Topic: Games you've recently beat

@RogerRoger For the extra 24 experience, you should have put on some tense music during your dinner and toilet breaks 😂

@Kidfried Congratulations! How did you find the DLC? I thought it was actually a massive improvement on the base game, loved the villain and the 'horror' atmosphere as well.

Based on the recent State-of-Play, as well as the Ubisoft showcase, it seems that Ghost has become hugely influential for a lot of forthcoming games in development....

Valkyrie Elysium demo... or at least I think I finished it (the game did not tell me so but there doesn't seem to be anything else to do)

I enjoyed the demo but I'm not completely sold on the game just yet. It's a pretty simple hack and slash and I found it rather easy on "normal" difficulty. The demo doesn't do much in terms of characters and story so it's hard to tell whether or not there's more to it. If there's not, it might get a little boring.

On the technical side - the pop-in is pretty bad but Scarlet Nexus might've been worse and that didn't stop it from being a good game. Otherwise it's... uuhhh... fine, I guess

@Voltan That's a shame about the pop-in, as it was one of the only problems I had with Scarlet Nexus. It was pretty awful for a new game, especially one with a new gen version, but that and the bond level system not cooperating and keeping me from reaching the highest level with one character (in turn making all the work borderline useless). Tried farming one item and it would never get dropped for me, so I gave up and just finished the game.

Anyways, yeah, I still loved it regardless, so the pop-in for Valkyrie Elysium shouldn't keep me from enjoying it. There's at least some story bits in the trailers, so maybe it doesn't get going until sometime after the point you reach in the demo. Who knows, but hopefully I enjoy the demo when I try it at some point this weekend.

@KilloWertz to be fair, the pop-in distance is as about as bad as Scarlet Nexus but it's just a noticeable change in level of detail rather than entire objects appearing in front of you Stopped bothering me after a while.

@Voltan Ok, I guess that's not so bad then. Still not ideal, but better than some that I've experienced. I'll post my thoughts whenever I end up trying it.

@Voltan I also played the demo and get what you mean. I'm not wiser after playing it. As you say if it is just rue hack and slash action it might get boring after a while. I'll wait until after the review to see how the rest of the game is. based on the demo alone for me it isn't a day one buy

@Lavalera I'm pretty sure this is a "get on sale, maybe" kinda deal for me, unless it reviews crazy well for some reason

@Kidfried That's a shame about Iki, as I personally loved it more than the base game itself... albeit I too was a little burnt out by the whole experience by the end.

I do think that 'Open-World Fatigue' is very real for most/all games within that genre, irrespective of how well they accomplished they are.

(IMO, if you were to combine the best elements of Ghost, BOTW & Elden Ring - you would have one hell of an open world game )

It is definitely a nice experience to tick off the list though, and glad to hear you made your way through it!

@Voltan @Lavalera Even though I technically didn't finish the demo (I might still go back and do so at some point since it saves your progress I think), I concur with the opinions. It was fine, and it's not entirely fair to judge it based on what was essentially a too long tutorial, but it didn't wow me either. Like I've already said, me and demos for JRPGs don't work out well for some reason, but I will likely wait for reviews and other people's opinions of the actual game before deciding on whether I'll play it or not.

The pop-in didn't really bother me too much. It was mainly just the white flowers amongst the grass that would load in late, so it didn't take long to get used to it. I still say it's better than Scarlet Nexus in that regard, which might be the worst I've ever experienced (at least in a good while). The main character running with her arms never moving was a bit weird and would take me longer to get used to than the pop-in. As a whole, I thought the graphics were fine though.

Also, while I'm sure there's more to the story once you would get passed the demo portion of the game, it is unfortunately in a world that has been done many times now over the last several years with the Thor movies, Assassins' Creed Valhalla, and even God of War in a sense. I won't hold it against it too much though as, like I said, I would think there's more to it once she goes out on more of her mission.

It's been awhile since I've finished a game since I've been playing so many concurrently and I don't have as much time for gaming these days. But today I've finished not one, but two games!

LEGO Batman (Xbox 360). I first played this game back in 2010 as it was one of my first 360 games but I never got far into it. So earlier this year I bought a digital copy on sale and decided to play through it. Turned out to be much more enjoyable than previous LEGO games I've played. The lack of an open world and having simpler levels helped make me enjoy this game a lot. On top of that, there were vehicle levels every now and then for some needed variety. It's also cool that there were two different campaigns, one Hero and one Villain.

So overall, this is my favourite LEGO game thus far and thanks to it, I'm looking forward to playing more LEGO titles in the future!

Team Sonic Racing (PS4). I first played this game back in 2019 and since then I've been playing it on and off. It was definitely one of those titles that I never had the motivation to play longer than a couple of hours before putting it down for something else. But since my interest in racing games has increased significantly in recent times, I decided to take this opportunity to finally complete this game. At first it was kinda stressful to achieve all objectives and gain as many stars as I can in every level. But as I became better at the game, I didn't think much about collecting the stars. At the end of the game, I managed to collect 121/142 stars and I'm very content with that.

The story was meh, it's like a fan had written it. But I at least appreciate the effort of including a story in a racing game. As for the game overall, I think I like it more than Sonic and All-Stars Racing but it doesn't come close to dethroning Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. Most of the courses in Team Sonic Racing had generic themes and weren't that memorable compared to Transformed's courses. Focusing only on Sonic characters was kinda disappointing as well. But the focus on playing as a team was really interesting and made the game more unique than the previous entries.

So all in all, I enjoyed my time with Team Sonic Racing but I'm glad that I've finally finished it after all these years.

@RogerRoger I do hope they'll continue making Sonic racing titles in the future. I wouldn't mind them build upon the foundation of Transformed but with different tracks and the addition of more characters. Just focusing on the Sonic universe makes the games feel less special. Sega has tons of IPs that can be used in a future Sonic racing game. Because at the end of the day, I feel like these games are not only great kart racers but also a celebration of all things Sega.

Playing Team Sonic Racing has actually made me rather excited for Sonic Frontiers. Here's hoping that game turns out great!

I finished Sniper Elite 3, which was one of the first PS4 games I played way back in 2016, along with the PS Plus games from that time like the Transformers game, Journey and REmake. It’s an alright game although a bit of a step down from V2 now that I’m revisiting it. Just isn’t meaty enough to rival V2’s linear campaign and isn’t open enough to rival 4 and 5’s more sandbox approaches.

@RogerRoger It’s always interesting to see what old games hold up all this time later, and it sounds like Syphon Filter is one that definitely has lasting appeal.

Somehow I never really got into the series. I think I played one on PSP but honestly am not sure. I always get it confused with Splinter Cell, which has more to do with my brain’s inability to separate an item from its title. (Is Valkyrie Elysium a sequel to Disco Elysium or Valkyrie Profile? What’s the difference between Dead Rising, Dead Island, Dead by Daylight, and Dying Light? And don’t even get me started on The Outer Worlds and The Outer Wilds. 😛) I know the two retro stealth franchises that start with the letter “S” don’t have anything to do with one another, but it was always just easier to stick with Metal Gear Solid to keep from getting confused.

I believe Syphon Filter is a Sony IP, right? So it would make sense to revive it, given stealth espionage games seem to be lacking nowadays.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon

I've seen the end credits. Not done the extra post game dungeons yet. I'll most likely do the one at the very least. No chance in hell I'll be doing the one that requires maxing every job to lvl 99 just to stand a chance lol

Dargon Kart was kinda annoying at the end thanks to the slightly wonky physics (like getting stuck on a curb). That Yakuza guy took forever for me to beat thanks to that awful track with ridiculously tight corners you have to race him on with the drift mechanic being kinda terrible. 😅

But I'm very pleased to see Pocket Fighter return (even if it was kinda obvious he was the receptionist) and be the final racer. In his old outfit too which made me smile and his slip up of saying Kazuma instead of Ichiban and doing his old animation was a nice touch (Really wish I could restart the race whenever it was clear I was never gonna win then have to fail each time and go through all the menus and dialogue again to retry).

The job class system could do with some work too. There's far too many redundant attacks, not enough variety in the move elements (There's a LOT of strike moves and fudge all for lightning moves) and they could really use showing the hotboxes/attack areas of moves that hit a certain area.

Also that difficulty spike in Chapter 12. 😅 Though Majima is worth it lol. And yes whilst all the other poundmates/summons attacks might just be in Ichi's head... Majima really does his move. You can't tell me otherwise.

Oh and the soundtrack was very weak. Like 70% of the time i was rather underwhelmed by it. There was some flashes of brilliance but... I dunno it felt a bit like the composer was a bit creatively drained for most of it.

It was better then Kiwami's at least but nowhere near as interesting as Yakuza 0's with all the different styles and instruments where most of Yakuza LaD was electronic/dubstep that wasn't all that interesting.

Honestly not much more to say really about it for now. I've enjoyed my time with it quite a bit. It has flaws and I still think Yakuza 0 has a better plot/is a better game overall but it was SO much better then Kiwami 1.

@HallowMoonshadow The first post-game dungeon is a decent test and should be beat-able with your endgame team. The ultimate tower is a bit of a nightmare; most fights aren’t that bad but the final one still relies on luck, no matter how good your team is.

The karting I thought was a cool new minigame with a fun mini-cast for it but I found it all really easy and don’t think I ever finished anything other than 1st.

I didn’t find the array of jobs that lacking. The lightning attack Ichiban got from finishing the business side story was super ridiculous but came with an MP cost to cover it. My mine gripe was the limited jobs for the female characters with only hostess being that useful for the healing moves.

Glad you enjoyed the game though! I thought it was a really good job at freshening the series up and the RPG mechanics/combat worked better than I thought they would.

Just finished the main story on Tales of Arise and yeah it was decent. Not what I was expecting… and not as ‘good’ as I was expecting (my fault really, as I probably should’ve done a bit more research to properly set my expectations) but a nice change from Rockstar open-worlds, which is all I’ve known for the last couple months.

People have mentioned a drop off in quality during the second half but I actually enjoyed that part quite a bit more. Much more epic combat… and they ‘went-there’ with the story too, which I really appreciate. I’ll play the next Tales… for sure… and that says it all really.

I beat Grim Fandango not long ago. I really enjoyed that, the humour was on point. Excellent voice acting. Some puzzles were a little frustrating but overall a great game.

@RogerRoger hahaha yeah that bit was great!

I also loved this bit, where you press circle to pick up something in the kitty litter:

Good to know @Thrillho regarding the dungeons!

I've played quite a few J/RPG's and I personally think it could do with some work myself. Good for a first try for the team though.

There was a number of times though where I wanted to switch jobs without having to go to Hello Work (even a mid battle change would've helped so much) and I personally think the move coverage was a bit one sided! Like there being no gun moves at all aside from the absolutely rubbish Dealer job for the girls and Joon's assassin/hitman job.

I quite liked the main cast with there being some great chemistry between them all. Zhao becoming a favourite of mine despite his small runtime. Joon Gi-Han (Or rather his body double) was cool too and Saeko was fun. Poor Eri not being intergrated into the main plot at all though