Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Completed Ori and the Will of the Wisps after picking it up at ~70% off in a sale.

General consensus holds that it’s a really well designed and brilliantly executed game.

And is it.

I just didn’t like it very much.

Despite the fluid controls, excellent animation, solid level design and general polish, I simply couldn’t find it… likeable. It feels great to interact with, but the story/music/writing/character design — everything that isn’t running, jumping and smashing things — just feels nauseatingly twee and unapologetically ‘on the nose’.

There isn’t a single drop of subtlety to it. It basically feels like a response to a brief. A really, really competent response — pretty much full marks across the board — but lacking in its own vision and identity. It’s not wierd, or funny, or upsetting, or quirky, or genuinely moving. And to be fair, there’s no reason it should have to be; many games that involve running and jumping from side to side have threadbare plots/character development and don’t suffer at all for it. But the game hoists its story and characters upon you, and it’s strangely annoying seeing how much obvious effort and talent has been expended to create something so… insipid. It feels like there’s more personality in just one of Mario’s eyebrows than every Ori character put together.

I was going to compare it to a Marvel movie, in that it’s a safe, well-made, carefully focus-grouped product designed to appeal to as many (and offend as few) people as possible — but I’ve actually enjoyed a few Marvel movies in my time, and it feels unfair to say they’re universally bereft of wit, quirk and self-awareness. (I’m also fairly sure they’ve pissed more than a few people off along the way.) Perhaps Avatar would be a better comparison: undeniably an impressive creation, but a little too long and — in spite of all the colour — somehow numbingly bland as a piece of storytelling.

But err, yeah… It’s a good game, all the same. I just wish I liked it more.

@Maxz I felt similar about the original. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was a high-budget, well-made game that I...just wasn't into, for whatever reason. It felt like the game was trying to make me feel many things that I just ended up not really feeling.

Just finished Little Nightmares II ... it was better than the first one!

Beat Mario & Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story (remake) again. It’s just as good and fun as I remember it being. My only con is that the final area has a good amount of padding in it, but other than that everything is perfect. Probably the best Mario & Luigi game.

Just beat EarthBound Beginnings for the second time. It's pretty good, encounter rate is as wack as everyone says, though.

Commemorated the first (of many) visits to the Game Boy NSO app by both starting and beating Kirby's Dream Land!

Not too much to say about this one honestly. Despite being exceptionally short (took me approximately 32 minutes to beat it) and completely eclipsed by later entries, there's still a lot of stuff here that was and still is very impressive such as the spritework and music. Going to tackle Extra Mode in my own time later on but as a first ever Game Boy game? I don't think I could've picked a better starter

Yesterday i Beat "Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart" and i also recently beat Goldeneye on Xbox, on Agent, i like my games easy i'm in it for the ride not the challenge, i am in the middle of playing LEGO LORD OF THE RINGS on Xbox SX and i am loving it so far, it has the dialogue from the movies and the music too, hope to finish it soon and after that i don't know what i'll play, maybe the original Jak & Daxter, or some Medievil Remastered, there are a lot of good games on my hard drive, i just need time to play them all !!!!

Hi Fi Rush on series S. 10/10.

I wrapped up Chicory: A Colorful Tale earlier this week on Switch. I knew this game was lauded by many, but I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. In terms of puzzles and some of its perspectives, it reminds me of top-down/2D Zelda games. It certainly has some fun puzzle mechanics, interesting characters, tackles some heavy themes (Some examples: depression, Imposter Syndrome), unique paint mechanics (Have fun painting all the things!...Though it isn't necessary), plenty of areas to explore, and some decent side content. Probably my only complaint would be that the game seemed to drag on at bits, and I did get stuck once. Thankfully, there are phone booths to help out.

Definitely one for those who like exploring, games that can push one to be creative, and/or folks just wanting something a bit different. It's pretty telling when it was a GotY contender for more than a few back in 2021; in fact, it won that award on Destructoid.

Woohoo...!
I finished Pokemon Violet just now, after 8 days in a row I played that game. 😃
The storyline was surprisingly changed my perception about Pokemon games with same formula from previous version.

It was different from previous gen Pokemon so I saw some improvement in QoL and the storyline plot. The thing that made me shocked was the truth inside Area Zero. The ending was kinda bittersweet but it was good.
I still gave the score 6 / 10 for terrible graphic environments and animation from far away.

@Anti-Matter but without the problems what would you give it? Like the new Pokemon, Characters, Gameplay.

@Kermit1
New Pokemons model in Paldea region was kinda back to basic, not too many weird looking Pokemons. The Paradox model was kinda cool, I prefer the Future model than the Ancient model since I played Pokemon Violet.

The character design.... There were a lot of weirdos over there, the gym leaders and the Team Star leaders with bunch of weird hairstyle and weird outfits. The only the best character design in Pokemon Violet in my opinion was Professor Turo and I was shocked to see the truth of him.

Gameplay in Pokemon Violet was a huge improvement if compared with Pokemon SwordSword. Now you can set the skills that have been forgotten, something that never done before from previous games. The TM crafting was kinda creative but looking for certain ingredients was kinda hard as I might haven't meet certain Pokemons. The freedom to choose which things to be finished first (Gym leader, Titan Pokemons, Team Star) was pretty flexible but it was also pretty risky if you have no idea with their level.

Arcade Paradise

Rolled the credits last week. As a person who grew up playing cabinets at local bowling alleys, pizza places, or arcades in the late 70's to early 90's...Arcade Paradise spoke to me on a personal level. The game oozes nostalgia for those familiar with quarter-munching experiences. If you're like me and you have a lot of love for that place in time, don't skip this game.

I beat Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies on 3DS. I got through every case and the extra DLC case. After beating it, I'm surprised that so many people consider it to be one of the weakest in the series. Here's what I liked, and what I was a little lukewarm on.

Story: So overall, I think Dual Destinies' story is great. While the cases are generally not connected to each other, aside from the last 2 cases, I think the isolated stories themselves are very fun and intriguing. And the reveal of The Phantom was really great. I kind of saw it coming, but it was still really cool to see go down. Also, both Blackquill and Athena are incredible characters. Both of them REALLY shine in the last two cases, and I'm super excited to play Spirit of Justice to see where their characters go from here. This game doesn't have a sprawling, overarching story like T&T or TGAA, but in that way, it's pretty similar to the first game, so it's not really too much of a downside.

Gameplay: So far, Dual Destinies has had the best-feeling gameplay in the entire series. Investigations feel incredibly streamlined, cross-examinations don't feel as confusing, and the added features such as the mood matrix and the case breakdown that happens toward the end of a trial are great. It's pretty impressive that with this being their first 3D game it feels as snappy and fast-paced as it does.

Graphics: So I gotta give Capcom props for having a really smooth transition into 3D. For the most part, the environments are great, the UI is very polished, and the new character designs are fantastic. All of that's good. But I do have to complain about some of the returning character designs a bit. I understand that this game takes place like 8 years after T&T, however, characters like Phoenix, Edgeworth, and Klavier hardly even look like the same characters. They all look just so much older, and in some ways lose a lot of detail that was present in the 2D sprites. You get used to it after a while, but it's just something I noticed and I hope that Spirit of Justice smooths things out a bit more.

Music: So far, every Ace Attorney game I've played has had a banger soundtrack, even Investigations 1, and Dual Destinies is no different. It deserves props from its Pursuit theme alone. https://youtu.be/JpTQ7fr2yeM
But there are some great character themes as well. Athena's and Apollo's come to mind for sure, and Blackquill and Fullbright have great themes too. A great soundtrack through and through, but I have heard that Spirit of Justice even improves some of the songs from this game. So I'm interested in that.

Conclusion: All in all, I think Dual Destinies is a great game. I can sort of see where people are coming from when they say that this isn't one of the stronger games in the series, however, I don't think it's bad by any means; it's a great game. I had a blast the whole way through with hardly any downtime, aside from a few drawn-out investigations. I really hope these games get ported to modern consoles because people really need to try the second trilogy out of what I've played so far.

8/10 Great

Finished Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the first (well, technically second if you count the remake) time through GBA NSO!

An absolutely delightful RPG that has held up remarkably well in the two decades or so since it's release. It certainly has it's issues: constantly pressing L & R to swap around overworld actions gets very annoying after a while, the late game gets pretty back-tracky and it has the age-old RPG aggrivation of random difficulty spikes (CURSE YOU CACKLETTA). However, I definitely feel it more than makes up for these shortcomings through it's immense charm and humour (which has aged incredibly well), an always-engaging battle system that constantly keeps you on your toes, utterly infectious music and a general, comforting vibe of whimsy throughout (the entire kingdom you explore is themed around jokes for crying out loud!).

Overall, an extremely respectable 9/10 (about the same as it's remake) that I'd recommend to anyone as a starting RPG and an entry that makes me incredibly excited to eventually venture in the DS entries (what many consider to be the peak of the series)!

@StarPoint I'm currently replaying and am on the final part of the final case of Dual Destinies (the main case, still have to do the DLC). While I would personally rank the overall game in the bottom half of the series probably, this final case I think is my third favorite case (after the final cases of T&T and Justice for All). And like with Zelda, even one of the worse AA games is still better than 90% of other games.

As for me personally, I finally finished up Danganronpa 2. I don't think the ending made much sense, but overall I enjoyed it. Honestly, I think I liked the first game better, but I'm looking forward to finishing up with the third one after a short break.

I finished Super Mario 64 as part of my gradual run through Super Mario 3D All-Stars. As this is the most recent of the bunch I've played - via the Wii U VC roughly three years or so ago - I mostly stuck with the minimum 70 stars. I can certainly appreciate what SM64 did for 3D gaming and the medium in general, and there is a lot to like here. Some of the worlds are fun and compelling (Tiny Huge Island is still my favorite, closely followed by Big Boo's Haunt), some unique characters are involved, and some of the music is still quite charming. That said...even with some smoothing, this one visually hasn't aged the best. And much of the game's difficulty, IMO, comes from fighting the janky fixed camera, slippery physics, and occasionally wonky hit detection; I found myself cheaply knocked off stages to my doom by enemies, sliding/glitching/juddering off the corners of platforms after apparently getting a bit too close to the edges, or accidentally taking a misstep to my death after the camera angle would suddenly change.

All in all, this is a fun romp, but modern Mario titles are much, MUCH better. TBH, I think the only reason I had more fun with the Wii U VC release was through some restore point abuse in order to save time on level reloads. I never played this back in the day, so no rose-tinted glasses here.

Kandagawa Jet Girls (Steam) - It's like Wave Race, but by the Senran Kagura guys.

• An arcadey jet ski racer with a touch of Mario Kart, as you can pick up special weapons along the way like rocket launchers, gatling guns, shotguns, etc (which can be fired in forward or behind you). You also have a basic gun equipped at all times that's mostly useful for clearing out obstacles in your path (it doesn't seem to do enough damage to other racers' shields to break them).
  
  Cause other racers to spin out by blasting them with special weapons.
• That doesn't mean it doesn't (theoretically) require a more skilled touch as well. You can get a race start boost by reving up your engine at the right point during the starting countdown, you gain a bit more speed (at the cost of control) if you tilt the left stick back & you get a bit more control (at the cost of speed) if you tilt it forward, which is useful during tight turns. There is a guage which builds up (located on the lower right corner of the screen) as you complete actions during the race (such as passing through rings that charge it), and you can expend 20% of it for a temporary boost, or if it's fully charged you can unleash a special (if you're holding a weapon item you'll unleash an extra powerful variant of it. If not, you get temporary unlimited boosts).
  
  the guage is fully charged, so I can unleash a super variant of the gatling gun weapon I'm holding.
• There are various elements on the track to keep an eye out for, such as the aforementioned rings you can pass through to charge your guage, but also balloons & holograms (of cute cartoony mascots) you must shoot to clear the path forward (they don't cause you to crash, but can temporarily slow you down), as well as boost pads which temporarily speed you up. Of course there are ramps as well which you can use to catch some air & pull off some tricks. There are four different trick commands, & while 3 of them are shared between all teams, the 4th is unique to each team. Tricks grant buffs such as increased speed, tighter control, or a charge to your special guage. The team unique trick always grants two buffs instead of one, which sometimes includes special buffs like temporary invincibility.
  
  Performing a team exclusive trick.
• There are 8 or so teams to play as (you unlock them as you play through the story mode), which run the gamut in terms of cliches (you have the garyu delinquents, the foreign exchange American weebs, the rich girls, the idols, etc.). Is there a particular gameplay mechanic between having two girls per craft? Not really it seems, just an in game explanation as to why they can race & attack at the same time.
  
  These girls don't seem to be as multitask talented as your average MK racer, so have a dedicated driver & attacker.
• There are about 5-6 different courses to race on, though each has two or three different variants, so there is ultimately quite a bit of choice. These are likewise unlocked as you play through the story mode, and run the gamut from Japanese castles, futuristic city scapes, sewer systems, & more.
  
  
  
  
• I spent most of my time in the story mode, which consists of 64 races spread out over 8 chapters. Each chapter usually centers around the story of a specific team, with the first chapter being the longest, following the titular "Kandagawa Jet Girls" team (I assume this is the canon story, and is what the anime adaptation also follows). It's mostly bubbly fluff (though the California Coast High story mode, the "American weeb" team, is absolutely hilarious) though the last team introduced tries to add a "serious" tone/threat that they ultimately gloss over.
  
  
  
  The "Unkai Surfers", team of California Coast High, are absolutely hilarious (I've posted more of their gems in the screenshot thread).
• It's actually pretty technically sound of a racer all things considered. Certainly no Mario Kart (or probably Wave Race), however it's noticeably of a very much higher quality than the absolute drek of the genre like Garfield Kart. The biggest issue is that Story Mode is almost never a challenge. You can easily blitz the first chapter without having to upgrade your team's jet ski, and although the challenge does slowly ratchet up in subsequent chapters, by then you should have enough points at any given point to buy enough upgrades to stomp whatever comes your way. I assume you could probably get more of a challenge by taking on human players (it has an online mode of course) & maybe you can set the CPU difficulty to a higher standard in exhibition races, but I haven't really tested those things out.
  
  You can barely see the next closest racer at the edge of the mini-map.
• That said, Story Mode does attempt to mix things up with optional objectives attached to each race (tasks such as "don't touch a wall", "perform tricks more than 3 times", "pop 10 balloons", "use more than 4 types of weapon items", "don't use any weapon items", "reach X maximum speed", etc.). Now, sometimes you'll have to hold yourself back in order to complete some of these (can't exactly fire off a bunch of weapon items if you're too far ahead of the pack, as they won't fire unless you're close enough to target someone), but they do give you something extra to think about. For your trouble you'll be rewarded with new accessories & costumes for the girls to wear (remember this is from the Senran Kagura guys, so you'll get stuff like bunny suits, nurse bikinis, wedding bikinis, & the like).
  
  Lots of different costumes to unlock, such as sailor fuku bikinis, or bikinis that are barely there.
• Outside of the racing action (& kitting out the cast & jet skis), there are also a handful of minigames to take part in which you can use to earn extra points. These range in scope from a jet ski cleaning rhythm game, mopping auto runner, treadmill running, & a ring race mode, all of which have multiple difficulty modes.
  
  
  Earning extra credit.
• Given that this is from the Senran Kagura peeps it shouldn't come as much surprise that there's some crossover material. While they don't have a story mode, Ryobi & Ryona (from the SK series newer batch of "Hebijo" students) serve as an extra pair of racers. Of course you can obtain further SK characters (such as Asuka, Yumi, Homura, Ikaruga, etc.) as paid DLC, though I haven't partook.
• I know I've brought up it's Senran Kagura connections a few times now, so I think it's relevant to point out that it never goes as far as those games go in terms of the "fan service". Yes, there's lots of jiggle & bikinis, but that's about it (similar to the recently released Samurai Maiden in this regard). There seems to be little to no sexual innuendo in the dialogue/narrative (other than maybe some slight Yuri undertones depending on the team), no mode where it's possible to virtually "grope" the girls (before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing such a mode is absent, just that it's a feature that was relatively common in such games once upon a time like the older Senran Kagura games & Gun Gun Pixies), and no clothing breakage mechanics (for what it's worth, clothes breakage very much IS a mechanic in the aforementioned anime adaptation, whenever a team has their shield shattered, but whether it was added to the anime or removed from the game is unknown AFAIK).

Conclusion:

• Actually a pretty fun & bubbly racing game when is all said & done. Granted, it's a very fan servicy game so know what you're getting into, but it's definitely a much more solid game than 90-95% of the games that make gratuitous sexualization part of their core appeal.
  
  Celebrate that victory.

I, err… ‘beat’ Kuru Kuru Kurin, making liberal use of NSO’s rewind feature and effectively slowing down time by constantly mashing the pause button.

It’s a cute game built around a neat mechanic, but my god does the difficulty ramp up, rendering the game pretty much unplayable without the aforementioned ‘difficulty smoothing’ methods.

While the rewind feature wouldn’t have been part of the original, the later levels feel like they were actually designed with the ‘pause-mashing’ technique in mind. I can’t really imagine how anyone could play them in real time without a silly amount of practice. There’s also no penalty for constantly pausing, so while I played the earlier levels ‘properly’, I pretty much gave up as soon as the difficult spiked, turning the game into a self-inflicted stutter fest. Not ideal, but perhaps better than the frustration that would have ensued otherwise.

A bit of an enigma of a game really. Neat core mechanic held back by some convoluted level design and a difficulty ramp that basically asks you to break the game (with no penalty for abuse).

Finished FE Engage last night!