Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Fight_Teza_Fight I think I might freak out if I were to find a floppy disk version kf the game! 😂

@Fight_Teza_Fight

I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed this! I played it very early this year, and it absolutely blew me away.

In the UK, there is a Gaming podcast "WhatCulture Gaming" - featuring 2 great lads from Newcastle, who have really great taste in games. One of the guys, (Josh Brown?), was talking up Inscryption massively.... but explained that listeners need to take a 'leap of faith' as it is nearly impossible to recommend in details without risking spoilers!

I adored the 'meta' elements of the story and all acts were great, but especially Act 1. The puzzle and horror elements are so excellently implemented, and it achieves a near-impossible art of genre-blending without compromising its identity.

A nice tight 12-ish hour experience, and beating the game then gives access to an end-game of such.

Really brilliant, and got me into deck-games...

If you liked Inscryption, I would highly highly recommend 'Slay The Spire'. Pure deck-builder, but fiendishly addictive. Probably a 'better' deck game than Inscrpytion, but not as good an overall experience.

On a separate note - last night I (finally!) beat Blasphemous.

Really enjoyed this, although I did this initial playthrough 'blind' - so was likely quite underpowered by the time I landed at the final boss. (Sub-quests seem fairly 'obtuse' like FromSoftware's output, ie near impossible to complete without Fextralife open alongside your play session )

I'm not hugely big on Metroidvanias, as sometimes I find the backtracking a bit obnoxious, but Blasphemous was a strong mix of exploration / platforming / action.

I felt the boss battles were the strongest elements, although I must ashamedly admit the final boss took me >50 tries.... couldn't believe how much I struggled. 2nd only to Ishin the Sword Saint (Sekiro) this is probably the toughest boss I've struggled with, worse than Malenia / Fire Giant ha

I did feel like it was lacking some depth in regards to stat-allocation and builds, but equally appreciate that this diversity was not what the devs were aiming for. Seems like this will be addressed somewhat in the sequel with different weapons?

Really enjoyed it though, and the boss battles were top tier. It didn't quite reach the highs of Salt and Sanctuary though! (for me anyway)

Next backlog game = Disco Elysium, will start tonight

@CJD87 Another good recommendation on Inscryption. The recs are starting to add up and move it gradually higher and higher on the backlog list. 😄 The way my mood has been lately, I might just have to take a fly on it because I’ve become slightly burned-out with AAA games atm.

Edit — I went to the game’s PSN page to mull it over and read the game description which includes:

“Acquire a deck of woodland creature cards by draft, surgery, and self-mutilation.”

Wha…⁉️ I’ll definitely need to be in the right frame of mind if I play this one! 😅

————

Speaking of, Disco Elysium is on the upper part of my backlog so let us know how that goes for you. I’ve read many, many strong recommendations for it as well, so I just need to leap into the breach and play it.

@CJD87 I bounced off Slay the Spire pretty quickly, it didn't gel with me at all. I may give it another a go at some point to see if it was just the state of mind I was in at the time.

And Blasphemous was great too! Really liked the setting and the enemy designs. I don't recall it being too difficult though, and I wouldn't put it anywhere near any of FromSoftware's games. The last boss was tough though!

If you liked that, I highly recommend Salt & Sanctuary. Graphically it is not all that, but the combat is top knotch and the RPG mechanics are a lot deeper.

@Th3solution Haha PSN description of Inscryption is absolutely perfect... if that doesn't pique your interest I don't know what will! It really is a great experience, and a short investment of time to boot.

@JohnnyShoulder Salt and Sanctuary is my favorite 'Non-FromSoftware' souls experience. Absolutely immaculate, and quite superior to Blasphemous (I did enjoy Blas. though, just not to same level as S&S!)

Shame about the sequel though (S& Sacrifice) which I actually put down after a few hours, found it to be a real step back

@Th3solution You can add another glowing rec for Inscryption onto the pile! As has been said, a great experience.

If I may, I’ll throw out two more recommendations, as I also like to break up the AAA monotony.

Paradise Killer. A solve at your own pace detective story within an incredibly imaginative and unique setting chock full of great writing and characters.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. A breezy but emotional journey through an increasingly fantastical land anchored by a simple yet unique twin stick/dual character mechanic.

@CJD87 Yeah you just have to jump in. I really thought I’d never get past Act 1. The final battle ended up in a stall as he played his god card lol. I had the moon down to 3hp, but no cards left to draw & just a handful of unkillable squirrels. Luckily I still had all my items & just added weight to his scale & won lol.

I have Slay of Spire downloaded through extra, so I’ll give it a go before it leaves the service.

@Th3solution just that description is kind of spoilery….👀.
Hope you like it when you get to it. Act 1 is difficult, but once you get past it, you shouldn’t find it too difficult. Well worth it for the experience alone. Never played anything like it.
Liam’s review sums it up perfectly https://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps5/inscryption

@Th3solution Would be a good game for Game Club...

@JohnnyShoulder I can second that as I've never played Inscryption, but probably would if it was the game of the month since I have nothing new coming out until late September.

@Jimmer-jammer Oooh… Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is one of my favorite indie style games. Such an emotional experience and also neatly innovative in its gameplay as well. It’s ironic that I was just thinking about that game the other day (even though it’s been ages since I played it) since Life is Strange 2 has reminded me a lot of the whole two brothers’ journey setting.

I’ve seen Paradise Killer spoken about and had been curious about it too so I’ll keep it on the list

@Th3solution How did you find Life is Strange 2? I played the first one and thought it was interesting but never did finish it.

@Jimmer-jammer I haven’t quite finished it yet. I have just the last episode to go. I’ll drop some extended thoughts when I complete it but at the 4/5 mark I’m really liking it so far. But I liked the first one and it’s Before the Storm prequel, so difficult to make a sweeping recommendation for it unless you have pre-existing love of the franchise or the genre. But the ‘tale of two sons’ that the game portrays is really a highlight.

@Th3solution I’ll keep my eye out for your extended thoughts!

So I completed my playthrough of Life is Strange 2 (Hereafter oft referred to as LiS2)

There are a couple excellent reviews already on the user review thread and I don’t think I have much critique to add to those, so I’ll try to keep my expansive thoughts more targeted over here, more as mere discussion and reaction.

I was a big fan of the original Life is Strange and even more so Before the Storm. I had my reservations about LiS2 being about completely new characters and situations. Granted, there is actually more intertwined narrative threads with the preceding games than I realized, but it’s still largely an independent story. I had my concerns about the storyline and narrative focus, but with few exceptions (some of which are outlined below), the tale is relatable and reasonable. Nearly every fictional story has moments and beats that fall flat or miss their intended mark. LiS2 isn’t a perfect narrative by any stretch, but it stirred some emotions in me, and that’s really all we can ask for, at the end of the day.

First off, these LiS games are really shoddy when it comes to performance and visuals, but what it lacks in Mo-cap performance, it makes up for in voice acting and script writing. I mean, this isn’t Shakespeare or Hemingway, but there’s some effective storytelling in play and largely driven by good VA and timing. The music in these games is always essential to mood creation and LiS2 does get this right most of the time.

Amongst my early gripes was how lackadaisical the adjacent characters treated the Diaz brothers’ situation. The direness of their plight is well established with Sean and Daniel, but the subsequent carefree approach to harboring criminals accused of murder seemed to be rather half-hearted, at least early on. Aiding and abetting a suspected murderer (of a police officer, no less) is no causal thing, and so when Brody and later the boys’ grandparents were helping and sheltering them, I had trouble taking that seriously. Even all the friends at the farm were probably legally culpable, although they all seemed to have plenty of other issues to worry about. The fear of legal repercussions of knowingly helping a suspected criminal is finally touched upon, primarily with the mother, so it came around eventually.

The fourth episode was probably the weirdest, imo. I think that Daniel being brought into a religious cult was an interesting direction to take, but it felt very at-odds with the Daniel that I was cultivating through my decisions. He had just been working on an illegal pot farm, was best buds with a quintessential anti-establishment character in Finn, was gratuitously expanding his 4-letter word vocabulary, and (at least in my playthrough) establishing an increasingly close bond with Sean. So for Daniel to make a 180 degree about-face and choose to live a life of religious zealotry and refuse to reunite with Sean was too harsh a tonal shift to swallow.

As far as my choices, I continued to emphasize my relationship with Daniel above all else, and wanted to be sure to make it to Mexico with him in tow. So I imagine if I’d been taking a high morality approach then maybe episode 4 would have been a little more logical. But then episode 3 would have felt weird.

I guess I can respect Dontnod’s attempt to throw all fringe aspects of life at the wall, and give the player the opportunity to see, experience, and react to all kinds of marginalized sects. Even the ‘off-the-grid’ community brought an interesting peek into a lifestyle most of us would never know existed. Nevertheless, in their attempt to showcase the full breadth of societal outcasts, it comes across a little disjointed from the type of person that the player is trying to make Sean (and as a result, Daniel) into.

I am really impressed with the upgrade in how choices alter outcomes in this game, versus the previous LiS games. There’s several endings and the way to get them is not always just a limited number of binary decisions. Things done way back in the first two episodes will influence your ending. It’s not quite on the level of Detroit Become Human, but it’s leagues more intricate than Telltale. I decided not to replay the game to see the various different endings and rather looked them up online. I read a description and haven’t watched video footage of the endings I didn’t get, but I’ll probably do that eventually.

⚠️ The following two paragraphs are spoilers for my ending, so if you have interest in going in blind for a second playthrough then read at your own risk. I have tried to be vague about the details of the ending though and I don’t divulge the exact results, per se. ⚠️ —

I was a little surprised by the ending I got. All along I had prioritized keeping the brothers together, at all cost. I trusted no one else to be a potential guardian for Daniel, until late in the game when Karen finally shows up and she ends up being a reasonable person. I did mend my relationship with her and ultimately forgave her (although her whole abandonment thing was still really strange and at odds with the character traits she possessed) but I had committed myself to getting to Mexico with Daniel, at all costs. I knew we were innocent victims to a corrupt and prejudiced system, so I knew there would be a risk of collateral harm. What I underestimated was that through my choices I was teaching Daniel to live ‘above the law’ and created a monster in the process. So the ending I got, “Blood Brothers”, is not the worst ending, but it was not necessarily idyllic. I guess I got what I asked for, given how I raised Daniel. But it was frustrating to see the brothers end up in that situation in order to stay together.

Sorry for the copious spoilers. It’s difficult to talk about how the game resonated with me without referencing specifics. In conclusion, I really enjoyed LiS2, even amidst all its warts and jank. If you like choice and accountability story based games, then there’s a lot to like here.

@Pizzamorg @RogerRoger @Killowertz @Tjuz @Jimmer-jammer
(And anyone else I may have forgotten who’s discussed Life is Strange lately. I feel like there was someone else who had wanted to hear my thoughts when I played this, but I apologize that I can’t remember who you were 😅)

If you’re interested, some of my impressions of Life is Strange 2 are above. I’ve tried to be liberal with spoiler tags, for those who haven’t played the game yet. And for those who have, I noted where I talk about my ending, just in case you plan to play the game again to experience alternate endings.

For those who played it, I’d be interested in how you felt about the ending you got and whether you felt it tracked with the decisions you were making.

@Th3solution Sounds like there is a lot of choice given to the player here though I didn’t get too far into the spoiler tagged weeds. I’m glad to hear it functions well as a stand-alone experience as I’m unlikely to go back to the previous two (I did play through the majority of the first) before I potentially jump in here. Sounds like an interesting foray into the, as you say, fringe aspects of life, which is always illuminating in one way or another. I’ll be sure to keep this in mind should the mood strike. Thanks!

@Jimmer-jammer Yes, the overlap with the first two games is fun to see, but more of an Easter Egg type of callback. Some of the references might go over your head but it won’t distract from the game to not pick up on them. In fact, if you’ve played even part of the first game that’ll be enough to catch some of the references.

Actually, if you’re going to play a prequel to the game I’d recommend playing the free demo to it called “The Adventures of Captain Spirit”. It has a more direct relationship to the game and it enhanced part of the game to have played that first. Like the first LiS games, the demo is also non-essential if you want to skip it, but I’m glad I played it first. The game will detect if you have a save file for the demo and in my case it prompted me to finish it when the crossover was about to occur. (I had started the demo but not finished it) I did find the demo more boring than the actual game itself, so don’t get too frustrated if you aren’t attached to the narrative there. It doesn’t do a very good job of selling the game but I thought it was really cool the way it was integrated.

@Th3solution Interesting. I’ve never heard of that. If I’m not misunderstanding, it’s a demo to the full game that’s also a stand-alone experience?

@Jimmer-jammer Yes, that’s right. It’s more or less a standalone chapter which introduces the general gameplay mechanics (if “gameplay” is even the word) and gets you accustomed to the way the game works. It’s basically like the first Life is Strange mechanistically so you’ll feel familiar.

The problem is that the standalone nature of the demo means that you’re dropped in on the situation with no context, and so it’s not very satisfying, but the actual game itself will give the narrative context to make it worthwhile.

But yes, the narrative material in the demo is not contained in the game and you wouldn’t see any of it otherwise.