Topic: Games you've recently beat

@Yagami I absolutely agree that the RPG mechanics in Witcher 3 is quite "light" in comparison to other games (and I will also admit that I did get tired of following scent trails, tracks and footprints every third quest or so), but I still enjoyed the total package and I also enjoyed the combat itself. What I mean to say is, it didn't detract from my experience in this instance.
With more involved systems I prefer turn-based RPGs where tactics and strategy rather than my reaction time and precision determines the success of my build.

@Yousef- 5/10 apparently… feels like it’ll seem harder than that to me though, the normal playthrough was bad enough 😅

The demo for Metaphor: ReFantazio.

You can use your magic sword as a skateboard, something that Xenoblade Chronicles never let me do.

10/10

So I've finished Gravity Rush @Th3solution @Yousef- @Ralizah.

It's honestly a bit hard to properly get my thoughts across about this game... Regarding the "plot" mainly.

It almost feels like they made the gravity shifting mechanic first, designed everything else... and then forgot they were making a game and not just a tech demo & had to scramble together anything they had to make a story.

It just... Randomly goes places. It's not even say like a TV show where there's a "monster of the week" episode or ten but then there's the overarching series wide narrative too.

I do get there's an actual overarching narrative and it's clearly setting things up for the next game but it doesn't really come together and mesh well if that makes any sense?

It's... Kinda like they made a prologue. A 10-15 hour long prologue and part of me wishes that it actually was maybe an hour or two instead and was the beginning few hours of the sequel.

I've never felt so conflicted before and it's because of the set up that IS there. If the game's narrative was just say the Alias stuff or D'nellica then ya know it'd be fine, throwaway maybe or even bad but I'd be completely okay with it.

But there is actual mysteries and lore and something ACTUALLY intriguing here and it aggravates me how it's completely glossed over!

Gameplay wise aside from statis (Which feels so clunky and annoys me to no end) it's really good.

And as I already stated in the previous thread I love Kat as a character. Watching the overture anime shorts made me love her even more. But also made me appreciate Raven too.

Also I have a minor complaint in regards to the voice acting in that I wish there was more of it. I don't care that it's a made up language, I really like that, but there's just not enough.

It also really reminds me of the Klonoa games. Can't say much without spoilers but the fictional language and the actual few interesting plot points GR has really reminds me of that series...

Anyway yeah. Mixed thoughts on Gravity Rush mainly cus of the plot related stuff. Otherwise I've really enjoyed it and I've actually gone straight into the sequel (Mainly cus I have 7 days left of PS plus and I'm not renewing that free subscription so... Got some gaming to do!)

@HallowMoonshadow "It almost feels like they made the gravity shifting mechanic first, designed everything else"

That's EXACTLY how it feels, and I kind of love it. It's a very Nintendo way of designing a game.

You'll probably like the second game more if the lack of narrative heft bothered you in the original. For me, the original is a perfect little game to play: compact enough to not feel like a massive time investment, but big enough to feel exploratory, and, aside from those accursed stealth segments, always gameplay-centered, which you rarely get from Sony.

@HallowMoonshadow I don’t really engage with anime anymore (and was never much of an anime connoisseur to begin with), so I didn’t know whether GR’s story was just typical anime randomness or if it was legitimately poorly constructed. I often find it hard to follow and keep interest in the anime storytelling style, and I’m sure those from Japan have a difficult time or don’t enjoy Western style narratives. Both GR games have unusual storylines, but the second game has more content and direction, so hopefully you enjoy it more. I’m really curious what think of it and if you’re going to be able to finish it within the week. 😄

Just finished Persona 5 Strikers on Switch after 35 hours of playtime. This was quite honestly the best Persona spinoff I've played and even one of the best spinoff games I've played in general. I mean, it truly felt like a Persona experience but with real-time combat instead of turn-based. And well, without the social aspect the series is known for but there were still tons of interactions with the characters. Being able to call on Personas during real-time battles and using them to attack the enemies' weaknesses was really cool. It makes me curious to see what an actual mainline game would look like with real-time combat.

One of the scenes towards the end of the game was truly impactful for me. I even took a screenshot of one of the lines, which I'm never going to forget: "By acknowledging weakness, humans can begin the path to changing themselves". This is why I love Persona and video games in general. I mean, Persona 4 Golden had a huge impact on me back when I was in university and now Persona 5 Strikers has had a huge impact on me today. It's just awesome how video games are able to have such meaningful messages in their stories.

I do have one gripe with the game and it's the difficulty level. It was seriously all over the place from beginning to end. I started off on Normal and it felt okay until the first boss which completely destroyed me and the rest of my party. So I lowered the difficulty to Easy, which was too easy. Then I kept it on Easy and it suddenly got much more challenging in the third dungeon. It also didn't help that a lot of the stuff that aids you are locked behind Requests, such as weapons and armour. This aspect didn't ruin the game for me, but it could've made the overall experience so much better.

All in all, I really enjoyed this game and it was really cool to experience a Persona spinoff that made me feel like I was playing a mainline game. If you liked Persona 5, you absolutely have to play Strikers.

So, in unintentional Halloween fashion, I finished both the Leon and Claire playthroughs of Resident Evil 2 Remake. It was a game I've been interested in trying out for a long time now, but I was never sure if I would really mesh with survival horror. This was my first exposure to that genre and part of my quest to step a bit outside of my comfort zone... and I had a great time! I won't be surprising anyone here by saying that it's a great game, so I'll leave all that by the wayside and just mention some personal experiences I had with it.

I was always scared that ammo scarcity would become a big pain up my butt since I don't pride myself on particularly accurate aiming. And this did not end up proving me wrong, as I still missed too many head shots to count. I realised quickly however that the game was very good about giving me ammo when I would most need it and that the ammo scarcity, at least on normal difficulty, is highly overblown for its reputation. Once I acknowledges that there'll be a slow but constant stream of ammo coming my way no matter what I did, I stopped feeling that hesitation as much and was able to just enjoy shooting the zombies to bits whenever I felt like it.

I believe that Claire is seen as the easier playthrough by the fandom? Maybe it's a good thing that I played her first in this case. The grenade launcher was a delight to make the hardest enemies almost trivial. Can't say it helped me much with certain bosses where the game prefers I do some accurate aiming at eyes, but I had a good time using it to make my way through the hordes of zombies or lickers coming my way. I also found it funny that while I dreaded entering the final boss fight for her run, the game just gives you a minigun right before he enters which ends up making the whole fight rather trivial. I just needed one more shot from one of my other weapons to end up finishing him off.

Leon's run was definitely a bit harder, but I imagine part of that was also due to it being my second go around. Mr. X seemed (annoyingly) way more present than he ever was with Claire, and the zombies took a bit more of a beating in general. I was also not very good in dealing with the final Mr. X boss fight, but I got there in the end when I remembered that grenades existed. Before that boss fight, I mostly used those on accident while trying to use a knife, haha.

Finally, I'd like to say that I wasn't even sure if I should do the second run at first. I googled for a while to see if people said it was worth it to play through it again as the other protagonist, but the general consensus I read was that it can be fairly repetitive and just weapons/enemy spawns are switched around a bit. I don't know if I was reading misinformation, because while that's true to some degree, the campaigns had such different feels from both boss fights to entire sections of the game playing completely different. The whole middle section with Ada for example is a big departure from what you're doing as Claire at that point in the game. I think there was enough new content mixed in with the repeating stuff that the second run felt different from the first and definitely worth playing for anyone who enjoyed it the first go around.

Therefore, if you haven't yet done your second run, I'd definitely recommend it! If you haven't played the game at all and are unsure about survival horror like myself, do give it a shot. If anyone has any recommendations for what a good follow-up could be in the survival horror genre, I'm all ears! Aside from obviously the other entries of the series of course, haha.

@Tjuz Thanks for sharing that; I'm pretty much in the same boat. Been wanting to get into it, but I too have been worried about getting frustrated by ammo scarcity. So happy to hear that it might not be an issue

I finished The Gardens Between, a short, but fun, puzzler that I finished in one evening (apart from picking up the last trophies for the plat, which I did tonight). The puzzles were maybe a bit on the easy side, but it was a very laidback experience and a decent palate cleanser between huge AAA games.

I did start Until Then as planned, but it is slow going. It's very much a visual novel, but I'm having a hard time getting past the weird language. It's difficult to tell whether it's just poorly translated or if it's just the way kids talk today, but I'm guessing it's a bit of both. Probably mostly poor translation, though. It's slow going and the story hasn't really connected yet, so this might be a DNF. Will give it another couple of tries before bailing, though.

I just finished my first play through in Silent Hill 2 Remake last night. It was quite fantastic, and easily one of my favorite games of the year, if not my favorite. After I completed it and got the “In the water” ending, I reloaded my save and got the two additional mainline endings, which added a lot of interesting context to a powerful story. I’m looking forward to getting the three remaining endings only obtainable by NG+, and hopefully get the platinum trophy while I’m at it.

I've beaten Gravity Rush 2 @Ralizah @Th3solution @Yousef- with one day left before my PS+ ran out.

Racing through it sadly so I never got to breathe it all in and let it simmer as much as I would've preferred like I got to do for GR 1 (Which I did actually get the platinum for). That's on me though of course and not starting the two games earlier.

I did actually look at physical prices to potentially do it on my own time instead and not have to worry about a deadline but uhh... I was not paying £35 ~ £50 to finish it off at a more leisurely pace

Honestly I think I feel a bit more conflicted about GR2 then I did for the first.

I might even be tempted to ramble on about my time wth games in a review to properly get out all my thoughts regarding them and the series as a whole.

I will say this. I love Kat still and playable Raven was awesome.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - good old fashioned swashbuckler of a game. Nothing fancy, and the combat is bang-average but… the environment acrobatic &/or power puzzles are great.

A perfect change of pace after Dead Space 3… well, I say ‘after’… I have a few missions left on my final playthrough but fancied something a bit different today.

@HallowMoonshadow I would love to read some deeper thoughts about your journey through GR1&2, if you ever decide to expound on it. No pressure.

I am glad you finished it, which is more than could be said for me. It’s a big game and you would probably get good value in playing it again if you really liked it. I don’t remember if I still have my physical copy or not. Might have sold it, which I regret now, even though I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to it.

Doki Doki Literature Club (PS5)

I remember reading the reviews when this came to playstation and being curious enough about it for it to stay on my radar but never bothered enough to want to purchase it so when it joined the PS+ catalogue I thought I'd find out what the fuss was all about...

Now I'm not one who has much experience with visual novels or has any real affinity for this style of animation so I'll start off by saying that I'm probably not the target audience for this "game". After maybe 2-3 hours I was decidedly bored by the experience. Visual novels = just a whole load of subtitles and pressing the X button. At least it had an auto mode so I could just watch a half hour while having a cup of tea without having to hold the joypad. The only interactive element was where I had to choose words from a list in order to compose a poem in order to impress whichever anime girl I was trying to get closer to... Yeah.

Anyway, after four or five hours it ends and... Wow. So that's what the spoilers and content warnings are about. OK so that was kind of what I expected and then... It wasn't. The hour or two after it ends or at least after act 1 ends is easily the best bit. Though it is just more reading really, it does get impressively weird. Then I get to see the proper end and I kind of appreciate it a bit more and, to be fair, understand what the creator was going for. So kind of glad I stuck with it just so I'm now in the know but probably wouldn't want to see a sequel.

Then I checked a trophy guide and was how easy it would be to obtain the platinum and even though it was only a couple more hours of mostly skipping the game and making different choices or whatever it still felt pretty tedious.

So overall, didn't enjoy the game for about 5 hours, kind of liked the reveal for an hour or two then was bored by a couple of hours of trophy clean-up. Certainly wouldn't recommend it but don't entirely regret it either. I'll give it a meh out of ten.

@sorteddan I added the game to my library thanks to Plus however I have never done a visual novel such as yourself so I'm on the fence on it because just like your review, the consensus seems to be just that.

I played and completed Resident Evil Zero(PS4 Remaster) for the first time and it was overall a 7 out of 10 for me. It's definitely a Resident Evil game with beautiful visuals and audio when it picks up, however the tank controls after while got annoying as well as the many back-and-forth sections. Add that if the annoying puzzles that aren't difficult but instead are just time-consuming and tedious. I've been noticing that games with crappy puzzles really break the overall immersion of the gaming experience and this game had a plenty.

Will be playing the PS4 Remaster of Resident Evil, so hoping it's a little better in some aspects.

@sorteddan I was bored senseless by after about 90 mins with it recently. Defo not for me and has put me off trying more visual novels in the future.

Just finished off the main story on Brutal Legend and… I loved it fair play. So much originality and creativity in all of its aspects. Art design akin to Tim Burton at his best, sound track included so many awesome tracks (and I ain’t even into metal!), incredible cast of voice talent and the RTS battle gameplay was such a nice change from the usual hack-and-slash combat that would usually be part of a game like this (although I do like that too).

I’ve heard rumblings of a potential Brutal Legend sequel recently and I’d be so down 🤘

Anything that has Tim Curry in is usually quite the treat just for him alone @colonelkilgore (And he's actually done quite a few video games) nevermind legends like Ozzy, Lemmy (RIP) and the bunch of other metal artists.

Always liked it myself so good to hear you had a good time with it as well!

@HallowMoonshadow yeah it was Tim Curry that caused me to check IMDb, I recognised his voice but had a mental-block on who it was… perfect casting!