Topic: Games you've recently beat

Just finished Castlevania: Rondo of Blood from the Castlevania: Requiem collection… I found it extremely difficult tbh. Never played a Castlevania game before this and have heard that the original trilogy were even harder… I can only imagine 😅

Had to play through it again, as I missed pretty much everything on my blind… funny thing is for all the difficulty I suffered through yesterday, this second playthrough was an absolute breeze! 😃

edit. Also, I really appreciated the game during this second playthrough. I reckon that if I had played this during the 16-bit era it would’ve been one of my favourites.

Just finished my Richter playthrough on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and for someone who used to really struggle to fire off a Ryu/Ken fireball back in the day… this was a test of my digit’al dexterity for sure. Great feeling of satisfaction in having navigated Richter around the castles using his tiger-uppercut followed by shoulder-charge though (down, up+jump followed by up, down, down-diagonal, right/left+attack).

The Last of Us Part 1

Finished this a week ago, but anyways, I definitely enjoyed playing it more than I did back on the PS4. While I was vocal about how I felt highly mislead and borderline lied to about this release, getting it for free makes it a lot easier to appreciate it. Right up there with Horizon Forbidden West as one of the best looking games I've ever seen, and the better AI and frame rate does help the gameplay some. It still doesn't play as good as The Last of Us Part 2, and that's a shame, but it was still a pretty solid experience given how good the story and graphics are.

On the story side of things, I unfortunately did not appreciate the latter part of it anywhere near as much as I did back on PS4. Knowing what happens in Part 2 did take away from it significantly, which is a shame as on it's own this story is still one of the better ones in quite some time, even if it is like playing a season of The Walking Dead.

Just finished FEAR on Xbox 360. Loved it! Fun shooter, plenty of jump scares, basically an overall great horror experience. Looking forward to playing the sequels!

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch) - Finally watched the credits roll after nearly 150 hours (about 3 months of playing nothing else but this). Great game, I have some minor issues with it (I wish it would tell you when there are new quest related convos available in a colony that way I didn't have to run through them multiple times, and I would have liked more outfit customization, the DLC swimsuits are nice but too late), but otherwise a very engaging experience. Definitely feeling a bit of that "content" bloat though (not sure I want to pour that much time into a game again, lol).

TOEM (Steam) - A nice, briskly paced experience after XC3. A very chill, "photo adventure" game. Think I have a handful of optional objectives left, but I'm satisfied with what I've done (main story + free DLC world).

Astro's Playroom (PS5) - Another briskly paced adventure that I worked through now that I got a PS5. Absolutely brilliant little platformer that stands right alongside Odyssey & Forgotten Land IMO. Really felt like a celebration of PlayStation history (gave off a vibe I only thought Nintendo would be able to pull off until now), and the company would be fools if they don't have a larger Astro adventure in development. The final boss in particular was fantabulous.

Just finished Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Spectres on 3DS after 22 hours of playtime. Enjoyed it a lot! I liked it more than the first game thanks to a more interesting story and more variety of locations (even though it would get annoying having to constantly fast travel to different areas). Definitely a very chill JRPG series just like Pokémon. It's also great to play a JRPG that's not 70 hours long (like Persona 3 Portable which I finished a couple of weeks ago). So yeah, good game and I'm glad that I'm playing more titles on 3DS now. Hopefully I'll start up something like Fire Emblem Awakening next!

On Switch- Return to Monkey Island - beat the game this weekend after approx 11-12 hours of play.

I’d ultimately recommend to anyone that enjoys the genre, or has familiarity with the older games in the series (and presumably had fun playing these games).

A fun romp and a nice change of pace from more action-orientated games, nice to actually use my brain for once… and fortunately most of the puzzles are solved through cerebral rationalities - instead of obtuse/random solutions.

My only critique would be it’s a little on the easy side… and only really ‘hits its stride’ in Act IV (total of 5 acts in the game).

Act IV has a lot of moving parts, location variety, and ramps up the challenge…. And it is a real shame that all the acts don’t follow this blueprint!

I set out to avoid using the in-game hint system …. But let myself down and had to utilise the hint book for the very last puzzle in Act V (in fairness I was totally barking up the wrong tree in my solution/tactics… probably would have had me stuck for a few days!)

Overall I’d give it a solid 7/10, and maybe 8/10 if you are a huge fan of the genre.

@Kairu I hadn’t really taken any special interest in GoT before launch but it quietly entered my ‘top 5 games ever’ list after sinking over 100 hours into it. It still feels like such a special experience to me over two years later. I really can’t wait to see what direction they take a sequel in. Where do you suspect they’ll go with it?

@RogerRoger I’m still beating myself up over this…! But in hindsight I was barking up the wrong tree big time, probably would have spent hours ‘brute forcing’ my way through lol

Love this genre though, think the Switch is an ideal platform for these kind of games. Would be keen to play another similar

@Kairu Concerning a sequel, nothing has been officially announced that I’m aware of, though given it’s success, I won’t be surprised at all if one surfaces (perhaps around the same time as said movie?). With that said, I agree with you completely that it doesn’t really need one. It’s a beautiful one and done. While we’re hypothesizing however…

I do feel strongly about one character carrying a future instalment, Tomoe, who leaves in a cryptic enough fashion as to leave one wondering. Whatever the case, I’d like to see more of a focus on survival - living off the island - in the future. Anything that drives home that connection to the island and it’s inhabitants that you’re fighting for. It’s what GoT did so well.

@Kairu A return to the island to track down the elusive Ghost could be cool. It’s outright stated in the finale that Jin would be hunted for the rest of his days. It could be a neat setup, and would open an avenue to see the Ghost’s influence on the island from a more removed perspective. As you say, time will tell.

@RogerRoger @Kairu For a game I love so much, I actually kind of agree with @JudgeDredd that the story was a bit of a drag, though I wouldn’t say it quite that way. I firmly feel that the overarching plot was straightforward, predictable and cliché - cartoon villain and all - by design. The game’s world is presented more as a dream, or a memory - a surreal, romanticized version of real events and real locations separated just enough from reality so as to avoid any on the nose political commentary about any specific group or event - allowing the narrative to laser focus on the emotional aspects of Jim’s coming of age. Such a simple narrative framework provides a large window of entry for the player to then engage the game’s many deep and complex themes through the gameplay itself. Whatever the sequel brings, I hope at the very least that they continue in this vein.

@Jimmer-jammer I'd be inclined to agree, and certainly where the 'base' game is concerned.

Don't get me wrong, Ghost is an immaculate game - and I very much enjoyed my time spent with Jin & co... but the base-game narrative did feel very drawn out at times. Its simplicity, alongside the necessity to be 'grounded in reality', did affect my engagement somewhat.

However, I'm a big believer that this game really steps up in the Iki DLC - in regards to both story and gameplay. Iki Island seems to almost lean into Resident Evil's brand of campy pseudo-horror, and for me it just worked so well! It was almost as if Ghost finally 'let its hair down' and embraced a little bit of weird madness.... and was all the better for it.

Nonetheless, whatever Suckerpunch roll out next is likely to be a surefire hit... but personally I'd like to see a new IP. There seem to be a lot of Ghost/feudal-inspired games on the horizon, and it would be nice to see something more unique from this studio. (Although I suppose they could be forgiven for developing 'Ghost 2' as it will basically print money)

Finally rolled the credits in Trails of Cold Steel 2. Great game, but wow it certainly rivals RotK for most lengthy ending. Been saying to my wife since Saturday that I'd be up to bed soon as looks like credits are about to roll. Only to still be playing till between 11 & 12 each night 😂

@CJD87 Yeah, I’m always open to something new, especially when, for all intents and purposes, GoT is a very complete and accomplished work made, agreeably, even better by the excellent DLC. The way you put that, “…let it’s hair down…” really encapsulates what set the expansion apart and why it worked so well!

@Jimmer-jammer Haha for sure mate It's like Resident Evil 1 going all the way - - - -> RE Village (!)

Star Ocean: The Last Hope

... I really wanted to like this.

I did at first too with it's Star Trek like premise of earthlings exploring outer space for a new planet to call home and having planet (monster) of the week like story arcs with a overarching narrative bringing it all together.

But there comes a point (which you can easily pinpoint) when the writing (which was solid enough at the start) get's thrown completely out the window and it just spirals out of control.

It goes full anime... and ya never go full anime 😧

There's a reason why nobody in the unskippable near 10 minute long credit sequence takes credit for writing the story from the utter dreck it descends into.

And it's not so bad it's good either. Just plain bad.

Good grief.

... I didn't think the english voice acting was as bad as people make it out to be though (Well except for Sarah who is, unfortunately, rather terrible). Bad voice direction for definite and the writing/dialogue is utter rubbish whether you're playing with JP or Eng voices.

Yeah the credits just has "Original Story: tri-Ace inc." @RogerRoger like everyone was immensely embarassed by it

It's especially annoying when some of my critiques about Star Ocean 3 (Nearly all it's cast being human (Or very humanoidy) and it taking place on one planet for 85% of it's runtime) are actually addressed via the Star Trekky space voyaging plot of SO TLH.

I must've set off every monkey's paw in the world off in order to get that though. I seem to be having a lot of bad luck as of late with me not really getting on with the stories of games I'm playing either...

On the plus side I have a new found appreciation for Star Ocean 3 that I treated like I was almost embarassed to say I enjoyed it 😅

@HallowMoonshadow I too want to like The Last Hope if I ever decide to play it and I think the best approach would be to play it with Japanese voiceovers if the English ones are that bad. Have you tested what they're like during your playthrough or maybe it wasn't possible to switch VOs during a playthrough?

I don't really mind a game that "goes full anime". After all, that's what the Trails of Cold Steel games do and I absolutely love them!