Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Pastellioli I’m somewhat warming up to context sensitivity as time goes on. With retro games, I absolutely adore “weird ideas”. But CC made Conker feel like a series of isolated fetch quests and a mini gamer simulator rather than a cohesively mechanic game. It’s fine if your game is plot driven, but I’m not sure if this was the way to do it.

@Yousef- Yeah, I really REALLY love Conker but I just think the gameplay was really bad and mediocre. It’s the characters and writing that overshadow that aspect and why a lot of people don’t talk about how bad the gameplay is, because the main selling point of Conker was it being raunchy and an M-rated game disguising itself as a kids game visually. I found it to be a great subversion and deconstruction of Rare’s own platformer games, but it focuses on the plot and writing a bit too much it forgets about the gameplay. An equal balance of the two would have made it a 10/10 game for me, but there’s little polish with some of the gameplay it makes it super annoying to play through. Banjo does both characters and gameplay well, and it felt equally balanced, but Conker does so bad with the latter in my opinion. There’s a prehistoric caveman level that occurs later in the game that shines in how awful its tasks and design are. I can tell the game developers had so many creative ideas, but unfortunately some are so poorly done.

I gave it a 9/10, but I think I’m bumping it back to an 8/10. I didn’t realize until now that the gameplay was this mediocre.

I finally beat Black Myth Wukong, and defeated all bosses and secret areas. It was an incredible experience top to bottom, and the true ending was a real spectacle to behold. I just started a NG+ to mop up the few trophies I have left for the platinum.

@Pastellioli Conker would d benefited from more like Ratchet & Clank, where stuff you gathered where straight up added to your arsenal as opposed to serving a weak gimmick. (Again, these large words coming from me. I’ve played my fair share of “weird” games so I’m not exactly unfamiliar).
With Conker being an M-rated game with a cartoony style, it has unfathomably high potential for a diverse toolset, even potentially moreso than the T-rated R&C (not to insinuate that a T-rating is a limitation or anything psychotic like that).

@Yousef- Yeah, the gameplay had so much potential to be extremely fun, and I can see what you are saying. Some of the gameplay mechanics Conker has are gimmicky, and some of them could have worked if they had tried to make it not so repetitive, janky, and poor. It’s that it had a focus on characters too much that they just forgot to make it actually fun to play at times. Usually a lot of the gameplay mechanics and actions you use throughout the game only occur once and don’t happen again.

I also forgot to mention it, but some of the bosses are too boring to fight against, mostly from how there is little change they add during the other phases to spice things up. The only boss I can think of that did have some sort of change during its second and third phases was the boss during the war chapter changing the weapons they used, but that’s sort of it. The only other changes for some is that they take more hits to defeat rather than one. The bosses were super quirky and interesting with their character and personalities (The Great Mighty Poo being the quirkiest and most memorable boss) but they aren’t really fun to battle against from how little they try to make them challenging.

Just finished BioShock 2 on PS5. Gonna be honest, the final area dragged on a bit too long and the gameplay got a bit repetitive towards the end. If it had been a few hours shorter, then it would've been the perfect length considering not much new is introduced in like the final six or seven hours of the game.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the game and found it to be tons of fun. I actually liked the story as well once everything fell into place at the end. I also got the good ending for saving everyone, which is nice.

In terms of story, I enjoyed BioShock 1's more. But in terms of gameplay, BioShock 2's was definitely more enjoyable for me. Either way, I'm glad to have finally gotten to play this game. Looking forward to starting up Minerva's Den DLC soon!

Scott Pilgrim

Honestly If I didn't learn how to get infinite money and boost my stats to max level I would've dropped it.

Even then I didn't find it a particularly fun beat 'em up and was quite the slog.

Tinykin

On the other hand I really enjoyed my time with it. A fun collectathon platfomer with Pikmin elements. Even got the platium for it (Never went out my way for it mind you, just came naturally from doing every stage).

A nice breezy 10 hours and was just a great time.

I assume that's Reload you're talking about and not one of the many other versions of P3 @Malaise?

Had you played it before back on PS2/PSP or was this your first time with it?

Any interest in The Answer/Episode Aigis dlc that released yesterday @Malaise?

I've become a little less enthusiastic as time has gone on for Metaphor and I'm not entirely sure to be honest. If anything it should tick my boxes even more then persona but... I dunno.

@HallowMoonshadow for me it's the marketing that's increasingly coming off as desperate. It looks cool but it also looks the same as P5R just with cooler styles.

Dragon Age is also starting to look promising but also has a pretty desperate seeming marketing campaign. So I'm just going to wait for both to get reviews before choosing which I buy.

Finished off Final Fantasy XIII this afternoon and thought it was excellent overall. Yes, it is too linear for the first half (2/3’s maybe) but I thought it had so much going for it other than a lack of non-linearity that it didn’t spoil it for me at all really.

The narrative and characters were good I thought, the art design and OST were stellar and the combat… hmmm ☺️ the combat. The main worry I had when going in was the fact that this was my first Final Fantasy game without real-time action combat (having only played VII Remake, XV & XVI previously) but I thought it was incredible!👨‍🍳’s ****ing 💋! Definitely gonna be playing XIII-2 and Lightning Returns in the next couple of years now (something I wasn’t planning on doing previous to starting this) and just feel far more confident that I’ll end up enjoying pretty much all of the remaining Final Fantasy games in my backlog. Banger!

This morning I beat Ys: Memories of Celceta on the Vita. I got most trophies, and it only took me 35 hours for a full map completion. I plan on starting a NG+ run for the platinum, which should only take me 10 hours or less, considering I’ve done everything else and can blitz through the main story. It’s an excellent game, by the way. I shall be starting Ys IX today (I already got the platinum for Ys VIII).

@colonelkilgore hope you enjoy XIII-2 mate. It has my favorite story and dialogue. Though it’s a big shift in tone, not that it hurts the game.

But word of advice, if you get to a certain Live Trigger, pick the dialogue option “He’s like this really cool guy!”, you wont regret it.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)

This one seems to be the black sheep of the GBA Vanias. My feelings on it are decidedly mixed. While I probably enjoyed it more overall than Aria of Sorrow, this one has its own host of weird issues. The game doesn't explain its own mechanics very well (still don't understand why dashing is mapped the way it is, lol), features a number of aggravating design choices that add underdeveloped puzzle mechanics to a formula that arguably doesn't need them, and while I liked the treatment of its two-castle system in some respects (it's integral to the game, and feels less like padding than it did in Symphony of the Night), that system definitely also made long stretches of the game feel like a drag to get through.

The story is potentially interesting, but as with many older Vanias, it doesn't do enough to actually develop its cast. It benefits from having such a tiny cast, though.

I'd say it's probably my favorite of the GBA games, just on the strength of its unique aspects, and because I actually really liked playing an Igavania where you simply use a whip the entire way through, like in the classic games. But still a very 7/10 experience at best. Too much of it ends up feeling like a poor man's Symphony of the Night. That game has a lot of the same issues (which is caused by HoD aping many aspects of SotN's design), but it also has an unmatched sense of atmosphere and a decent soundtrack.

Saw all three endings. Not quite 100%, since I couldn't be bothered to hunt down the last few pieces of furniture (you collect furniture in this game and decorate a room in the castle for some reason), but I got reasonably close.

@Ralizah I never finished Harmony of Dissonance. I think I got about 1/3 way in before I stopped playing. I do remember enjoying it more than Circle of the Moon because of how challenging that game was and how much more forgiving HoD is compared to it. I'm definitely going to play through it eventually as well as Aria of Sorrow. Love me some Metroidvanias. Although I'm mostly looking forward to the DS games.

@LtSarge It's kind of funny. Metroid flourished during the GBA era but withered on NDS, whereas I would argue all of the GBA Castlevania games feel like rough drafts compared to the superior NDS entries.

Finished the amazing Astro Bot yesterday. If you don't have this game, you need to get it!

Star Wars Outlaws after a decent 78 hours. I really enjoyed my time with the game and was quite surprised of how likeable the heist crew became. The story was okay, too, with a few twists and turns along the way including a very good scene with a Star Wars icon.
Gonna wrap up the trophies for a plat.

@ApostateMage Happy to hear that you enjoyed it! I expect I will end up enjoying it myself when I get around to it. It really seems like a game for me, even if it maybe isn't the most groundbreaking game of all time... I'm of the opinion that not every game needs to be

@FuriousMachine Preach, just like not every game has to be an original IP or doing something innovative. None of these things are bad of course, but are not the be all and end all for some to find a game enjoyable.

@JohnnyShoulder Definitely! I do wish that I was one of those guys who needed every game to be an original IP, innovative and groundbreaking, though... my backlog would be smaller