Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Draco_V_Ecliptic Did you play the DLCs? The first one is a bit rubbish but The Ringed City is fantastic. Same goes for Bloodborne actually, The Old Hunters is a million times better than anything in the main game.

@nessisonett I played a bit of The Ringed City, and The Old Hunters, I just wanted to beat a couple of FromSoftware games for the experience. Do you believe the recent leak about Elden Ring?

@Draco_V_Ecliptic I dunno if I believe the leaks but if the landscape is truly based off Scotland I’ll be happy. You should definitely complete (or at least attempt) The Old Hunters because it makes the rest of the game look bad in comparison and contains the tightest level design. Unfortunately if you’ve beat the game then you’ll need to start again/go through NG+ to access it again. An annoying quirk the SB games have.

@nessisonett I think you are being a bit harsh on the main game of Bloodborne. The main game is excellent and so is the DLC. There are quite similar in how they play and presentation wise. It is a bit of a head scratcher that you like one but not the other.

@JohnnyShoulder My main problem with Bloodborne is that the areas just weren’t fun. There are a few great bosses but the rest are few and far between. What made The Old Hunters stand out was that the areas didn’t feel as much of a slog and all but one of the bosses were superb. It took everything that was good about the game and streamlined it into a smaller, more coherent area. I genuinely struggle to name a single area of the base game I’d say I enjoyed but I could in the other Souls games.

@nessisonett @JohnnyShoulder I remember hating some of Bloodborne's areas while I was in them, but afterwards thinking "that was incredible game design"

I've heard it said that women's minds block out the pain of childbirth so as not to put them off repeating the process. Sometimes I think the same might be true of Soulsborne games

@nessisonett Not played the game in a couple of years but Nightmare frontier was pretty memorable. The place with bug people and that huge centepede thing before you fight Vom. After the moon turns red and those huge skeleton things. That is just off the top of my head. There must have been something there for you to keep playing.

@Gremio108 Yeah it's more like a love/hate relationship. Even when i face a difficult section I'm still enjoying it.

@JohnnyShoulder What kept me going was the idea of finishing the game. There’s a certain level of satisfaction to be had from completing these games and after The Old Hunters, the final two bosses were rather trivial so it wasn’t much trouble.

There we go, polished off the Resi 7 DLC. They really delivered, with small, contained but new areas. Overall they provided some much needed closure to the story and both new characters were fun to play as. I have to say that Joe’s combat was proper good fun and suitably silly. The final boss of End of Zoe totally alleviated my concerns about the final boss of the game being a bit meh. The DLC final boss was the real final boss in my opinion as it was a test of the skills learned as Joe and just pure simple fun. It’s a shame that original players didn’t get to experience that without a paywall and having to wait as it is truly essential.

@Kidfried Have this on my wishlist for quite a while now but wasn’t planning on getting it this sale in favour of some other games. You changed my mind!

The current price seems fair for the invested time, would be a perfect fit for the Vita, though. Thanks (or should I say damn you )

@Arugula I had a similar experience with Transistor. The constant narration of the guy is unsettling. I’m not sure if it was the voice actor’s strange whispery out-of-place tone, the fact that there wasn’t any verbal responses or anyone for him to talk to, or just the sheer constancy of his commentary, or a combination of all three, but I agree that I just never got used to the dialog. It’s an interesting game otherwise and worth experiencing, but a little bit overrated, imo.

I finally finished the main story of Yakuza 3 last night. I really enjoyed it again and I’m surprised to hear that in the past it was thought of as the weakest of the series and one you could skip, although it sounds like lots of stuff was cut from the PS3 localisation and is back in the game now.

I still have a few bits to do (and some new game modes to try after completing the game) but will probably write a bit more about it at some point.

I did it!

Took me over two months and by the end my save read 129 hours and 57 minutes but I've finally beaten Divinity Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition.

What a game! Definitely need a few short and sweet games to play after that mammoth of a title though! 😅

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Bravo! I’ve enjoyed reading your snippets about DOS2 and glad to see it kept you engaged right up to the end. It is a long game! Do you think your playtime would be considered average? It’s more toward the ‘completionist’ estimates on howlongtobeat, so I figure you took your time doing quite a bit of extra side activities.

@Thrillho I’m glad it’s seemingly as good as the rest then because the original reviews weren’t that kind. Now for the decision of whether to buy the collection now or wait for that sweet sweet physical edition with the PS3 box...

Well I've just had a little look at that howlongtobeat @Th3solution

You probably could beat it in 52 hours for the main story... But I assume that's either them playing on the Story mode (that nerfs enemies stats by half and gives you double health alongside an infinite revive spell) or by people using every cheesy tactic possible.

Playing on Classic difficulty I think 120 is more so the average time you'll spend as I personally found (and maybe because it's my first of this type of game) being more then a level below an enemy was playing with serious fire and oft led to my demise... so you'll most likely be doing most the side quests to get that precious exp!

Plus a lot of the bigger side squests weave themselves into the main narrative quite a bit so you'd be missing out on a lot of world building and events!

Not that I minded as I found it very engrossing and the game was a whole was a breath of fresh air I didn't know I needed.

Might be a while before I crank out a review though as it's definitely something I need to mull over for a while 😁

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy As long as the game is, I imagine it is a lot to take in, but I look forward to a review if you ever feel inclined to write one. Your early “mini-review” impressions really gave me a good feel for the game and I watched some of the gameplay posted. One of these days I’ll get to it. As a teaser, would you say the game builds and crescendos toward the end, or did you feel it a slog to push through. In games that long it usually ends up being the latter — you know the: “I’ve invested 80 hours into this game, with the time commitment so far I’ve got to endure to the end now, even though this no longer feels fresh anymore” type of monologue we have in our heads.

@nessisonett There are certainly things I didn’t like about the game and the story is a bit weird (it’s all relative in the Yakuza games) and it is certainly more of the same for the most part. But I still had fun.

Oh I'm definitely going to write a review for it. But It's going to be more like the impressions and free flowing then my typical reviews so far... so thay's one reason why it'll take me a lot longer.

I did take a week long break from playing anything when I reached the final act of Divinity OS II @Th3solution ... But that was actually more so because when I tried to play I couldn't commit to anything I was doing in game and part of me didn't want it to end.

It is more of a slow burn of a game that builds up to it's finale, it's not something that I feel you can rush, especially on a first playthrough.

I think we can get a bit hung up on how a game or any piece of media ends (I have for quite a while to be honest) and not appreciate the journey we took to get there. I think that's one thing Divinity Original Sin 2 has really made me appreciate more.

Though to actually answer your question it's probably the second Act (Reaper's Coast) that is the point where it makes or breaks you though due to the sheer breadth of content in that one map as it's potentially as long as the next two acts combined (About 50 hours if you do everything there) with one fairly simple sounding objective that the game leads you in with

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy That’s very true — some games I remember for the journey (Spider-Man, TR games, Bloodborne), some I remember for the conclusion (NieR Automata, TLoU, TWD). Some I cherish both (RDR 1 & 2, HZD).

But that’s a sign of a great gaming experience, when you don’t want it to end. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve had that for a long time — when you are so smitten with spending time in the game that you don’t even care to see the end because you want it to keep going. Probably the closest recent example I had that with is Bloodborne. The end was really good and I made sure to see all the different versions, but compared to the journey, it just was a tiny bit disappointing, because of the moment-by-moment emotional investment and adrenaline highs you’ve received from the game for the 40-50 hours leading up to it. Only other recent example of a game I wanted to keep going longer than the game design dictated is Uncharted: Lost Legacy, but that’s probably because the excellent experience and interesting characters were only there for 10 hours and I knew this was possibly the last I’d ever see of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted universe, and that made me sad to see it end.