Topic: Games you've recently beat

The game play for MGS5 is excellent I will agree and creating those action sequence moments is a lot of fun. But despite that, it's still the weakest entry in the series to me. The previous games really capture the imagination with the story & characters and I was always so immersed in the plot. This has none of that, unfortunately. So was ultimately left dissapointed. But well worth a look if that's not a deal breaker.

Polished of Banner Saga part 3 yesterday, just a stunning game, loved it very much.

@KratosMD My comments were going to be nearly exactly what @Kidfried said, so I won’t repeat, but he’s exactly right. The open world, the Fulton system with all its crazy and over the top upgrades you can do with it, the base building and defense mini/side game, the buddy system (AI companion) that will give you different perks in combat based on which buddy you choose, the marriage of stealth and strategy with sheer chaos and immense firepower .... the list of gameplay improvements in TPP go on and on. For me the story was really really good and the ending blew me away, as well as the alternate ending.
I agree that it’s been fun reading your impressions since you’ve played through these so fast.
But yeah, we all had a break between GZ and TPP so if you take some time away from MGS then that’s fine and maybe it will help you to enjoy TPP more. But I am anxious to hear about what you think and which side of the MGS V fence you end up on.

As others have said, MGS5 is a fun game but it feels kind of out of place as an MGS game. Swapping to Kiefer Sutherland was an odd one and it felt like they were paying him by line or something as he says so little in the game (there's one scene where there's loads of exposition going on from another character and he just sits there, rather than the Hayter style over the top acting which made the part).

It straddles a line between the "classic" games and Peace Walker with it's episodic format which works at times but disrupts the momentum with all the repetitive side missions. I also found that far too much of the story was buried away in cassettes you find/receive which I listened to while standing perfectly still as you ran the risk of mission comms blasting over them if you tried to listen to them and play the game. Plus, there are so many bits that don't join up/make sense because of the missing act.

So yeah, fun game but it didn't feel like a true MGS game to me.

The epilogue of TPP has to be one of the most memorable openings of a video game in recent times. Wasn't too fussed on the rest of the game though.

@Bad-MuthaAdebisi I own the first game of the series, are they all good?

I need something like FFT to play, I miss that game!

Finished Horizon Zero Dawn over the weekend and about 20% into the Frozen Wilds expansion. One trophy off the plat, which will come with a couple of level ups. Overall, I enjoyed my time with the game. Some of the characters were well written and the world looked incredible at times. I thought there were a couple of difficulty spikes in the game and the recurrence of one machine in particular dampened my enthusiasm by the third time. It can be quite formulaic in its structure and was quite "Ubisoft-like" in its design. More like comfort food rather than revolutionary. Refined open world action RPG. Recommended, but with tempered expectations.

@ellsworth004 yeah, I loved all three, just a really great trilogy, usually 2 is on sale every cpuple of months and 3 will no doubt have a salle before long

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat. Only beat the main story kingdoms. Unlocked three kingdoms after the final boss, but I won't be touching this game again. Good riddance.

Controlling the game with bongos starts out clever and charming, but it quickly becomes a nuisance, especially in levels that it makes NO SENSE to control with bongos (swimming levels, for example). A lot of these levels seem like they were never designed to be controlled via bongo.

Having to clap to perform essential functions in the game so often quickly made my hands sore, and I would resort to banging a metal implement against the bongo to give my flesh a rest after repeated clapping. After all, soft clapping doesn't trigger the microphone button. You have to really whip flesh against flesh to get a sound loud enough to consistently trigger it. It's the masochist's dream game, requiring you to inflict pain upon yourself to play it well.

The level design is functional, but too tightly structured, and can't hold a candle to the clever level design in real DK Country games.

The bosses are very limited in design, and although their combat patterns become decently challenging, more often than not I was fighting the stupid controls just trying to beat them.

What made the boss encounters INFURIATING, though, was the game's decision to make your banana count identical to your HP. Doing well over the course of two levels only to lose half my bananas because I didn't loudly clap my hands quickly enough to avoid attacks a few times was a recipe for incredible frustration.

Another annoyance that contributed to ruining my experience with the game: not being able to restart individual levels within each kingdom. Oh no, instead, if you mess up in, say, the second level of a kingdom, you have to restart from the first one to correct your mistakes.

Oh, and the structure of the game (short level - short level - boss, short level - short level - boss, ad nauseam) isn't doing it any favors either. There's a reason you only fight a boss in, say, a Mario game after going through seven or eight levels. Imagine a repetitive koopaling fight after every two levels...

This game really wore out its welcome by the end.

Persona Freaking 5 😑. Darn game took forever.

@KratosMD Yeah, I did. In retrospect, the Wii version probably would have been the way to go with this title, but I wanted to try the bongos with Taiko no Tetsujin and figured this would be a good game to test them on.

Congrats, that is a mammoth of a game.

I finished Super Metroid again but for some reason I find myself playing it once a year. Spoiler alert: it's awesome.

Finished the SOTC remake as well and I am very impressed by the quality of the remake and the subtlety of all the little extra touches. The gallery of extras is very well done and I like how it unfolds by accomplishing various tasks in the game, may it beating some Colossi in hard mode or flashback mode or just hitting 250 Km on Argo. The tweaks to the Time Attack goal times are well thought and so is the new control scheme.

@Feena I do the same with Super Metroid. My favourite game of all time.

@Feena Before I loaned out my cartridge, I would play Zero Mission every year. It's an awesome game. I hope Nintendo pulls its head out of its butt and re-releases the game on the Switch someday, as I don't really like playing GBA games on an HDTV or bulky, console-tethered tablet.

@KratosMD I was thinking yesterday that we have not heard from you for awhile on a game you've finished lol.

Glad to hear you enjoyed LiS. It is not game I should have liked so much and didn't think I would connect with characters so much.

@RogerRoger Yeah I’m finishing up the first episode of Before the Storm and I can definitely see how playing as Chloe is going to completely alter my feelings about her character. I’m impressed so far with the game and what Deck Nine did with the IP. After my initial dislike of Chloe’s new voice, I’ve now grown used to it and I think the actress does a pretty good job. I’ll be sure to leave my impressions as I get along with the game.

I finished New Super Mario Bros. for the DS yesterday. I'm tagging @Tasuki here since he was curious about my thoughts on it.

Overall, I think this game mixed old-school and modern platforming very well, as well as being a beginner friendly Mario game. The levels were designed really well with what I think was a perfect amount of challenge. It's not as hard as the classic Mario games, but the levels are comfortable enough to play through, and with three Star Coins in each one, there's some challenge there if want to take it. Of course, there are some rough spots. World 8 will bring the pain, as my 30 or so lost lives will attest.

What makes this a beginner friendly Mario is that it's willing to toss you items. There's plenty of mushroom houses on the map to give you power ups, most of them being unlocked by Star Coins. In an odd way, it's helpful yet also rewarding. Occasionly there's also a red item block that may give you a special power up.

The only real cons I can name are that the bosses can be hit or miss. Some got the job done, but the Bowser Jr fights are all easy. Especially if you happen to be Fire Mario. I also felt the new power ups were kinda meh. The Mega Mushroom is a good cathartic way to breeze through the level, the Mini Mushroom is only good for secrets, as you're super small and can only take one hit, and the Shell, while fun to traverse, isn't something I'd want for serious platforming.

This was definitely a good addition to the series, so I'm glad I finally played it. A great modern platformer with classic charm.

@DerMeister Yeah that's how I pretty much felt about NSMB and it easy to see why Nintendo made that a series on to it's own. Though I tend to agree with the masses that the others in the series don't live up to the first one but they are still fun. Now all this talk makes me want to hook up my Wii U and play NSMBW and NSMBU. 😂

Just finished Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana on the Nintendo Switch. Didn't quite 100% everything, but I did every side-quest that I could find, maxed everyone's affection levels (with a few exceptions: I could never find out how to increase my rank to max with Ed or Katthew), uncovered the map 100%, opened 100% of treasure chests, 100%'ed the harvest points, completed every optional objective in Dana's sections, and S-ranked the majority of the raids, so I'm pretty satisfied with my playthrough overall.

Ys VIII follows the adventurer Adol Christin who manages to get stranded on the "cursed isle" of Seiren after the boat he's on is attacked by a sea monster. He sets out to find other castaways and learn the secrets of the mysterious island.

Absolutely fantastic game overall. It's equal parts Action RPG and The Legend of Zelda, with some satisfying social sim and crafting elements mixed in. One thing I really appreciated about this game, and future non-open world Zeldas could stand to take note of this, is that it has a super helpful overworld map that lists points of interest, obstacles I've encountered but wasn't able to clear, and generally always gives me a good idea of where I need to go next once I've received a new piece of exploration equipment (called "adventure gear" here). It also allows me to quickly fast travel around the map, making getting to new places a breeze.

The combat is visceral and satisfying, like a much more responsive and action-oriented version of Kingdom Hearts combat. In the heat of battle, as I'm dodging attacks at the last second to activate bullet time (flash-dodging) and perform over-the-top anime super-attacks against enormous, screen-filling bosses, I was even reminded of the combat in some of the Platinum games I've played. Besides managing an SP bar that you have to refill by timing attacks against the enemy, you also get a wide assortment of unlockable skills for each character to train and level up. You can have any four of these equipped at a given time, and it allows for some dynamic possibilities in combat.

You earn "reputation points" by interacting with and helping the other castaways on the island you're trapped on. You can do this by gifting items to people, defending against enemy raids as the local monster population tries to destroy your community, completing quests that people ask for your help with, and, eventually, learning enough about them for them to open up to you. Not only does this cycle increase your reputation points (you need 200+ for the true ending), but when they open up to you they also become useful in future raids by occasionally helping to perform attacks against enemy forces.

Although I wasn't a huge fan of any individual character, I will admit that I felt a sense of community with them by the end and was sad to have to end the game and move on to something else.

Plot-wise, the plot is unique for a JRPG in the beginning as you're simply trying to survive against various threats on this island, find castaways, and find a way to deal with the sea monster that sunk your ship. It was a satisfactorily narrow scope for a game in this genre, which usually get weird and metaphysical as they go on. Unfortunately, this exact change happens almost halfway through, as practical and grounded plot concerns are subsumed by the larger mysteries of the island. Eventually, as in pretty much every other modern JRPG, you end up defying the metaphysical scheming of some higher order of intelligence and kill a God figure. I do like the way this larger plot eventually resolves, though.

The music is stellar throughout, and the game's OST nails everything from electrifying battle themes to affecting tunes that play in the game's more tender moments.

Version-wise, I want to mention performance. The game targets 30fps throughout on Switch and mostly hits this goal when it needs to, but some cutscenes and certain demanding sections of the game really take their toll on the framerate. Some optional dungeons in Dana's timeline were the worst culprits, as the game really stuttered badly in some of these areas. Resolution is also uneven: it mostly looks good throughout in both handheld and docked modes, but there are times where the adaptive resolution goes a bit nuts it cutscenes and it becomes distracting. The resolution also plummets in those demanding optional dungeons I just mentioned in reference to framerate issues.

Thankfully, these problems didn't crop up too often over the course of my 64 hour playthrough. The vast majority of the game is smooth, responsive, and a joy to play,

So, yeah, I was really impressed with this game. Much morseso than I expected to be. This was such a better experience for me than The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, which is the only other Falcom game I've played. This was my first experience with Ys, but it definitely won't be my last.

Just finished L.A. Noire on PS3. Got some conflicted feelings to be honest.

The gameplay does a very good job of putting you in a cop's shoes. The investigations are the highlight for me. Examining crime scenes to find clues and conducting interrogations felt thrilling to me. Reading the character's highly detailed faces to deduce answers was actually kinda difficult for me, since I had trouble understanding if I should doubt them or accuse them of lying. When I got it right though, it felt pretty good. This is the best part of the game to me.

For a Rockstar game, there really isn't that much to do in it away from the story. There's street crimes, basically side missions, collectable film reels I never found, and that's kinda it. Considering how bloated games are now I'm fine with it, but it can be surprisingly off-putting if you were expecting more.

The story is where the conflicted feeling comes from. It's not a bad story- The tale of former marine Cole Phelps is actually something I found interesting, and I enjoyed being a mostly upright cop in a story filled with cynical or corrupt people. The catch it that the way it's told clashes with the gameplay. Basically, some cases ultimately don't matter due to how the story plays out, and it's not really appreciated in a game where you have the ability to choose the suspects yourself. It holds the game back in my opinion.

The graphics for a PS3 game are impressive for the most part. Many of the character's faces look great thanks to the technology used, but some hit the uncanny valley a bit too much. There's also plenty of texture pop in, but otherwise this is a good rendering of 1940's Los Angeles.

Overall, the game stands well enough by itself, but I think it could have been better.