Topic: Games you've recently beat

Oh yeah the in game environments did look nice, I'll give you that for sure @Ralizah!

Acti being Acti I believe rushed the game to market after Crash N.Sane Trilogy's runaway success.

You'll really be able to tell from how in the first game they gave every Dragon a unique design and personality and yet the dragon babies in 3 are repeated ad nauseum. Not to mention it just doesn't look or animate quite as nice if I recall. 3 was handed to Sanzaru games I believe? The ones who did Sly Cooper 4.

Completed Spyro 2, with the exception of the logbook challenges. Having permanent super flame is cool, I guess, although I never fully understood giving you access to cool powers once there's not much to do with them.

I'd have probably opted to do them, but I know I'll go nuts trying to speedrun those flying challenge levels, ugh.

I'll do them if I need them to unlock cheevos, but otherwise I'm not worried about it.

@HallowMoonshadow That's disappointing to hear.

Thankfully, the games are fun on a sheer mechanical level, so as long as there aren't too many bugs or performance issues, it hopefully won't affect my enjoyment of the trilogy too much.

Prince of Persia (2008) done and it just kept growing on me for some reason… that is difficult to quantify if I’m honest. Doesn’t particularly play all that well if you get down to the brass tacks but there was something about it that entertained.

A slightly tricky plat due to some inherent glitches which can prevent two of the more grindy and finicky of trophies from popping Light Seed Master (for collecting 1001 light seeds) and Combo Master (for completing all 63 combos) but seemed to pop okay for me.

Conversely, there is a positive glitch that helps players pop two other trophies that can be a pain Be Gentle With Her (for not dying more than 100x) and Speed Demon (for completing the game in under 12 hours). If you refuse to install the latest patch until right before the final boss, then install it… it resets your death and time counters 😉.

At the end of the day that’s what matters.

A slightly tricky plat due to some inherent glitches which can prevent two of the more grindy and finicky of trophies from popping Light Seed Master (for collecting 1001 light seeds) and Combo Master (for completing all 63 combos) but seemed to pop okay for me.

Conversely, there is a positive glitch that helps players pop two other trophies that can be a pain Be Gentle With Her (for not dying more than 100x) and Speed Demon (for completing the game in under 12 hours). If you refuse to install the latest patch until right before the final boss, then install it… it resets your death and time counters 😉.

I know that pain. Can be really demoralizing, so it’s nice that didn’t happen.

Completed Shadow of the Erdtree! For me, it is almost the perfect piece of dlc to accompany the main game. And to call it dlc is a bit of a misdemeanor, as it is flippin huge with so much content.
I probably preferred the layout of this compared to the main as it felt more natural how everything is laid out.
I didn't find it difficult as some people either. I only used npc summons and spirit Ashes when I was really struggling, or for story reasons.
I found myself experimenting a bit more than i did in the main game too, and tried a lot more weapons and Ashes of war then I have previously.
Feels bittersweet at the moment as I'm glad I've managed to finish it but feel gutted that there will no more Elden Ring.

I completed Daxter the PSP midquel to Jak (& Daxter) II.

Enjoyed this more then Ratchet & Clank: Size matters. Rather good looking, played really well. The story was a bit pants though and kinda nothing to be honest.

... Was better then Jak 3 though

Just finished Red Dead Redemption II on PS5 after about 50 hours of playtime. What a phenomenal game! In terms of the story, I enjoyed this one much more than the first game's. I feel like the first game didn't have much of a serious tone considering Rockstar titles tended to be more tongue-in-cheek back then. But this game is the complete opposite, which made for a more memorable experience.

I really liked the gang aspect, which was missing in the first game. You can't have a wild west experience without being part of a gang, so the second game basically complemented the first one in that regard. Not to mention getting to know the characters you encountered in the first game a lot more and seeing how different they were when they were younger. It was seriously so cool seeing how everything connected to the first game and it makes me wish for Rockstar to make more games that are connected like this.

I can't stress enough how much I liked the characters. Arthur Morgan is probably one of the coolest protagonists I've seen. All the other guys, like Javier, Charles, Dutch, Sadie and so on were also really cool. I just loved how much time you spent with them, doing basic stuff like playing dominoes or more serious stuff like robbing banks. Even the moments when you sat around a campfire and sang were just so wholesome. Rockstar absolutely nailed the social interactions with your friends.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the lengthy epilogue. It was awesome to play as John Marston and experience the events that lead up to the first game.

All in all, absolutely phenomenal game and I'm glad to have finally played through it.

@LtSarge Agree with all your thoughts there about RDR2. Arthur as a character is top shelf. I actually loved Marston in RDR and as you alluded to, his younger version is quite interesting.

I also liked the epilogue, although it did drag on quite a lot. With the way the story of Arthur finishes with such an epic showdown and closure to his arc, all the added time with Marston felt slightly anticlimactic. If they shorten that section by half it probably would have felt better. Similar to the end of the first game where you play John’s son (Jack I think is his name?) for just a short epilogue to get revenge, that was perfect, imo.
Still, even with the lengthy epilogue of RDR2, the game is such a masterpiece and one that grows in my mind as time passes. Few games have that quality where they stick in your memory and settle there for weeks, months, and now for me, even five years later and still such fond memories.

@Th3solution I did question some missions in the epilogue, like working at the ranch or building the house. Were they really necessary to include?

I just got home from work and I feel a bit empty now that the game is done. I've been playing this game almost every day for nearly a month now. I'm really going to miss it, so I agree with you that it really sticks with you. I think that's the sign of a truly phenomenal game.

@LtSarge 1. House building part is vital for the song alone. It is like a classic Rockstar troll mission though, but it was still cool 😁

2. The Red Dead Void is real, but it is what led me personally to go all in on a Witcher 3 playthrough despite it not having clicked with me before that, and it also led me to try a certain first person medieval game called Kingdom Come Deliverance. And playing these games that were initially a bit out of my comfort zone eventually led to stuff like Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3. So RDR2 has basically made me enjoy gaming more than I ever thought possible.

So, trust me, you will probably find something to fill that void at some point. But it certainly makes you want to find and play games that will give you similar feelings in at least some ways, games made with real soul and passion, for sure.

A proper masterpiece it was, but there is other great stuff out there that maybe you will appreciate more now too 😁

Star Wars Jedi Survivor

The last 3 or 4 hours total combined really picked up the pace with story events and put my frustration at the endless clunky combat at ease, apart from getting stun locked by the final boss when doing really well on my first attempt and not being able to heal 💀 damn you, you clearly coded attempt to punish me for not healing a bit earlier, but 4 or 5 consecutive stun lock hits, come on, guy 😂 also, switching to dual blades and TwinBlade really made combat better overall, and I wish I had stuck with that more through the rest of the game.

The finale has all kinds of possibilities running through my head for the next game, like any good trilogy should. It still tickles me that all the best acted and most interesting Jedi are in games too 😅

@Malaise my experience was hit and miss. I think choosing the right set up for combat helps, as I spent too long with something that just felt worse than the first game. I do kind of wish they were either fully linear games or fully open world games though, as the rogue, metroid whateverlike elements can grate on me sometimes. And the soulslike elements, in a cinematic game with acts and logical progression of a story kind of don't make sense if you accidentally think about them for a millisecond (I mean, I killed all these enemies and now these same enemies are wandering around because I took a nap) But beyond that, it is a really good game and definitely an interesting trilogy worthy tale.

I spread my playthough out quite substantially though, and definitely left gaps where I'd leave it a week and come back for an hour or two. I'd say there's maybe 3 peaks along the journey, not sure if you've reached any yet, so maybe play a bit and wait for a big set piece or whatever and see of it grabs you.

Superliminal & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

Superliminal was a cool little puzzle game. Wouldn't of paid for it personally as it is a bit short and I don't think quite uses the cool perspective stuff to it's full potential but as a game I downloaded through plus extra I really enjoyed it.

As for Shredders's Revenge. It was fine for a beat 'em up. Nothing too fancy. Me and my daughter played it together and had a good time.

@Malaise The way you've described Nobody Wants to Die reminds a bit of Observer: System Redux. Have you played that? It walking simulator-ish but I did enjoy it. There were a couple of clunky segments. It is my one and only Bloober team game (I think), and like what they did with it. They created a fair bit of lore to go with it too, which I appreciated.

@Malaise Soma is decent, I never finished it though as I found it got too samey eventually. Sounds like you may not have that issue though.

Just finished Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves on PS3. It's been a long time coming since I bought the Sly Collection and my PS3 back in 2012, but I've now finally completed all three games. It's such a great feeling as I've wanted to beat all of Sony's three main PS2 era 3D platformers (Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter as well as Sly Cooper) ever since I got my PS3.

As a whole, I think Sly 3 is a good game but I'm unsure if I would call it my favourite in the series. It got a bit too samey towards the end. Granted, the second to last chapter was really interesting where you got to control a ship and sail around islands while engaging in naval battles, sort of like in Assassin's Creed 4. Sly 3 really was ahead of its time in this regard.

The amount of variety in Sly 3 was great as well. It's kinda like Crash 3 where most levels had you do something different. Although it did feel like you weren't playing as much as Sly and whenever I had to do missions as Bentley or Murray, I wanted to play as Sly instead. So I guess that another reason why I ended up not liking Sly 3 as much as I wanted to.

All in all, I'm glad that I managed to finish it as I was about to lose interest in it due to other games. I do want to say that I am looking forward to playing Thieves in Time down the line as I'm curious to see what a PS3 Sly Cooper game looks like.

@LtSarge damn , that’s a bummer to hear . i love sly 3 , even though the gimmicks were treading annoying and overdone territory, & it’s confirmed that the game was rushed and/or didn’t have enough time because the PS3 was coming out soon, so it’s noticeably shorter than sly 2. but yeah , i can see why you wouldn’t enjoy it as much even though i am surprised that you didn’t enjoy playing as murray and bentley, im guessing sly 1 is your favorite ?

(while sly 3 is my personal favorite, i do rank sly 2 as the best in the series ….barely)

@nomither6 It's been so long between each game, but I think Sly 2 is my favourite. It was consistently good from beginning to end if memory serves.

Just finished Maneater on Series X after 9 hours of playtime. I managed to collect all the achievements, which were fairly easy to get. So if you're looking for something relatively easy to Platinum, this would be the perfect game.

Anyway, I got really addicted to this game. So much so that I wanted to do everything in it. It was just a blast to play and my worries that the gameplay would become repetitive did not come to fruition. It was honestly still fun to play towards the end. It could be due to the game's fairly short length. If it had been for example 10 hours longer, I do think I would've gotten tired of it.

@LtSarge ohhh that’s a game I’ve been meaning to try. If only for its absurd dlc cover art.