Topic: Games you've recently beat

It took a lot of time and effort, but I finally reached an ending with Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked on 3DS. My expectations before playing it were low, as I wasn't too keen on SMT4 and I don't much like turn based strategy games, but it turned out to be very enjoyable.

It was a unique blend of the Shin Megami demons and battle system, the grid from strategy games like Fire Emblem, and plenty of visual novel mixed in there as well. All these different elements worked well together. The story was fairly good, and all the characters were quite interesting.

My main issue with it was the difficulty. Even on Easy, it can get very challenging in places. There are difficulty spikes when faced with certain particularly deadly demons, some of which required me to do a lot of grinding against weaker demons before the fight so I'd be strong enough to win.

I'd be tempted to pick this up again in the far future and try to get a different ending, but for now I'm done with it.

Red Dead Redemption 2. Superb. Just superb.

I recently finished God of War: Chains of Olympus. Originally a PSP game, I played the PS3 port.

For a portable game, it's pretty good at keeping up with it's console counterparts. It didn't feel any different to me from the PS2 games aside from it's shorter length.

Gonna play Ghost of Sparta next.

@Ralizah Dead Nation is awesome - a good 8-9/10 for me. I played it all local co-op with a friend a couple of times though. It probably sucks solo.

@kyleforrester87 even bad games can be fun in coop so that's a completely different story.

@Ralizah I have a similar experience with Alienation. It's not a bad game but when I play it solo it's not much fun, but when someone joins my party it gets better. These games are obviously made with coop in mind.

@NecuVise they arnt really bad games then, they are just games that are (as you say) only good in co-op.

@kyleforrester87 we could argue good vs fun but that would be pointless, right?

Yakuza Kiwami. It's a good game, but it's obvious that this is two gens old game. I'll probably play other games in the series but not going to jump immidiately to other installments.

I liked its story and combat was fun but that's pretty it. I didn't expect much so I wasn't disappointed. But when I looked into other games in the series, namely Yakuza 0 and 6, I was disappointed to see that it looks literally the same. So much so that I think my wife would think I'm playing the same game again.

@Kidfried Well, it's not like it's going anywhere if you already have access to it. A few other Transformers games were yanked as well, but this was the biggest casualty.

Between OnRush (PS4), Smash Ultimate (Switch), Torna: The Golden Country (Switch), and Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice (3DS) my December is pretty much already full as well.

@NecuVise I’ve only played Yakuza 0 so far and it was fun. It’s meant to be better than Kiwami overall as it was made more recently and I guess they’ll look similar as they’ve all been updated for the modern console; it would be weird for remakes for the same gen to look vastly different wouldn’t it?

@Thrillho I'm not talking about art direction or graphics, I'm talking about walking the same streets, fighting, characters, it looks like the same game. Yakuza 0, Kiwami and Yakuza 6. That's disheartening to me, but regardless, I'll play them down the line.

Been playing Portal 2 this week. I played the game way back in 2011, but felt a replay was long overdue; this time on the PS3.

The writing is brilliantly dry and witty, with many laugh-out-loud moments. The story itself has a reasonable pace and is utterly silly. There's even some background on Aperture and even Glados herself.

As with the first game I prefer the puzzle solving in the test chambers to the more open level traversal in the mid-portion. However, the introduction of coloured "gels" that allow Chell to either slide really fast or bounce add a new dimension to the gameplay and build on the complexity of the puzzles. Overall puzzles are well designed and fun to work out, as is discovering more efficient routes to completion.

Incredible game that I had a blast replaying.

Portal 2 is a lot of fun and has some great writing in it, but I've always personally preferred the more tightly-designed original. I love how easy it is to beat that game in an evening.

@Ralizah The tightly designed test chambers are excellent. When I played Portal the first time I was disappointed with its length, but something nice and short that can be done on a weekend afternoon is very appealing to me now.

@mookysam Portal 2 co-op is great too.

I played and finished Detroit: Become Human and Spider-Man over the last week! I'll be posting more in-depth thoughts in their respective threads, but I just want to post that I really enjoyed both of them and that anyone looking for suggestions in this thread should give them a shot. Not exactly the nichest or most original suggestions, but it definitely looks like Detroit could use more love on this forum at least. Truly remarkable storytelling in that one. Never experienced anything quite like that!

@Thrillho Ooh yes, definitely. Haven't done it on the PS3 (servers are down?!), but loved it on the 360. The bit with the birds is hilarious. 😂

I've never been a huge fan of the Bandicoot. Part of the fun of platformers is engaging with the level design, and levels in Crash games are excessively linear to the point where most of them feel like running down long hallways.

Spyro the Dragon is like Mario 64, but with a better camera, voice acting, and platforming physics that don't make me feel like my character is covered in oil.

I really need to get the remastered trilogy collection. Sooner rather than later.

@RogerRoger I don't think the Crash games are good representatives of the linear, skill-challenge style platformer to begin with. Older games in that style, going back to Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, usually still had more exploration and vertical elements to them. Even the often mediocre NSMB games have more engaging level design.

I went back to Crash Bandicoot: Warped a few years ago on my PS1 and was shocked by how... well... terribly designed the game was. Crash Bandicoot 2 is better in the sense that it's at least not replete with gimmicky vehicle levels and focuses on the platforming. The first game just feels clunky and ancient.

The only thing about Spyro that has aged terribly is the controls. Controlling the camera with shoulder bumpers is pure misery for me these days. The actual game design still holds up really well, though. So yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to nabbing this collection at some point.

@RogerRoger I imagine it is a godsend. Sometimes, when people talk about camera controls or angles in older games being antiquated, I think they're missing some of the benefits those older design choices provided. For example, there's a level of artistry and scene-setting with Resident Evil's fixed camera angles that just isn't possible with the newer games, which all seem to feature dynamic camera movement. But there's no benefit to Spyro's camera controls: they're antiquated and an artifact of the Playstation controller's original, dual stick-less design.

Like Portal, Spyro is another game that can comfortably be completed in an evening. I miss when the value of a game wasn't judged purely on how many hours of one's life it claims.

As to Crash: I think my issue with the difficulty is that a lot of it seems... needless. For example, in normal platforming levels, I've found that the angle the camera tends to sit at makes judging how far I should jump to bounce off something more difficult than it really should be. The boulder chase levels are difficult for the obvious reason that the fixation on what's behind you instead of what's in front of you gives the player precious little time to actually react to obstacles or pits in the environment.

But, as you've said, he's an icon in the gaming world. One of the few non-Nintendo platforming mascots to really make it big instead of quickly falling into obscurity, like Gex or Croc. And I really do like the charming character designs themselves...