Topic: Games you've recently beat

@FuriousMachine the credits only truly roll when you've completed the Blood and Wine expansion, so a long way to go for you yet with Hearts of Stone to kick it all off again first. And oh yes, I think you will probably stick with the DLC's, and I'm actually quite jealous that you've yet to experience them as i'd love to be able to experience those for the first time once more 😛 they are removed enough from the main game that they will probably refresh you as you play through them, really well made.

Good luck on the path ⚔️😁

@FuriousMachine Think I sunk just over 400 hours into the base game of The Witcher 3. 😬 Hopefully you will fare better with the dlc, as each time I've tried to get to it I have failed. I think my main issue is that they patched in enemy scaling, so was getting rinsed when I tried to get back into it.

@Ravix Thank you, I will probably be able to start it this evening. Looking forward to it

@JohnnyShoulder The DLC has enemy scaling? Ouch, I was getting used to being a badass witcher cutting through swathes of low level monsters. Well, thankfully, the Death March trophy has been done and mounted, so I can always adjust the difficulty if I run into trouble

@FuriousMachine Oh I thought that was in the base game too, as I've yet to start the dlc. This was a few years ago mind, so maybe getting things mixed up.

@JohnnyShoulder Or they've changed it again, maybe? I don't know whether the quest encounters scale or not, but every monster I've met in the wilds have been easy pickings the last couple of levels. There were some witch hunters in one of the last questlines (the prison break quest to free Rita) that were surprisingly competent, but I have no way of knowing if they were scaled or simply high level badasses by default

@FuriousMachine remember, hearts of stone is the one to do first ⚔️

@JohnnyShoulder

I can't remember if there's scaling, I thought that was a menu toggle. But there are definitely, definitely a few fights that will smack your bare booty if you aren't careful, if I remember rightly (and I do 😅😅) all part of the fun though.

And I now feel compelled to urge you to start the DLC now too. You guys can compare notes then 😁

@Ravix Yeah, I plan to play that to completion before starting Blood & Wine

@Ravix Yeah it's been so long since I last played it I don't remember exactly where I was in the game. I do remember I should be making mincemeat out of these enemies that I was struggling with lol.

I've always sorta planned to go back to it, but whenever I think about it always seems to be the wrong time. As I've recently beaten Shadow of the Erdtree, it won't be for awhile before I play an open world game. And there are few other games I would start before I get to that too. It is on the list before No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 though, which I also want to go back to.

@JohnnyShoulder ah, the dreaded "go back to" is something I know all too well 😅

When I first played TW3 I got stuck in a cave with some spectres and I noped out of it for over a year, I think. Then maybe I finished it but wasn't totally in love with it (I honeslty can't remember the exact timeline when i completed the main game now) but it was only when I'd played RDR2 and realised no other new games would be as good that, that I made my way back to it a third time, to either finish the main game or just do all the DLC's which are basically new games anyway (blurry recollection) but either way, from whenever that point was, I bloody loved the game, and the DLC's were a big part of that, for sure.

I still haven't finished Cyberpunk either ffs 😅 and I went back to that early this year/late last year.

But a good bit of advice that I now follow is, play a game I fell off, for whatever reason, for ten minutes, no commitment, and if I end up playing it for 2 hours then I'm probably back into it, if not, nothing lost, another time it shall be.

Finished Cult of the Lamb (on PS+) last night. Nice palate cleanser after Shadow of the Erdtree. I loved the art and animations and chuckled often. Shocking performance for something that looked like it should run fine on a Switch though - crashed or froze quite often.

@woollypump How many hours to beat? Been a backlog game for a while..

@Ravix @JohnnyShoulder So, I started the Hearts of Stone DLC and I checked that "scaling" was an option and was duly set to "off", I still got in trouble fairly quickly. Scaling or not, the area where this DLC takes place is tough! After having playfully dispatched forktails and arch-griffins and barely having needed a dried fish to recuperate after on Death March difficulty, I now was laid low by a group of Nekkers... NEKKERS! Sheesh.... Then I got trounced by some bandits and, after that, struggled with a handful of boars. Thankfully they weren't wolves... if I'd been hurt by wolves at this point, I fear I would have to hand in my Witcher membership card.
Then I started the first main quest of the DLC, which led me into the sewers with the toad monster, which has got to be the single most frustrating and annoying fight in the entire game! There were a couple of fights in the main game that demanded all my patience, especially the fight with the wraiths while protecting the botchling in the "family matters" quest, but this was a whole new level of annoyance! And just as I prepared to fling my controller through the air, in slow motion, in order to detonate my frustration as it impacted the wall, the sage words of a wise man could be heard over the early fall rain:

So I did that, and all is well
But, yeah, difficulty spike with the Hearts of Stone DLC

@FuriousMachine give the wee toady a kiss 🐸 yeah, it sure is an intro to the DLC. I think the devs perhaps mentioned how they went a bit far with that one 😛 or maybe not.

Level wise it is like starting a new game, so progression will come soon enough and you will probably be back on death March once more. And also, they di reward you for it with everything else in the DLC, so there is that. And thankfully no controllers or walls were harmed 😁

I feel like there's another memorable fight soon enough, if memory serves me, so tag me in when you think you got there haha.

@CJD87 hmmm....counter on the home screen says 28 hours which seems a bit much. I wasn't trophy hunting but I did repeat and complete the harder versions of each area and spent a lot more time playing around with the base building part than you would need to just to beat it. But....I spent more time than I needed to because I was having fun!

@Ravix Oh, the toad got what was coming to him... and that upset some people, apparently. I will deal with them later.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

Kind of disappointing, I won't lie. Given how regularly this tops Castlevania game rankings, I was expecting something special. But it doesn't really do much that other Castlevania games before and after haven't done better. It has none of SotN's atmosphere. Order of Ecclesia featured an improved take on the TSS and also had a much more satisfying difficulty curve. Rondo is still tops for music and density of game design (unlockable characters, multiple unlockable stages, etc.). Bloodlines had more interesting level design.

I hate the generic anime aesthetic of this compared to other Castlevania games at the time (love me some anime, but Castlevania is meant to feel gothic). Having to switch out souls constantly to navigate environmental challenges was a pain (reminded me of the worst parts of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's water dungeon, lol). And the setting was weird. We're inside an eclipse? What does that even mean?

It's a perfectly functional Igavania otherwise, but as Castlevanias go, it's very mid-tier. Not bad, but also not particularly good.

@Ralizah sorry about pinging you in NL, initially, I didn’t expect to see this reposted here. Since I’m more active here this is where I’ll continue the discussion. My original comment was:

@Ralizah wow, already? I haven’t touched AoS in a while. Full disclosure, I’m more of a classicvania fan, but I have some fondness for the NDS era titles. I suppose this one Isn’t worth revisiting based on your commentary, however. Thx 4 the review.

@Yousef- lol no problem. I'm active on both forums. Ping me wherever.

Yeah, it's a short-ish game. Five or so hours to get the true ending. I'm sure you could wring more out of it if you went for all the souls, but I'm not doing that.

I didn't play much of Dawn of Sorrow initially, but I'm a huge fan of Ecclesia and liked what I played of Portrait of Ruin. Excited to eventually get to the Dominus Collection.

Keep in mind my opinion is very much a minority one. It's a popular entry. It just didn't really resonate with me. Not a bad game at all, but not a top-tier Vania for me.

Still Wakes The Deep - Textbook walking simulator, albeit a pretty good one. I think @Malaise covered it well a few pages back. I found the story to be intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying. There’s just not a whole lot to take from it when all is said and done, much like the gameplay. The game really could have benefited from even a few simple puzzles. Climbing ladders, pulling switches and turning valves feels great but nothing is ever done with them outside of simply performing the action.

Where the game absolutely excels is in its performances and the realization of its location. The offshore rig is truly a site to behold and being trapped in such an authentic atmosphere bolstered by strong performances really carried the experience for me. Worth noting I had no bugs or performance issues at all.

Hi-Fi Rush - A real gem. Combat is serviceable but fun, exploration is limited yet rewarding within its economic framework. What blew me away with this one though is its incredibly strong cast of characters and some of the best writing and direction I’ve encountered within the medium. Seriously. It’s genuinely funny, chock full of effective satire and irony, and tells a complete, satisfying and heartwarming tale. The soundtrack is killer (won’t spoil anything here but there’s a pretty great surprise or three) and it’s all polished to a sheen. What a game.

It was a month ago, so not too recent, but the last game I beat was Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the Xbox via Rare Replay. I had played it last year and did a second playthrough because a PX game club voted on it for August last month. I hadn’t done a second play of it, and I remember it being super fun when I first tried it and finished it.

I loved the raunchy humor (though I’ll say it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea) and the colorful and strange cast of characters, paired with the more cinematic approach it took compared to most 3D platformers. To top the hilarity off, there are a lot of parodies and references to films and pop culture popular at the time, and the references are used in relation to the theming of a level in the game and are even used to forward the story. What happens in the game’s storyline is so bizarre, it makes for a super memorable experience, and I’d recommend going into it blind to be surprised at what happens, if you do choose to play it for the first time. It’s so insane, and is truly the weirdest game I have ever played. The content in the game makes it seem like the developers were drunk when making it, and I just love it so much. I actually resonated with the message the game taught right near the end; even though the game is very lighthearted, raunchy and intentionally immature, it has a super interesting message I relate to a lot, but me explaining that is for another day, plus I’ve gone on about that part in other threads.

The controls are more simplified and easier thanks to “context-sensitive” buttons and emphasis on using the B button, meaning the actions the player takes change depending on the context, for example, the player might use the B button for a frying pan, but in another context, the B button might be used to whip out a gun instead. I like the concept of context-sensitive gameplay, and it makes the game easy to learn, but the gameplay is sort of awful.

I had gotten a bit upset while playing it a year ago and found it had a bit of annoying moments. But I had thought it was me playing terribly. Revisiting it, I can say that nope, the game has kinda garbage gameplay and occasionally poor level design. I’d say the gameplay is hit-or-miss, meaning it can be good, or bad. Some levels have poor level design or are too big and repetitive, and while the gameplay shifts are super interesting and fun, the execution of some is poor or janky. The gunplay involved in some of the levels is super hit-or-miss, and the one that stuck out to me the most. Early parts lack aiming reticles, making it hard to aim, but later parts add in reticles, but even with reticles, the aiming is still off at times. There are two segments where you battle against hordes of enemies, and you shoot them inside of a turret, and although those parts had reticles, I had to shoot aimlessly to defeat them instead of shooting precisely from how bad the aiming was. Some parts of the gameplay are poorly designed, the most poorly designed one in my opinion is this racing segment that is put near the end of one level, truly awful when I experienced it. The camera is bad at times, but it’s not super awful, I know there are games that have done way worse in that aspect.

It’s a nice game I absolutely love, but I’ll admit it’s more for the story, cinematics, and characters. Parts of the gameplay feel like an afterthought, since it puts characters and writing up front. I should say that is not a bad thing, as it can make a game super memorable, but the gameplay is probably the most important part of a game, and if it’s fun to play. This game’s gameplay I found was super annoying and outdated, and I think it was the gameplay that made me take so long to do a second playthrough. Still love the game, but probably not going to play it in full again. Luckily there is a remake I have played that fixes some issues with the camera and makes attempts to fix repetition, but the annoying gameplay and level design still remains.