Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

@1upShoe to be honest I am prudish and I like it

Do not forget her "ballistics"

I just beat Professor Layton and the Curious Village HD on iOS. I completed around 80 puzzles which took me 6 hours to get through. Overall, I thought this game was pretty good. I liked the concept of having to complete puzzles to progress through the story and unlock extras. And I thought the puzzles themselves were very fun. Lots of them were very challenging, and I did need to look up the answers for a few of them after using some hint coins, but I enjoyed the challenge.

However, there were some things I wasn’t a huge fan of. First, I thought a lot of the dialogue felt very dry. I get that it’s meant to feel sort of refined and old-school, but I did still find a lot of conversations to be pretty boring. I also found the music to be repetitive, as there’s mainly only like 3 or 4 songs that play throughout the entire game until the final 30 minutes or so. And finally, I found the twist at the end to be pretty underwhelming. It basically comes out of nowhere, with very little foreshadowing or reason to believe that it’s the case beforehand.

Ultimately, I think a lot of my gripes with this game come from the fact that I’ve played pretty much every single Ace Attorney game, which for the most part don’t suffer from the issues this game does. If there was a game that had the overworld puzzle solving from Layton, and the great writing and engaging courtroom scenes from Ace Attorney, then I think I could appreciate this formula much more. Oh wait, there is a game like that. But I think I’m going to play through the other two Layton games, Diabolical Box and Unwound Future, before I play the crossover.

The fact that this game motivated me to want to play the sequels eventually is evidence on its own that this game is pretty good overall. It didn’t blow me away or anything, but it has a good enough formula that I’m interested to see if the sequels improve on it. But for now, I think I’m gonna focus on finishing up Xenoblade Definitive Edition and get through some of Bowser’s Inside Story before Advance Wars comes out.

7/10 Good

Pros: Great puzzles, interesting gameplay loop, fun extras.
Cons: Bland dialogue, underwhelming finale, repetitive -but good- music.

@StarPoint While Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a decent game and is what I'd recommend as the series's primary point of entry, it does play things a bit safe compared to later installments. They bring about improvements in puzzles (for the most part), general gameplay/navigation, visuals (especially in the transition to 3DS, particularly in Azran Legacy), and story (Though there's a later Layton game that I consider to have the worst story in the series due to the plot having a few holes). Diabolical/Pandora's Box does toe that story line a bit, but it isn't the game I'm referring to and does have some emotional points.

I've played the main six Layton titles - just wrapped up the prequel trilogy last year - and intend to try the spinoffs eventually. As well as Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy, middling though it allegedly is. I've not played Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright due to how expensive/rare the cartridge is, and the download size was too mighty for my 3DS micro SD card. The Layton games are puzzle games through and through, with plot elements that range from serious to downright silly to almost suspending disbelief at times.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition

So I beat Torna, Xenoblade 2's DLC. I would say, largely because of the significantly smaller time spent, it has significantly fewer lows than the gameplay of the main game and significantly fewer highs than the story of the main game. I think the time length alone combined with a few much appreciated changes does immediately make me like it more than the main game (though I think playing through the main game like a normal person instead of trying to deal with the neverending nightmare known as Xenoblade 2 side content would probably be better than Torna).

For better or worse though, in both story and gameplay, despite having spent 30+ hours on it, its still very much a tiny portion of a Xenoblade experience so the areas are limited and the story feels like its just starting because its a prequel DLC story where we kinda know where things are gonna go. But the story issues were I guess expected just by being a prequel DLC.

It does have the strangest sequence in perhaps the whole series right at the end, where the story should be wrapping up and then I guess they remembered they had something else to wrap up so they just snuck it in at the end. I could not tell you why what happened happened, but I guess Xenoblade decided to be a horror series for a minute. (??????)

Beat the story on Mortal Kombat 11 both the main story and Aftermath. I have got to say the story was not bad at all. One of the best MK stories I have seen in a long time. Definitely worth a playthrough in my opinion. Going to be interesting to see where the series goes now.

I beat Severed Steel's campaign mode. Pretty fun, fast paced shooter, though some levels and certain enemy types (the flamethrower guys are the actual worst, especially in tight spaces) were rather frustrating. Other than that though, it was pretty enjoyable.

Also beat Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land. It was alright. Kinda meh tbh. Didn't hate it but it ranks rather low on the Kirby totem pole for me personally

Just finished Breath of the Wild last night! I'm pretty much all ready for Tears of the Kingdom now. TotK won't be out until next month, so I may as well try to do more of the DLC stuff before I get it. They seem to be pretty hard, though.

Whew. I finally finished Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. Overall, my thoughts on this game aren't too strong one way or another. As a whole, I think the game's... alright. And that's fine. However, I can't really say I particularly enjoyed my time with it. Honestly, the only standout for me was the music, and even that tended to get pretty repetitive, especially toward the end of the game. Other than that, I also thought the combat system was pretty interesting. It was unique, held a good amount of strategy, and kept my interest a lot better than most turn-based RPG combat systems do. However, I thought the story was mostly uninteresting and confusing. And some of the English VA was really bad, too. Some of the villains especially felt like there was very little effort put into their performances. The overworld exploration was an absolute drag for the most part; you're basically just walking in a straight line with enemies and items thrown about. And it doesn't help that a lot of the area designs are really bland. I get that it's originally a Wii game, but so many of the worlds were either brown rocks or metal factories, and it got boring pretty quickly.

I guess it says something that I at least felt motivated enough to finish this game, but I just felt a huge sense of relief once it was over, which isn't a great testament to the game overall. I'm sort of left questioning if the Xenoblade series as a whole is really for me. I might try out 2 or 3 at some point, but that is probably going to be quite a ways down the road, as I do definitely need to take a break from the series as a whole for now.

I definitely didn't dislike this game. I think it has some good things going for it, and if you're a fan of the RPG genre you'll probably enjoy it a lot more than I did. But overall, I just don't think JRPGs are really my thing. I can get through them, but it just mostly tends to feel like a chore after a while, which this game did as well for me. I can see this is a well-made game though and I definitely understand why so many people love it. It just didn't click for me.

6/10 Not bad (very subjective, if you love this game please don't hate me)

Finally jumped into New Super Luigi U which I put off since buying the game. It was quite challenging which I expected. But I just finished it tonight. Nice little shake up from the traditional formula.

Elden ring!

Well I have been on the last boss battle in metroid prime remaster for the last 2 months 👎😵‍💫

@Ninfan two months?! Do you need any help? I know it’s a nuisance of a boss fight

@TheBigBlue I know the routine of how to do the 2 bosses, just a mater of time. I did have to find all missile and energy tank upgrades, as I could not beat the boos without them, so I'm waiting a while to have another go, just giving it a break for a minute.. why is there something I'm missing

@Ninfan no you aren’t, two months is just a long time for two bosses and wanted to know if I could provide some tips for them if you so need

@TheBigBlue why, what tips have you for the last boss, 👍😁

@ninfan Not sure how many E-Tanks you have gotten, but getting more may help with it. Also, what helped me was to anticipate switching visors on his 2nd phase. Hope you conquer it soon!

I finished the storyline of Nexomon PS4 just now. 😄
I really enjoy the game as it offered something different than Pokemon games in a good way.
Currently I am in Netherland... I mean Netherworld (Sorry, wrong spelling 😅) to get the Legendaries and all my Nexomon team get Rebirth (Revert back to level 5 in their first form but they will getting stronger as you leveling them up).
Well, I still have a lot of works to do after post game.

I beat Kirby's Blowout Blast. I guess. There's more than double the content beyond just beating the game, and I beat the game in probably 40 minutes, if that.

Expanded from Robobot, this is still the best of the 4 minigames from the 3DS Kirby games. Easily. I did like it and its a neat enough idea for a game, but there's not much to say about it.

Metroid Prime Remastered (Switch)

Mission Accepted

• My first time playing a Prime game, it successfully transitions the formula into the 3rd dimension. The biggest difference between it and the 2D entries is that while those have been evolving to be more quick & action-y, this has a more deliberate, almost puzzle like feel (heck, there's a big plant boss early on that feels very much "traditional 3D Zelda" in it's approach).
• One of these changes is that instead of beam upgrades "stacking" on top of each other making you progressively more powerful, here they are separate equips. While newer beams are generally more efficient at taking out early/mid game enemies than what came before (helping with backtracking), late game areas tend to be populated with foes weak to a specific one, requiring you to switch things up encounter to encounter.
• Another addition that's possible due to the first person perspective is the addition of visor upgrades. While you start out with the standard "battle visor" (your basic view) & "scan visor" (lets you collect data on enemy types & the environment), as you get further in you'll obtain the "thermal visor" (see in the dark & more easily track cloaked enemies) & "x-ray visor" (lets you see what can't otherwise be seen, usually environmental elements like secret paths). These really play into the more deliberate pace of the game.
  
  
• One area where the game really uses the extra dimension to it's advantage is the morph ball sections. These are much more involved than anything you'll see in the 2D games, and I'll admit my jaw kinda dropped a few times, like the section that opens up right before a late game beam upgrade.
  
• I also liked the fact that most of the upgrades seemed to be behind puzzles that were more deliberately built into the environment, rather than just behind a random destructible wall (even though there is some of that). Usually you can tantalizingly see an upgrade, or at least tell there's an environmental puzzle that's clearly hiding something, and it's just up to you to figure out how to obtain it.
• If I had to nitpick, there would be a few changes I'd make to the map. Firstly, I'd have any upgrades that you've scanned be marked on the map until you collect them. Secondly, have some sort of general indicator if a room has an upgrade you haven't collected, even if you haven't scanned it (this can be more vague, not giving away precise location). The 2D games already do the latter, marking the map with a dot if there's an upgrade in the general area.
• Pretty gorgeous game too, I think I'm just going to let these following screenshots do the talking.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with it, even if I got lost a time or two. I think I prefer the more action-y direction the 2D games are starting to take, but I can only imagine how seminal this must have felt back in the day, given that they nailed the 3D transition the first time out, & with really only Super Metroid beforehand being a good example of the franchise. Glad I finally got to experience it.

Mission Complete.