Overall one of the best stand alone expansions I've played.
Oh, and Yusuf was great, haha.
This blue eye perceives all things conjoined. The past, the future, and the present. Everything flows and all is connected. This eye is not merely seen reality. It is touching the truth. Open the eye of truth... There is nothing to fear.
Due to time constraints, this'll be short and sweet. Believe it or not, I've played the rest of the series before. (3-6 back in the day, 1 over a year ago....)
Likes
As usual, the series's unique combat system, which is a combo between an action RPG and a card game, is quite enjoyable. I can spend many hours just customizing chip folders and collecting battle chips!
I'm still a sucker for the music in these games.
Exploring the Net in this, as with most other Battle Network games (barring the first one...ugh) is fun. Secrets are everywhere.
Many of the bosses here, as in the rest of the series, are fun to fight.
Style changes were introduced in this game. They also appeared in MMBN 3.
The final boss was enjoyable and had a great design to boot. It reminds me of Gregar from MMBN 6, actually....
As this is a VC game, you can't battle with anyone even though there's a network option. Even so, it's worth checking out that menu option and then checking your chip pool later. Trust me. Capcom was actually nice here.
Meh
I'm not sure if this is because I was playing the game without rose-tinted glasses, but the plot here seemed kind of nonsensical at times. I'd argue that some of the later games made more sense. Then again, I'm probably overthinking this one.
Some of the game felt padded at different points, but compared to a later game CoughBattleNetwork4Cough, this wasn't bad at all.
Some of the side quests are interesting, but others...eh.
All in all, I recommend this one to series fans and/or someone who wants something a little different in a short RPG. I'd recommend someone play the whole series in order, though be warned; compared to the first game, this one improved on things A LOT and helped set the bar higher as the series changed and came more into its own.
If I were to pick a game for someone who didn't care about chronology and just wanted a taste of the series, I'd choose one of the two Battle Network 3 games (White or Blue) or one of the two Battle Network 6 games (Cybeast Gregar or Cybeast Falzar), however.
I just finished Fez. I'm honestly not sure what all the hype is about. It's a fine game with some fun puzzles, but I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going most of the time and basically lucked into finding 32 cubes just to be able to beat it.
@nintykidBattle Network 3 (White) was my first game in the series. My bro received it as a gift but didn't really get into the game, so I played through it instead! I had seen some of the anime and kinda knew what it was about. XD
The first two games were off shelves by the time I decided I liked the series, but I received at least one version of each after that. The Wii U's Virtual Console was my opportunity to catch up.
WHAT IS IT?
Developer QuanticDream's latest cinematic adventure game. Set in the relatively near future (2038), the game follows the intertwining stories of three androids in the city of Detroit (Connor, a police android designed to investigate 'deviant' androids who are rebelling against their programming and attaining a sense of selfhood; Kara, a housekeeping android who, through a series of events, finds herself protecting an abused little girl named Alice; and Markus, a domestic care android who eventually finds himself the de facto leader of a revolutionary android rights movement).
PLATFORM
Playstation 4
LEVEL OF COMPLETION
I attempted to go for the platinum, which requires completing the game, and many individual chapters, numerous times. As it stands, I've gained all but three or so of the trophies and have completed the game's story two or three times, at least. I'll probably go back to it eventually and clean up the remaining trophies with another playthrough or two, but I'm kind of burned out right now.
GAMEPLAY
I mentioned that this was a cinematic adventure game, which naturally means that the level of interactivity here is somewhat limited. Like many other story-heavy games on PS4, you're almost always being directed through a scripted sequence that combines user input with narrative in such a way that the entire game feels like a playable cutscene of sorts. There are locations with some level of exploration and player agency to them (and there are actually collectibles to find in the form of magazines, some of which change depending on choices you make that impact the direction of the story), but, ultimately, you're always being funneled down a narrative route of sorts. Your character can often walk around and examine some objects in their environment. They also frequently engage in Quick Time Event-heavy action sequences or, more rarely, conflicts where the player must quickly choose how to respond to a situation from a list of prompts.
More than any game I've played in recent memory, Detroit: Become Human seems to satisfy that classic TellTale games mantra about your choices mattering. Each chapter features a complex internal flowchart of cause-and-effect that tracks how the player's actions cause events to turn out by the end. More importantly, though, is the way in which events ripple across the narrative of the entire game and inform events that come later on. There seem to be two kinds of consequential choices in this game: decisive ones which immediately impact the narrative (such as choices that lead, fairly quickly, to a character living or dying, for example, which directly impacts how events later in the game will turn out), and ones that effect how other people perceive certain characters or factions. These latter types of choices have little impact on their own but, cumulatively, they lead to narrative-shaking changes. It's similar to, if more complex than, the 'law vs chaos' scale that is employed by several SMT games.
STORY/CHARACTERS
Another strength of the game is the wide variety of characters you'll meet across the various chapters, from mentally unstable vagrant androids to people living in isolation who have quietly either become heroes or complete monsters. The core relationships in this game are between Connor and his cynical police lieutenant partner Hank Anderson, a complex character who struggles with discriminatory feelings toward androids while also finding himself becoming increasingly empathetic toward the "deviant" androids he comes across; Kara and Alice, who quickly find themselves developing an interesting mother/daughter dynamic; and Markus and a variety of other people in the rebel group he stumbles across: the core players in this group swing from hopeful pacifists who want to learn to co-exist with humans to hardened militants who think the only way forward is to respond with violence, and the ending of Markus' story, along with multiple big story events, will change drastically depending on which of these approaches he tends to adopt throughout the game.
So, to reiterate, while I won't go into more depth in the story, expect to investigate mysteries when playing as Connor, struggling to survive and protect Alice when playing as Kara, and deciding how to incite a revolutionary political movement as Markus.
ART/CHARACTER DESIGNS/MUSIC
Not a lot to say in these areas. Detroit: Become Human does a good job of cultivating a hyper-realistic art-style that (mostly) avoids the uncanny valley (except where it intends to: this IS a game about androids, after all) using a combination of high-poly models, effective lighting (some of the rainy environments in this game are especially gorgeous), and clearly motion captured faces. It's obviously not quite 1:1 with real life, but, for the aging PS4, it's a really impressive effort.
The music is... pretty good. It doesn't stand out for the most part. It's not something I'd listen to on its own, but it does a good job of heightening the emotions of whatever is happening in a given scene. I particularly like the panicked sound of this track:
Other observations:
Some games get off to a slow start. This one doesn't, and essentially puts all its cards on the table at the beginning with a high-stakes hostage negotiation that does a really good job of introducing the player to the core gameplay systems. Very cool.
Scenes in this game, while incredibly streamlined and directed, are dense with a ton of detail, including interactive objects that reveal lore and worldbuilding in the background, be it through readable news tablets that flesh out current (circa 2038) political events, polling data that reveals interesting things about the public's feelings on androids more broadly, the ways in which androids are changing different entertainment fields and areas of scholarly expertise, etc., signs on the wall or in stores, news interviews on the TV, etc. It does a fantastic job of building the illusion that you're taking a peek at what a future America might look like, as opposed to just playing through a science-fiction story about androids.
I feel like Kara's storyline was worked into the game because the developers started with the character and felt like they needed to integrate her. Her storyline doesn't really mesh well with the Markus/Connor storylines, however, so every time one of her chapters pops up you know the game is going to start spinning its wheels narratively for a little while. This would have been more understandable if the storyline had interesting themes/ideas that enriched the broader social focus of the other storylines, but I never really felt like they added much to the game on their own terms. You had the REAL game with the other two characters, and then you had this little side story about Kara and a little girl that just kept popping back up.
For all of the complex issues that feed into the setting and would make for fascinating subject matter to explore across the scope of the narrative, I feel like the writers really drop the ball here. The game is entirely uninterested in the possible cognitive, moral, and experiential differences between human life and android life or the extended implications of sentient A.I. becoming a thing, and instead uses human control over androids as a somewhat tepid metaphor for racism and bigotry more universally. I mean... IT WORKS, but it feels like the game's writers took the safer, but less interesting route when it came to constructing this narrative. In-game scenarios are also frequently VERY morally black and white (Markus' storyline is a bit of an exception to this, thankfully, and there are a few points where you'll be asked to make life-or-death decisions in his route). If Detroit succeeds as an interconnected, choice-driven adventure story, then it mostly fails as thought-provoking literature.
Similarly, its depiction of political oppression and activism is fundamentally very lazy. Why do all 'awakened' androids seem to automatically join your side (people advocating against their own rights isn't exactly a recent historical phenomenon)? How is this massive civil rights movement kickstarted so rapidly? All it takes is a couple of non-violent demonstrations for the government to go full Third Reich on androids, and, similarly, a kiss or a song are enough to largely defuse government violence. The game's heart is in the right place, but it streamlines actual social conflict to the point where story beats feel vaguely cartoonish.
This game desperately needs a function to fast-forward though many of the looooooong talky sections that you have to sit through over and over if you're going for all the trophies. This game certainly doesn't respect the player's time and, in many respects, feels like it was designed with only one complete playthrough in mind, despite the wealth of choices available to the player. Japanese visual novels deal with this by allowing the player to quickly skip through previously read dialogue, and this game would benefit dramatically from something similar.
At several points in the game, it will ask the player to shake their controller around to simulate an in-game action. Can't say I'm a fan of this. Waggle controls weren't particularly engaging in various Nintendo Wii games a decade ago, and they make even less sense here.
CONCLUSION
Despite some narrative missteps, inconsistent pacing, surface-level treatment of complex social and technological issues, and missing QoL features for trophy hunters/completionists, the game stands tall as one of the best adventure games I've played in recent memory. The complex web of decision-making that happens across the various chapters can lead to radically different outcomes by the end, making this one of the few adventure games I've played where the player's decisions ACTUALLY do matter to the outcome of the story. The dire narrative stakes, thematic presentation, and gorgeous, ultra-realistic visual style make this feel like an interactive movie in the best way possible. I was fully invested in the fates of these characters from beginning to end, and frankly never expected I'd end up enjoying it so much.
VERDICT
8/10
Currently Playing: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (PC)
Gris
A platformer indie game with amazing visuals.
The gameplay itself was just okay.
This blue eye perceives all things conjoined. The past, the future, and the present. Everything flows and all is connected. This eye is not merely seen reality. It is touching the truth. Open the eye of truth... There is nothing to fear.
Just recently beat Metro Exodus. Pretty great game, but those cutscenes are annoying! It felt like I was playing a dumb COD or Battlefield game. Every 12 minutes a cutscene starts, it takes control away from you, and it's infuriating; stop it 4A you're not COD! But at least the characters weren't annoying they were fantastic even. I loved everyone one of them; everyone was looking for something in the barren wasteland, everyone had a goal, a motivation to live, and that made me care genuinely for them. It felt like a family looking for hope. Sadly the writers didn't put much effort into the story of Exodus. It was interesting in the beginning hours after those hours were gone. It went downhill except in the final area.
Gameplay-wise it's the same as the other Metro games, but with more input lag. They patched it, but the delay is still there. Loading times are horrendous(played this on PS4 Slim, so I don't know how the rest of the versions fare) takes 6 minutes to load in the main menu, not even joking. Also, there's some blur effect each time you move the camera around the area. It's jarring. Don't play this on console.
I must be blunt here; the open-world segments are awful and uninspiring; these segments bring nothing new to the open-world table. Yes, you can get immersed, but you're only going to get that in the first area. After that? The open-world is a big pile of nothing.
I know I'm crapping on this game, but I did like it a lot. Especially in the last area, my goodness!! I'm not going to spoil anything! But wow! That area curb stomps the rest of the game, nothing you played before it touches that area. It's so atmospheric, so damn immersive that I just wanted to keep playing it! I didn't want to leave. I wish the entire game were like this, but sadly it wasn't. The lousy ending I got was the icing on the cake, so bloody dark that it made me feel glad I got it. I do not regret playing this, it has flaws, but it was still an enjoyable experience.
Finished the main story for Dragon Quest 11. I have to say, I can totally understand why the series is popular and has lasted so long. But at the same time, hype led me to have very high expectations that were not quite met.
What I liked: Gameplay, supporting characters and visuals. The gameplay is exceptionally solid turn based JRPG classic gameplay. The battles felt interesting, the variety of abilities and enemies small but diverse. And the game is well paced in a way that you really only need to grind if you avoid fighting too often, which is very easy to do. Visually the game looks amazing on Switch. Everything is bright and colorful and crisp even in portable mode. There is nearly no slowdown or serious frame drops. Although I'm not a big fan of Akira Toriyama's art style, he IS talented and it shows. Even if his character designs tend to be comically repetitive. The party in the game carry it for me. Jade, Erik and Rab mostly. Their personal stories, though minor in the grand scheme, were the most interesting part of the game for me.
What I didn't like: The silent protagonist and the story, although the story comes with an asterisk. Yes, I am aware that silent protagonists are tradition with Dragon Quest - or at least that's what I am told - however there are so many points in the game where it ruins what should have been powerful moments. Jade telling Luminary her story after saving him from the river, Serena crying over Veronica's death, saving the Luminary's father from the curse, and the party breaking free from Jaspar's final trap Just to name a few. The protagonist doesn't need to speak in a game. But they need to behave like a person. With other characters constantly just stepping in and speaking for the Luminary and deciding things, he himself just feels like a human weapon, not a character at all. And the story is unbelievably generic. So many times did I predict exactly what would happen next that someone watching me play probably would not have believed I was playing for the first time. A couple times I even got the exact line the person would say! However, and this is the asterisk, despite that super generic-ness, I give it credit for a generic story that is super well done! They took a very very standard story and portray it very well.
All in all, I had fun and that's all that I really want from a game, to sit back, have fun and be entertained. This game delivers that easily. I wouldn't rank it in my top 10 RPG/JRPGs of all time, but it is at least top 10 on the Switch for me. If I were to give it a number, I'd give it 8/10 a solid B-
Nintendo Switch FC: 4867-2891-2493
Switch username: Em
Discord: Heavyarms55#1475
Pokemon Go FC: 3838 2595 7596
PSN: Heavyarms55zx
Tearaway Unfolded (PS4) - A 3D platformer set in a papercraft world. Though there are exceptions to the rule, the first half of the game is light on pure platforming & focuses more on environmental exploration & light puzzles, while it focuses more on platforming later on (though for the most part it remains a pretty chill experience).
Pros:
While Iota doesn't have much moveset variety (he/she can jump, grab & throw objects, and curl up into a ball), the game more than makes up for it with generous use of the controller's touch pad & gyro capabilities to manipulate the environment and the objects within. It really does make use of everything people say Playstation exclusives don't, including the camera (if you have it), which is used to show a tear into the real world in the sky.
While early levels are pretty standard fare thematically, it gets really abstract later on, providing some really neat sections.
It looks quite good, and if I hadn't known it started off as a Vita title, I would have assumed it was developed with the PS4 in mind.
Mixed:
I'm not sure how I feel about the vibe of the game. Of course, this isn't true of the entire game, but it too often feels almost sad & melancholy, both in terms of color palette & music (similar to Unravel & I assume Ori & the Blind Forest, maybe it's just a thing with European developed platformers & as an American I don't quite "get it" compared to the more colorful & upbeat platformers that come out of Japan & the US. That said, I think the approach worked a lot better with the naturalistic environments of Unravel & Ori, as opposed to the papercraft world of Tearaway).
Late in the game introduces gyro controlled platforms, and while they work well for the most part, there is a specific section with sheets of foil formed into circles that rearrange and invert themselves based on gyro movements that is genuinely infuriating (maybe the correct motions just didn't click for me, but I died so many times here).
Cons:
Nothing game breaking, but I ran into quite a few bugs along the way. Mostly stuff like objects being invisible (though nothing necessary) and enemies or myself getting stuck inside the environment.
Overall it was pretty decent and well worth the sale price I paid for it. It's a step above Knack, but below Astro Bot & most first party Switch platformers IMO.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Been a while since ive posted but I have beaten Aladdin(genesis), luigis mansion 3, and resident evil 4 in the last few weeks. Next to the revelations games, 4 is easily the best in the series. I'd say a 6 for Aladdin, a 9 for both lm3 and re4.
One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 (Switch) - the long running anime series gets the Musou treatment.
Pros:
The core Musou gameplay is here and as strong as ever (if you're into it). While I don't think it shakes things up as much as Hyrule or FE Warriors, many of the story missions do have unique elements such as a giant boss or a battlefield that shrinks as large portions of it become cut off over time. Plus, it looks good both docked & portably with no performance issues that I was able to notice.
It has a large array of varied characters & tons of maps. I'm personally not a huge One Piece fan, but it feels like they really wanted to do the series justice, and I'm sure bigger fans would be giddy at the options on offer.
Like the two Nintendo varieties, it features both a decently lengthed story mode (I'd say just north of 20 levels) that isn't too much trouble to get through (that can really showcase the excitement of the anime with action packed cutscenes, usually after defeating the enemy commander), as well as a seperate mode with tons of extra levels that later on can really challenge the most hardcore Musou players (that I'm not one of, lol). Oh, then there's also the "Free Mode" that lets you replay the story missions with anyone.
Cons:
You can't swap between characters mid battle, nor command CPU characters from the pause menu like you can in certain other entries. I never found this to be a huge detriment, the abscence of the QOL features was missed.
Really digging for negatives here, but it doesn't feature your character doing a victory celebration cutscene whenever you clear a battle (like the other Musou games I've played have featured). It's not a "real" issue, but a nice touch I missed.
Overall it's a very solid Musou game. Not the sort of experience that'll win any awards, but if you like it's brand of gameplay there's quite a bit of fun to be had here (especially if you're a One Piece fan). I'll admit I let my inner teenage self take over as I took tons of closeup screenshots of Nami & Robin in their various costumes, lol.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Forums
Topic: Games You Recently Beat?
Posts 1,441 to 1,460 of 3,906
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic