Topic: Games you've recently beat

Just beat Abzu. I was using this as a diversion from intense combat based gaming. At first I thought it was pretty lame, but I knew it was only a 3-4 hr game so I figured I’d stick with it. I finished it over about 4 short play sessions. The ending does really make it worthwhile. The last 4 chapters are better than the early ones. It really started to pick up when you get into the really really deep sea with all the weird fish. Then the end is very mesmerizing and fun, in a mindless sort of way, the swimming through the water and jumping is like ballet with the fish and the classical music is very nice. I thought it was a Flower knock off at first, but it has a slightly different vibe, despite definitely being inspired by it. In the end though, it’s not for everyone, but I’m glad I played it. I somehow feel more environmentally conscious now. 😋

Legends is great (I'd have the platinum already if it wasn't for that ultra-grindy online trophy), but I feel like it's a much less focused experience than Origins was. It feels like a level pack.

But yeah, both games are still top ten platformers for me.

I beat Rayman Legends with my wife in coop and I think that's the best game we've played together. The only game that can challenge it is Overcooked. Wish there's a sequel for both of these games.

@Kidfried It's a valid preference, but that sort of design makes a game less satisfying for me. My favorite platformers (SMB3, Galaxy, Sunshine, Rayman Origins, etc.) all have a rhythm and strong internal logic to how the levels progress. They feel like proper adventures.

Just beat RiME. Beautiful game.
Was going to initially get this on Switch, but the performance issues put me off. As it went on PS+ I figured I'd give it a shot & even though it still didn't run great, I would've paid money for it.

Tequila Works with The Sexy Brutale and RiME, 2 games I wasn't overly excited for, but 2 games I ended up absolutely loving.
They are definitely on my watch list now. Can't wait to see what's next.

@Fight_Teza_Fight I enjoyed Rim too, it was a nice quite chilled game to play.

Sexy Brutale was only partially developed by Tequila Works though and was mainly developed by Cavalier Game Studios. Tequila were only brought in after a couple of years of the game being in development.

@JohnnyShoulder oh yeah I knew that. I didn’t have any big hopes for a ‘Tequila Works’ game. There were some pretty bad stories floating around over Tequila Works, when Sony apparently took back the dev kits during RiMEs early development.

Whether true or not, they did have a hand in two games I really enjoyed.
Going to give them the benefit of doubt moving forwards.

Remember all the Sony fanboys when they declared RiME as a really bad game just because Sony decided to cut the ties with it? How wrong they were, just as all the die-hard fanboys are. If only could people consider themselves as gamers and just play and enjoy all the games, regardless of the platform.

I finished Rime last week. Did another couple of playthroughs for the platinum, too. It's the best Ueda game that Ueda never made.

Completed Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure on 3DS. Very 'blah' game, aside from the great animated cutscenes. SEGA was trying to make a rhythm game equivalent of Professor Layton and clearly failed. Very little development for the characters, the main plot is disappointing, the ending clears up almost nothing, and, for some reason, I had a much harder time getting into the rhythm of the various mini-games on display (although I did like the violin ones).

@KratosMD Yeah, I was sure I would love it. And, to be fair, it makes a good first impression, as the rhythm games are kind of funny the first time through, the animated cutscenes are, as I said, quite fetching, and it seems like it's building up an interesting mystery. The game CONSTANTLY repurposes and recycles mini-games, though, and the plot... blegh. The disappointing ending was the clincher for me. I get holding back all explanations if you're building up to a subsequent game (as this very clearly was), but to barely even address the central mystery driving the main character's actions... it came off as poorly written to me. It's like the game just needed to end, and they hadn't prepared a proper ending, so after the climax, the characters launch into another rhythm mini-game and BOOM! end credits roll. Granted, there's an after-credits cutscene, but it was still pretty gutting.

There are aspects I want to like. For example, you'll frequently need to record sounds in the in-game environment to overcome an obstacle of some sort. This might be a fun little puzzle if the game didn't always always put a big fat exclamation point on the area you need to go to to record the sound. If I don't have to deduce anything, it's not puzzle-solving so much as it is busywork.

Well, whatever. This game has been in my backlog for years, and I've always wanted to get around to it, so at least there's that.

Yes! Nail on the head dude! Rime pleasantly surprised me throught.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah it was more substantial than I thought it was going to be, both gameplay and story wise. The ending caught me by surprise, big time

I have just finished Dark Souls 3. It took me around 35 hours with some idling, and in the even I was level 90. There was only one optional boss at the very end of the game which I haven't beaten because I couldn't be bothered to do it.

Comparing ds3 to dks2 scholar of the first sin ds3 has better gameplay and levels are more balanced, but personally I like the story of dks2 more and there was more variety in level design.

What's curious to me is that it took me 48 hours and 129 levels to beat dks2 scholar of the first sin, without the DLCs but it took me only 35 hours and 90 levels in dks3. That's a pretty big difference. Anyway, I'm going to play Nioh now, so I'll hopefully compare it in the future.

@KratosMD In terms of gameplay advancements and sheer ambition, G/S/C are probably my favorite games in the series. They took such massive steps from the rudimentary first gen games, and being able to explore Kanto again is still easily the coolest open secret in the entire series.

Just finished God of War - at least the story and the majority of all the collectibles anyway...

@BAMozzy And ....
I’m waiting for the “This was the best PS4 game I’ve ever played.” Or “This game has been somewhat over rated.”
I think I saw a comment maybe it was you saying the game was good but not “perfect” so after completing it, is that the final impression? Did the ending make it better or worse? (Without spoilers of course)

@Th3solution The reason I didn't go further was the game is only 4 days old and I didn't want to go into any details or explain my viewpoint. Anyway to try and give my opinion without spoiling, the fact that many reviewers do rate it as a 'perfect' 10/10 game and I think it has a few flaws, I do think its over-rated as its not a 10/10 game. Its an excellent, well above average game but I would give it a 9/10 at most! In my opinion though, that does make it the best God of War game ever.

Some of the reason for this though cannot be explained without spoiling it. This is partly why I didn't want to say more because if someone were to ask why, I can only give part of the reason without spoiling - some of that does come down to some restrictions whilst playing (I would again go into details but again may spoil things) but at this point I can't say more. I don't even want to talk about the story yet as its still to early but I do think a lot of reviewers may well of just rushed through it on a relatively easy setting and based their review on that rather than the game and 'everything' as a package.

It certainly plays well (on the whole) - I had a few big frame rate drops on transitioning from cut-scene to game-play but I was playing in 'favour resolution' mode on my Pro and these were short lived. It does look visually good too so no complaints there but that's all I can say right now.

I would definitely recommend buying and its a great game overall.

@BAMozzy Awesome! That’s a good spoiler-free report. Is it in your top 3 PS4 games? Better than Witcher 3? Better than UC4? Better than Horizon Zero Dawn?

@Th3solution Definitely not better than the Witcher 3 for me - that's still the best game of this generation. I preferred Horizon: Zero Dawn as it felt much fresher and with more 'freedom' too. UC4 was a great game but as a fan of the series, the Story and some aspects were a bit of a let down. I would say God of War is up there with those though amongst the best exclusives you can buy. Its a big step up too from the past GoW games too so don't get me wrong, it is a great game. I really can't say more though as I have no intention of spoiling it for others.