Topic: Games you've recently beat

Gal*Gun 2 (Switch):
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PROS:

• The writing and character interaction are far more in depth here than they were in the previous game, Double Peace. You get a lot more time with each of the main girls, and these dialogues are the highlight of the game.
• The vacuum mechanic was an interesting addition to the gameplay.
• Motion controls are well-implemented, even if I wish they had been mapped to the right joycon instead.
• In general, the game just looks nicer than the previous entry in the series. Very few of the static VN-esque sequences in favor of dialogues that take place with the 3D models. It was a nice change.

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CONS:

• No Doki-Doki mode. Something resembling it is included as a pointless extra when you meet with girls whose phone numbers you have, though. It was replaced by a mechanic where you stare into a girl's eyes to cause her to explode in euphoria, which is so slow a process that it is pretty much useless.
• In Double Peace, you had to rack up high enough scores in each stage to have a chance of seeing the true ending for whichever girl's path you were on, meaning there was a large incentive to continually replay the game and learn the stages, but here, it doesn't matter what your score is, meaning you never have to learn how to effectively target weak spots and whatnot to see all of this game's content. This means there's no disincentive to just shooting girls with the gun randomly, removing the skill component of the game almost entirely. Now score only matters in score attack mode.
• Each playthrough of the game is too long. Double Peace was short but sweet, and you could easily run through its handful of stages in a night. This game is much broader in structure, though, making the player follow quest chains and generally tacking on several hours worth of gameplay and dialogue to each run. But the game is too simple to really support an 8+ hour playthrough.
• Adding different objectives for some stages was an interesting concept, but it fails in execution. A rail shooter should stay a rail shooter. I hated the levels where you had to pixel hunt.

Still fun, but I think it's a weaker game than its predecessor.

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Teslagrad (PSVita):
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PROS:

• The emphasis on completing environmental puzzles by manipulating electromagnetic forces was an interesting idea.
• The game has a lovely aesthetic. It's very nice to look at.

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CONS:

• Finnicky controls when manipulating your electromagnetic superpowers.
• It's designed like a Metroidvania, but it FEELS like a very linear game, outside of some obnoxious forced backtracking near the end of the game.
• Many of the rooms felt poorly designed and were a chore to complete.
• Bosses aren't particularly memorable.
• I feel like there's supposed to be some sort of narrative here, but the presentation of it is terrible, if so.
• Music is also forgettable. I'm struggling to even remember if there was any.
• Game pads out its length by forcing you to backtrack and find a bunch of random knick-knacks near the end.

Disappointing.

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Rayman 2: The Great Escape (PSOne Classic on PS Vita):
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PROS:

• Large and varied levels with some great design touches.
• Rayman controls very nicely, considering the age of this game.
• As with other games in the series, I like how Rayman slowly builds up his repertoire of skills.
• I like the unlockable side-scrolling mini-game after the credits roll. It's a cool extra.
• Good length. Doesn't overstay its welcome.

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CONS:

• The powered-up attack takes so long to build up that it feels useless in most situations.
• It's a bit janky sometimes, but no moreso than most games of that generation.
• Stages where you have to slowly drag and throw objects somewhere else are a chore.
• One level in particular is, like, 30 minutes long. Total drag.
• Boss encounters aren't especially impressive.
• The ending just kind of... happens.
• Terrible voice acting.

While there's not a lot of different things to praise the game for, I feel like it does well what it sets out to do, and, in general, was pretty fun to play. This is apparently the worst and most different version of the game, so I'm curious to try it out on another system one day. Preferably the Dreamcast version, which seems to be the most universally praised.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle: the Alchemists & the Mysterious Paintings (Switch) - A decent JRPG that drags on for what it is. I liked the battle system (and I'll note it has some surprisingly awesome boss designs), and it was rewarding making something powerful with alchemy (though I'll admit I didn't really get into this aspect, which is a shame considering the time you spend synthesizing), but for a game without much of an epic quest (while there were a couple chapters with more weighty material, it's mostly "cute girls doing cute things" with a slice of life structure) I felt like it should have been half as long as it was, at least for a base run through (I got the "bad" ending, which really wasn't that bad things considered, and it still took me 65 hours). I did get a bit emotional with a few of the side quest lines, though!

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch) - Played in original mode (never had a Wii U, so it was new to me!). Very fun platformer, and the only DKC game I've completed since the original (had DKCR, but our Wii started bugging out before I could complete it). I haven't done all the post game stuff, but I've completed the K levels & found most puzzle pieces in the first three worlds (not the biggest fan of world 4 so that's sort of where I left off in terms of revisiting things). Level design & visual variety was fantastic.

@KratosMD Extraction is second to DS1 for my favorite game in the series, especially if you play the "Severed" DLC for DS2 afterward (basically a short sequel). I remember really liking the characters and story more than anything, and the gameplay was a nice chance of pace (having not played a rail shooter since Time Crisis in the early 2000s LOL). Enjoy!

@KratosMD Yeah that scene totally freaked me out! I think I almost puked up!

Can't remember if it was from the first or second game, but there is a section when you go back to an earlier section, and nothing happens for ages. I remember the music being really good and was a really tense part of the game!

Mega Man 10 on the Switch on Normal difficultly. Tried to resist using checkpoint saves, but the urge was too great. The few that I did use were early in the game.

Managed to mop up Titanfall 2 single player campaign on XB1 and also just finished Oxenfree on Switch. Absolutely loved Oxenfree - one of my favourite games I've played this year.

I've just finished Star Wars The Force Unleashed via backwards compatibility on my Xbox One X. I have had it for years and just not got round to playing it. It was quite a decent game although it certainly shows its age in the graphics department.

Just a couple of recent completions.

Forgotton Anne A simple adventure-lite game. On the whole I enjoyed the story, which has very interesting themes, but it is let down by some poor voice acting and one or two hammy scenes. The controls are also a little sluggish. Very beautiful visuals.

Bloodstained Curse of the Moon I really enjoyed this! 8-bit styled in the vein of classic Castlevania, with great pixel art and well composed chip-tune style music. It shines on the gorgeous Vita screen. The game has very tight controls and nice varied level design. Additionally the difficulty scales well as you progress, and it is never controller-breaking rage-inducing difficult. You can control up to four characters (with instantaneous switching) - each has different abilities enabling exploration of alternate routes, which I enjoyed. I will replay this as there are a few different modes and ways of playing the game.

@KratosMD the Ishimura is awesome. And returning to it in DS2 was a real treat.

@Kidfried Just finished the game as well and really loved it. I understand that a ticking clock in a puzzle adventure game provides an undesired stress factor but think it was implemented very well here. For me the thrill of discovering a new secret just before midnight and start over with the new information was really satisfying.

The style and audio is where the game really stands out IMO.

I finished Firewatch. It was a nice little game. Short but engaging. The story kept my interest, despite a limited gameplay. Voice acting was top notch.
My one complaint was the technical hiccups. There was frame studdering, load times that were just too long for a simple game like this, texture pop in, floating objects, and just poor performance overall. It was not game breaking until the end, when my save file must have been corrupted in the last chapter during auto-save. It just had an infinite loading loop when I tried to pull up the save. I panicked until I remembered my PS4 auto-uploads my saves to the cloud everynight, so I just downloaded the cloud save from night before and just had to repeat about 20 minutes of the game, which is better than having to start over. Unfortunately these kinds of issues shouldn’t be happening so it tainted what was otherwise turning into a great experience. Since I limped through to the end this way, the story’s climax wasn’t quite as impactful because of the disruption of having to reload and repeat.

@Kidfried Poor man Splatoon and the Bunker? I thought the Bunker was the best FMV game I ever played.

@Th3solution The same thing happened to me with Firewatch. Unfortunately loading a save from the cloud didn't fix it for me.

That was a couple of years ago, surprised they haven't released a patch to fix it.

Kirby Star Allies

Bethesda is there to give us quality fps campaigns.

It's barely a game with two small choices, but I just finished Neki-NinExHeart (all ages V.). Awesome visual novel. Fun story and completely adorable. It was a little short, but it was worth it.

I've just finished Uncharted The Lost Legacy and I have to say that this is my favorite one and I think this is the best uncharted game! I had no expectations whatsoever going into it and I was blown away by the game. What really stood out for me were characters and their interactions and conversations. In the past uncharted games I didn't care that much for characters, as it was just over the top globe trotting adventure game, but here it was much more meaningful. Even the main villain was interesting. I'm so sad that I've finished it. I'd like to play the next one immediately, so that's a testament for the game.

In some situations Chloé was just like Lara Croft

@KratosMD It will be interesting to hear what you think of Far Cry 2. I know a few people that thought it was the best one ever, but I found some aspects of it really annoying. Really liked 3 and 4 though.

Finished VA-11 HALL-A last night. Working as a bartender is a great way of storytelling and the rewards for remembering details are neat.
A lot of references to modern and classic movies and tv-shows (even The Simpsons) and overall great dialogue. Throw in a challenging shoot ‘m up minigame and you have yourself a great cocktail of bartending sim and visual novel.

I did experience some technical hiccups during my two playthroughs (including two crashes where I had to restart a whole day) but nothing that ruined the experience.

i just beat God of War, well the story anyway i still have some side stuff to do and i recently finished the Royal Edition DLC for FINAL FANTASY XV and it added a LOT to the end game, more bosses and quests and i'm pretty sure they uped the difficulty too because even at level 102 i struggled