Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

I beat the Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion. Yep, definitely more interesting than the normal campaign. Dunno why I spent so much time in the normal campaign repeating levels with new weapons, just to upgrade all the weapons that only matter in the single player I already beat when I could've gotten to this sooner.

Probably. It's definitely harder than the normal campaign, but its only occasionally dramatically harder (and the game is kind enough to let you skip levels if you fail enough).

Beat Mario + Rabbid’s main campaign and boy, is that final boss annoying! On to the DLC now and although it is more limiting with character selection, the characters themselves are great fun to toy around with!

Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time (DS) - This one was actually quite dark (at least for a Mario game) and was definitely a fun one. The plot is serviceable, and some of the scenes and writing could be quite entertaining. Baby Mario and Baby Luigi made some puzzles quite interesting, while others were a bit tedious with the split up mechanic IMO. Using the four together in battle was generally fun, though managing all four buttons for some Bros. attacks got...weird at times. Speaking of, I really wish they didn't have the attacks as consumable items. I'm also a bit bummed that Peach's Castle in the present only serves as a hub and that you can't explore any of the modern areas of the Mushroom Kingdom. I do like that Fawful made a small yet inconsequential appearance. I love his dialogue!

Oh yeah, and since I played the North American release, I definitely get the complaints about the HP sponge bosses and did encounter one of the soft locks. Let's just say the Hammer Bros. tutorial encounter required a reset. Beats a bricked file.

All in all, this is a decent game with a few legitimate complaints. I'm glad I tracked down a used copy, though I think I slightly prefer Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions.

Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes - As a single player experience, this game definitely required a fair amount of adjusting from me to see the adventure through. I will say that the game is more fun than frustration, but it certainly is designed to be a multiplayer experience. As is, it's a better game on second impression than first impression. I can see myself coming back to this. I've got plenty of outfits left to unlock, and a fair amount of them could make replaying dungeons more enjoyable and easier. There are also the Drablands Challenges I could get into. I wouldn't highly recommend Tri Force Heroes like I would Federation Force, but if you've got the people to play with for multiplayer or are looking for a challenging Zelda experience...I think it can be a solid experience.

I just finished AM2R for the first time. And let me just say to Nintendo: I will always resent your decision to shut this game down. Fortunately, it didn't shut the community down, and let's just say I had to go through a couple of loopholes to get this game running. With that out of the way, let us begin.

So at this point, I think it's pretty obvious that I like Metroid. I have reviewed the whole Prime Trilogy on this thread already, and I've also played almost every 2D Metroid as well. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I think I have an idea of what makes a good Metroid game. And let me tell you, AM2R is among the best I've played. It's pretty obvious to draw comparisons between this game and Samus Returns, but I'm going to try to stay away from that as best as I can and review the game on its own merits.

To start off, this game's world design is absolutely top-notch. The whole world is impressively interconnected, and finding little secrets to help connect areas together is so satisfying. The world is big, but you never feel overwhelmed by the size, especially thanks to the main mechanic of this game, the Metroids. You'll have a number of these bad boys to take down, and once you meet that quota, the ground will shake and a new area will be opened up to you. This is a natural way to expand the world of SR388 without feeling too "game-ified". It's not only believable but also super satisfying.

From an expansions and upgrades perspective, AM2R does not disappoint. This game is filled with so many iconic abilities to unlock, and all of them serve a valuable purpose. Nearly every ability you get will allow you to unlock a new area and use it for various platforming and combat challenges. The abilities all feel really good to use and see what sort of things you can pull off.

Presentation-wise, AM2R is nearly on par with official Nintendo games. The artwork is absolutely stunning, and a lot of it reminds me of the best of Super Metroid and Zero Mission. Every area is visually distinct and looks interesting, which is vital for these sorts of games. The enemies also look very detailed and have great animations. The main hook of the game, the Metroids, all look fantastic and pretty scary as they evolve through their process.

The music is also great. It's not as strong as some of the games in the official series, but that is a very high bar to clear. This game doesn't have too many super memorable tunes, but things like the Surface of SR388 theme and Hydro Station are extremely impressive and very catchy. Nothing too crazy, though.

Overall, this game is near the same quality as an official Metroid game. It falls short in a couple of very small ways that I am willing to overlook because as a package, this game is extremely well-made and very satisfying to complete. I don't know if I would recommend this game to newcomers to the franchise, mainly thanks to how difficult Nintendo has made this one to access. But if you're willing to jump a few hurdles, you will be presented with one of the best Metroidvanias out there.

9/10, mainly recommended to fans of the series.

AM2R is astounding, honestly one of the best Metroid games to date.

Just finished Assassin's Creed Origins.

This is such a good game! The Egypt setting is awesome!

Not played Odyssey yet, then, @Zuljaras ....? You'll presumably go onto that soon?

@BruceCM I have played only to the part where I leave Cephalonia (the first island) and I have played Valhalla only to the part where I arrive in England

@Zuljaras How long did it take to beat? I've got it in the backlog with another couple of AC games that I've somehow decided to play out-of-order.

I'm currently (still) playing Odyssey and it's really long (currently 90+ hours with approx. 75% complete on the main story according to the Xbox Stats page), although that's mostly down to the fact that I can't resist a nearby "?" or side-quest marker on the ridiculously huge map 😂 Sometimes go days without progressing the story at all.

@dmcc0 Around 23 hours and I ended at up level 34.

I was focused on the main quest and did side quests in order to level up because there is level gating in the game.

The last quest required lvl 35 but it is doable at level 33 and 34.

Heh, they're both big games, @Zuljaras .... You do intend to carry on with both those, then? I've put 300 hours into Odyssey, @dmcc0 & 200 into Valhalla!

Beat the original Ninja Gaiden for the first time. Definitely had to spam save states towards the end though hah.

@BruceCM Yes. I am just about to put the disc of Odyssey into the PS4 I played Odyssey on the Xbox One at first but now I will start it on the PS4.

I loved how Aya got the idea of the Assassins logo. It was a very cool touch

Kind of wish that Origins was before Odyssey chronologically but nothing can be done about that

@Zuljaras I could be wrong but, I'm pretty sure Odyssey scales with whatever level you happen to be. I'm at Lvl47 at the moment but I'm sure there were a couple of lower tier mercenaries I discovered at about level 20 that I never actually fought/defeated that I'm sure are at mid-40 level now and discovering lower level ones now they are all within a couple of levels of me. Even going back to previously visited sections of the map never seems to have any lower level enemies either.

@BruceCM Did you clear the map at 300 hours, or still some stuff to do? I did start by taking all the noticeboard contracts and all side quests etc, but quickly realised that I wasn't progressing at all so now I tend to just do stuff that's on the way to where I'm going - although I actually walked past a military camp for the first time yesterday 😛

@dmcc0 Yes in Odyssey you can choose to have a dynamic leveling system and the enemies in any area will scale to your level. Or you could choose to gave a gating system like in Origins

It is a very flexible game

Unfortunately I do not think that the story or the main characters could top that of Bayek

Well, you can never do absolutely everything in those games, @dmcc0 ..... 200+ hours to do all the story related stuff, dlc & plenty of extra bits & pieces! For each, then I did do NG+ for Odyssey to try the other character & I'll eventually get Ragnarok to go back to Valhalla, too

@Zuljaras I must've missed that option when I started, but I guess with the amount of extra stuff I've done up until now I'd probably be massively overpowered if I hadn't gone with the dynamic levelling.

@BruceCM That sounds like a challenge! I did actually Platinum AC2 on PS3, collecting all the feathers was tough going in the end though. I got a totally burnt out with AC after the Ezio trilogy as I played them all pretty much one after the other - this is the first one I've played since then. I've got Black Flag, Unity and Origins in the backlog and I'll pick up Valhalla at some point too

Yeah, I didn't play either continuously for the full play-time, @dmcc0 .... Although Ragnarok looks pretty good, I don't think it looks worth the current price, so I'm waiting for a discount to half or less to get that