Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Well, I wasn't expecting this! I just beat Pikmin 1 HD on the Switch and absolutely loved it. I had recently dabbled in the first game before, but with the Switch collection release and Pikmin 4 so close on the horizon, I figured I'd give it another shot. And boy, am I glad I did.

The game has such a simple yet so satisfying gameplay loop. It's growing Pikmin, killing monsters that give you more Pikmin, solving puzzles to get ship parts, repeat. And it never grew tiring in my roughly 6-hour playthrough. In fact, it got more enjoyable over time as I grew more accustomed to the controls and the specialties of the different Pikmin. The red ones are the strongest and fire resistant, the yellow ones can carry bombs and get thrown farther, and the blue ones are waterproof which is vital to collecting parts in later areas.

I also really enjoyed the level designs. Each area felt unique and posed its own challenges, and many challenges served themselves well to specific Pikmin types. The majority of enemies were fun to fight as well, along with the boss fights, which really test your knowledge of the game's systems and the stats of certain Pikmin.

I also thought the presentation was very good overall. Zoomed in, the textures are definitely pretty blurry, but if you play with the camera zoomed out which is preferable for me anyway, the game looks pretty nice. It's colorful without being unnaturally so, and all the enemy and part models were nice and detailed. The music was pretty good, too. It's not super listenable on its own and it gets a little repetitive after a while in my opinion, but it fits the mood and atmosphere of the games pretty well.

The Switch port is also pretty great in my opinion. A framerate boost and upscaled textures would have been nice, but that's not super important to me. The game runs silky smooth with no framerate hitches that I experienced. The addition of the motion controls, HD rumble, and Pikmin swapping are great QoL features as well that really make the game more convenient to play.

As a whole, I was very impressed with Pikmin 1. I think I finally understand why the series is so beloved by people. It has a very satisfying loop that I can only imagine gets improved more in the sequels. I look forward to starting Pikmin 2 soon to see the improvements made to the formula.

8/10 Great

I finished klonoa phantasy reverie recently and I can definitely tell why people love the games so much.
Lunatea’s veil is probably the better game in my opinion mainly because it does so many things better then door to phantomile. (A better health system and more levels) then some parts like the hoverboard levels and that one enemy that gives you infinite jumps for awhile do feel a bit slippery.
But overall I had a ton of fun with the game. 9/10

Sonic Forces: 7/10

I enjoyed it. It felt uncooked in some areas.

The best game ever created

Beat Batman Arkham Asylum a few minutes ago. One of the best games I’ve ever played and definitely deserves the praise it gets. My only negative is the section between Killer Croc and the final boss. The plants around the island were annoying and it just felt like a ton of running around, retreading ground I had already covered. Other than that it was great. The bosses were surprisingly good as well. I really liked Scarecrows and Killer Croc. Two enemy’s that wouldn’t make sense for Batman to fight hand to hand, turned into excellent fights. I really liked how they were suspenseful and kept you on your toes, instead of just punching your way through everything.

Overall I would give it a 9/10. On to Arkham City!

I beat Fallout 3. I have played the other Fallout games (New Vegas and Fallout 4) but I have never beaten the main story.

This is my first Fallout story finished I played it on my Xbox One X and it was an enjoyable experience.

The game has this amazing atmosphere.

And Arkham City is complete. Really good game and somehow better than Asylum. Well I liked the story and overall mood of Asylum more, everything else is better here. I do wish that Robin was playable in the main game, but the dlc mostly featuring him was fun.

Started and beat Mega Man 5 over the past 3 days.

I'm going to be completely honest here: for as excited as I was to try this one out (as I've heard many people call it one of the best of the Classic series), I really didn't enjoy 5 all that much. It's not terrible or anything; it's got some great platforming moments throughout, the music is expectedly good (with special mention towards Dark Man's theme in particular) and Beat is a fantastic (and adorable) reward for being attentive throughout the levels.

However, compared to previous entries such as 3 and 4, 5 misses the mark in a lot of ways for me. 5 has a much higher focus on pure platforming compared to the games that came before which, while that doesn't sound bad on paper, it feels like every other part of the game got crippled in order to make the platforming what it is. This is extremely evident with the bosses: almost each and everyone one of them were either unfairly difficult and felt like you HAD to take damage in order to win (DAMN YOU CRYSTAL MAN)....or were the most mind-numbingly easy encounters of my entire life (see the majority of the Dark Man/Wily Castle bosses). This is exasperated by the Robot Master Weapons being probably the worst out of all the games I've played so far. It's not really that any of them are horrible per se (apart from probably Stone and Charge Man's weapons, I don't know what the hell they were thinking with those), but rather that you'd almost never want to use them over the main/charge shot (with the only real exception to this being Star Man's Shield) which severely cuts down on the potential replayability that older games had in experimenting with all the tools at your disposal.

All of this, combined with the constant re-use of enemies (I never want to see another mechanical tiger or rat for as long as I live) and the needlessly bloated lengths of certain levels, makes 5 probably my 2nd least favourite entry so far, only beaten out by the original in terms of the worst for me (and that's bloody Mega Man ONE for crying out loud). I'm hopeful that 6 will get back on the right foot (especially with how interesting the Rush abilities look in that one) but yeah: 5 is overall a pretty big disappointment for me 😞

I beat a few while I was away.

Wave Race 64 (Nintendo 64): Great game even today and challenging. It feels satisfying to race the ways. A new game please.

Diddy Kong Racing (Nintendo 64): Uff was I surprised how tough this game is. Sadly not a favourite of mine but I like the Rare vibes.

Metroid Prime Remastered (Nintendo Switch): Really great game. Finding the right path was hard sometimes. Atmosphere is awesome. Incredible how fresh this game feels even though it basically is a Gamecube game. Hopefully the rest of the trilogy will be remastered. I have high hopes for Metroid Prime 4 now.

Disney's Hercules and Disney's Tarzan (PlayStation 1): Both have really good atmosphere. Hercules was more fun. Tarzan had too many frustrating sections, like being chased by animals or the bridge of doom, which almost killed my memory card. Still the memory card is more or less useless now.

Doraemon Story Of Seasons Friends Of The Great Kingdom ( Nintendo Switch): Played it for 105 or more hours. I love this game. The text on the game package is not lying, I felt like I was home. When I had to say goodbye I reloaded and kept playing for a while, because I was not ready to let go yet. Best change is how fast it is to befriend villagers now. Getting the highest affection level in the first year by only talking to them is awesome. Hopefully this will become the norm. I do not mind not 100%ing a big game like this, but I would like to at least see every villager event.

Edit: Daemon X Machina is beaten. This time the game did not feel so dark to me. The gameplay is fun, the artdirection is cool and I like the designs of the Arsenals. The story felt too melodramatic for me and it felt nonsensical. Having to read dialogs while fighting is also not good. Still the game is solid and I am looking forward to the sequel, but even more for Armored Core VI Fires Of Rubicon.

Today I beat Blasphemous! I was at the last boss for quite some time but today I beat him! This game is so damn good! Can't wait for Blasphemous 2 !!!

Just beat Prodeus on Switch. It was pretty good. Not mind blowing or amazing. Just pretty good. The pacing of the levels is all over the place however it does get a lot better the further you go. Also, the soundtrack is so freaking awesome metal. Surprisingly one of the best I've heard in a while. Screw it I'm going to go ahead and say that for me it competes with Doom 2016/Eternal's soundtrack. It's that good. I just wish the times when the music kicked up it in the midst of chaos it lasted longer. A lot of the areas when it gets crazy with the shooting and music it all ends rather quickly. The game is very unapologetic about where it draws its inspiration from too so that will depend on personal opinion if it's a good thing or bad thing. Overall a well put together "boomer shooter" anyone who is a fan of that genre should definitely check out!

I beat Tomb Raider DE on xbox last night. What an awesome game I slept on for years. It feels like a unique blend of zelda, assassins creed, and Indiana Jones.

Beat Arkham Knight and all its dlc. Really good game with the only flaws being some Batmobile sections and a lot of boss fights aren’t great. I also wish each bat family member got their own 1-2hr story dlc instead of a 15-30 min combat room. But those were still fun.

Overall my series ranking would go:

1. Arkham Origins 9.5/10
2. Arkham Asylum 9/10
3. Arkham Knight 9/10
4. Arkham City 8.5/10

City did go down quite a bit after I thought about the game a bit more and compared it to the rest of the series.

I beat Fire Emblem Three Houses just in time before Pikmin 4 releases. Sadly I had to rush a little bit. This might be the last time I do something like that. I am done when I am done, no need to rush it. The game is great and I consider it the best Fire Emblem game I played, I have not played many though. The story is well written and I like the dialogue. Alot of very likeable characters, like Gilbert or Dedue. It is easy to care for the people, so I better do not start a different route. Later in the game Dimitri looks so cool, he really grows as a character.

The tone of the game is rather dark but thankfully the characters in this game are strong, do not give up and support each other, which makes it very warm too. Generally it is quite emotional.

I am listenting to the music right now, the soundtrack is also great.

Running around the monastery and doing stuff in the free time was not bad, still it could need some improvements to not make it feel grindy. The sidequests for example need more substance, those that get a battle with dialogue are alright.

A passionate game, they really gave it their all, respect. Now I am really looking forward to Engage. By the way I chose the blue lions route, because I love knights, samurais, honor and stuff.

I finished Oxenfree last night. Decent little time. Nothing that knocked my socks off though.

Hollow knight pale court mod.

Alba: A Wildlife Adventure

An open world adventure game about taking photographs of the world's wildlife. You play the role of a young girl whose mission is to save the island's nature preserve from being demolished in lieu of the construction of a shiny new hotel. It's like Pokemon Snap, only less complicated and has freedom of movement, lol. Just a fun, super-solid, easy-breezy chill experience.

8/10 - Nothing revolutionary, but a very commendable effort for its indie budget.

I finished diablo 3. First timer for me as I've never touched the series. It was definitely a fun time, even if I could pretty much turn my brain off and just slay everything and everyone. Great cut scenes and world building though. Maybe ill give 4 a shot soon( hoping it hits gamepass 🫠).

Pikmin 4, the game is 100% finished. Saw the normal ending, the good ending and the secret ending. I love this game, it is so well made and full of love, like the new start screen, when you reach stage 4. One of those games, that made me smile all the time. The hub is a nice addition and many of the info entries were fun to read. The stages are awesome, because I love those sunny and relaxed nature vibes.

Please take your time with this franchise Nintendo. I will gladly wait, if the next game is this fun and polished. Thanks.

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS5)

In this entry of the long running action JRPG, Adventurer Adol & his travelling buddy Dogi arrive at the gates of the "Prison City" Balduq (in the nation of Gilia, but occupied by the invading Romun Empire). Seeing as how Adol always finds himself in the center of all sorts of shenanigans, the Romun authorities deem him dangerous and lock him away in the towering prison. With a bit of wit (& some help) he manages to escape the facility, but not before a mysterious figure shows up and inflicts him with the "Monstrum" curse, giving him supernatural abilities at the cost of not being able to leave the city's walls. Not only that, but he (and a small group of others cursed) are tasked with protecting the city from legions of invisible (to ordinary people) monsters called Lemuries. In order to seek out the truth of the curse (& to see if it can be broken) he must explore the city & all roads seem to lead back to the prison!

Combat:

• Across the adventure Adol will be joined by 5 other party members (though you can only have 3 active at a time), with each one having an attack style effective against "soft", "armored", or "flying" enemies (meaning you'll generally want one type of each amongst your currently active party), which encourages you to swap out the character you're directly in control of often (some enemies, including most bosses, are neutral type & aren't weak nor resistant to any attack styles). Furthermore, if you dodge or block just as an enemy attacks you'll engage a Flash Dodge (slows down time) or Flash Guard (temp attack boost). It's overall not much different than the last several entries in the series, but it's still one of the most fun & slick action JRPG battle systems in the business.
  
• While most of your time will be spent doing sidequests, battling monsters in the overworld, dungeon crawling & your other typical RPG stuff, events that stick out here are Grimwald Nox & Grimwald Eos challenges (the only seeming difference between the two being that Nox are mandatory, Eos are optional). They come in two varieties and either see you protecting a giant blue crystal from waves of Lemuries or trying to destroy a bunch of red crystals under a strict time limit. These are unique in that all party members, even ones who aren't in your active party (heck, even when they haven't even yet joined you elsewhere) are active as AI allies (you can only swap between directly controlling the three in your active party like normal though). At the "Dandelion" (your home base) you can expend resources to build & enhance traps/decoys that are automatically installed across Grimwald maps that help you keep the enemy waves at bay during these battles. You can also replay these challenges to aim for a better ranking (you're scored at the end, which dictates which rewards you earn upon completion). These are essentially like the "Raid Battles" from Ys VIII, but they all happen at telegraphed, set points, which I liked.
  
• While there are healing items (no magic system though), you'll automatically regenerate health if you stand still for a bit (this initially only applies outside of dungeons, however you obtain an item very early on that does away with that restriction) and only the character you're currently controlling takes damage (meaning you can swap to someone else with more health if you're low on health), so take advantage of these features when you can to save items (and while you can save at any time from the menu, there are also the traditional save spots before boss rooms & such that will auto heal you).

Exploration:

• Once things get going most chapters have a similar gameplay loop. You'll start out completing sidequests & battling monsters around town in order to build your Nox gauge, which summons a Grimwald Nox once it reaches 100. Once you complete the Nox a barrier comes down allowing you to explore a new district of the city or field area just outside town (if you filled the Nox gauge high enough, a Grimwald Eos will appear afterwards as well, which unlock an optional area upon completion). Story events in the new area will lead to the chapter's dungeon (during the first 2/3rd's of the game, a new party member will join you around this part as well). Each chapter ends with a little epilogue where you'll play as a surprise character still inside the prison, providing some big narrative twists.
• The city itself has an open world quality to it (especially once the barriers start coming down) with lots of shops (places to buy/enhance weapons/equipment, medicine, and more), as well as treasure chests, collectable "azure petals", and graffiti to find. Monsters don't wander around town, instead there will be these little Grimwald portals all over the place that will summon a few if you touch them (the world & people around you will freeze in time whenever you're in one of these fights). While monsters in dungeons & field areas have a set level, the Lemuries that appear in town are scaled up each chapter.
  
• Most sidequests DO expire, however as they are the most effective way to build the Nox gauge in order to progress the story, you'd have to go well out of your way to miss one. They can be pretty deep/important too, as you'll gain extra allies who'll hang around the Dandelion (they provide buffs during Nox/Eos events, and open up special shops inside the Dandelion that mitigate your reliance on running around all over town).
• In previous games you would collect "Sacramentals" that are party wide equips (some of them were mandatory for working through dungeons, like being able to breathe underwater, giving them a Zelda like quality, while others offered QOL effects like increased EXP earned), but these are largely replaced by "Gifts" here. Essentially, each Monstrum has a unique Gift, and it can be used (no matter who you're playing as) once they join your party. Same idea though in that the dungeon/boss of a chapter will be built around the utilization of your newest party member's Gift (examples: White Cat can run up walls. Feral Hawk can glide. Doll gives you a sixth sense that allows you to see enemies/collectables through terrain, see invisible platforms, see otherwise invisible weak points on certain bosses, etc.) Gifts also make exploring the city a lot easier as well, and in some cases let you reach areas/rooms otherwise inaccessible. The game still has Sacramentals for the QOL features though (such as the aforementioned one that lets you idle heal in dungeons).
• You're very much rewarded for thoroughly exploring the world, as there are characters who will reward you with goodies for filling up your map, finding "Landmarks" (scenic locations in the game world), finding azure petals, reading all the graffiti, and more. Most of these characters hang out at the Dandelion, but there are a few elsewhere in town.

Visuals:

• Graphically it's nothing mind-blowing (it's a mid budget title originally designed for PS4 & Switch), but it looks nice due to the art direction, and it runs at a rock solid 60 fps on PS5.
• Now, the pallette can look a little grey as it largely takes place within & beneath the boundaries of a city/prison/fortress (which I know was a disappointment for some coming off the vibrant tropical island locale of Ys VIII), however there are still a few areas where they manage to inject a bit more color, and I still thought that the main dungeons were distinct enough to feel unique (especially the spooky atmosphere of the catacombs). If you're worried about it being grimdark though, don't be. The vibe isn't any darker than your typical JRPG and there are plenty of colorful cast members & costumes (as an aside, all the DLC costumes from it's original release are part of the standard purchase on PS5).
  
  
  
  
  

Story:

• The narrative has some very cool twists with plot points I was eager to find out more about (especially that surprise character I mentioned in the prison segments), but at the end of the day it ends up being pretty standard JRPG stuff (power of friendship, felling a "god", & all that). Still, at least it was very interesting to get there.
• If you wonder why I've been referring to characters by names like "White Cat" & "Feral Hawk", it's because their Monstrum moniker is different from their regular name, and finding out who they are in their daily lives is in spoiler territory (some of them you meet long before they're revealed as a Monstrum, though in most of those cases it's easy to figure out).
  
• As an aside, I kinda find it amusing how they don't even try with their (broader) world building & come up with names for their fantasy countries like Romn (Rome), Garman (Germany), Ispani (Spain), and I kid you not Afroca. Heck, a big part of this game's specific background lore is inspired by Joan of Arc in Britain & France's Hundred Years War, with Saint Rosvita's role in Britai & Gilia's (Gaul?)... Hundred Years War, lol.

Conclusion:

• Maybe a bit of a step back from Ys VIII (largely in terms of locale variety), however it's still a very solid JRPG and I think there are a few things I think it does even better (I like that environmental exploration abilities are just natural upgrades & not tied to Sacramentals, freeing up Sacramental slots for QOL effects like extra item/gold drops & the like, and that the Grimwald Nox battles were at set points & don't interrupt you exploring like VIII's Raid Battles could sometimes do).