Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@Ralizah Going back to Yakuza (I wanted to wait until I was on my laptop to address each point).

I haven't played the entire series yet (I just finished Y4 and need to put some thought down at some point) but Zero is still the most fun game so far and is certainly the most impressive in scope. It's done well though in that it's a great introduction to the series for newcomers but has loads of nods to the rest of the series that you'd only really get after playing the others. It was also fun to play so much as Majima and have all the combat styles that he then uses against you in YK1.

I have no issue with the fact the Kiwami games and the 3-5 remakes are lifted from the originals (Kiwami 1 has some scenes that link it to Zero though) but you do have to consider it when going from Zero to what were PS2 games. But seriously, how impressive must they have been at the time??

Majima isn't such a focus in the other games so far but he's still a central character and it's a real love/hate relationship between him and Kiryu.

The combat changes in later games pretty much mean that brawler is the only style but with plenty of upgrades. I forget how the system worked in YK2 as they tinker with it so much game to game. Y3 goes so far the other way with a really rudimentary system but all the games give you a lot of the same moves to play with as Kiryu; Tiger Drop will always be there for you!

As for hostesses, Zero and YK2 have the cabaret club mini-game which is rather infamous for being addictive and good fun to work through. Being able to visit hostess clubs is in every game though and Y4 is the first one I remember that doesn't have sub stories tied to fully romancing hostesses. A lot of the others can only be 100 percented by doing so (and every game has a special fight that is only unlocked after completing every sub story).

Again, good luck with the series if and when you go back to it! I'm looking forward to getting around to the final two games at some point but need a good break between each of them.

Oh and I forgot to say @nessisonett that gif is perfect for the character you mention (even if you spelt the name wrong )

@Arugula Awesome, cheers! 😀

@Thrillho Oh lord, so I did. Bloody autocorrect 😂😂

A real darn shame ya didn't enjoy Star Wars Episode I Racer @RogerRoger (That disappointment comes through quite clearly) and as always it was a well written piece.

That paragraph in particular was eerily reminiscent of my experience with the PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII.

I'm pretty sure I used to see dozens of boxes for that Racer Revenge on PS2 in Gamestation and Game back around 2005 and 2006 going for pennies (I love how Darth Maul & Darth Vader seem to have perfect stats in that secret character screenshot btw).

Probably would've picked it up at some point had my affection for Star Wars not waned so much or more importantly known it was actually somewhat decent and not movie tie in tat.

Part of the reason why (other then the writer's block (Though perhaps it was a part if it)) I've took so long in my Divinity review is because of my adoration for it and trying to be as impartial as I can (There are honestly a few things that will be somewhat/fair bit of an issue to people and I wouldn't want to gloss over them)

That's only for six bloody months.

I can barely begin to imagine how tough that Final Fantasy 7 Remake review must be to pen @Ralizah with the game being very dear to your heart and childhood.

@nessisonett Oh, definitely. I'm just very sensitive to detecting and isolating perceived bias in my own judgments. When my experience conflicts with the popular opinion on something, I do like to interrogate that and find out why.

In the case of HLD, one bit of bias sticks out to me: I'm not huge on games with a cryptic approach to storytelling. Granted, there are exceptions (I loved Hollow Knight and Shadow of the Colossus and liked The Witness well enough), but I feel like, while it can be done well, it's just as often a sort of cheat smaller developers can use to escape from the need to tell a proper story.

Sort of like the abstract, free verse poetry I'd submit in school when I didn't want to bother with tracking metre in an established form. I did put in some effort, but, if I'm being brutally honest, it was more often the case that I was the right combination of lazy and pretentious to pull it off and still get good marks.

But that experience is baggage I bring with me when playing and talking about something. And, when possible, I do want to adjust for that. It's impossible and undesirable to take the subjectivity out of opinion pieces and reviews, but I do think there is something to be said for writing with an audience (real or perceived) in mind, and doing your best to remain as critical and open-minded as possible in order not to betray a link of trust that is forged with the reader.

You're a Souls fan, right? I'm genuinely wasn't aware you weren't big on Bloodborne.

@RogerRoger You don't owe me an apology for anything. I'm just happy to see you contributing. I really like the very conversational voice you bring to your pieces. I lean so heavily on one side of the "reviews and user impressions thread" that I feel like your funny and less rigidly structured pieces help to correct the balance somewhat.

And thanks! I surprised myself with how quickly I blew through Yakuza Kiwami, actually. I expected to be occupied with it for weeks, but it ended up being one of those games that I couldn't really tear myself away from. Looking at it dispassionately, it has issues, but I think the level of enthusiasm even the worst games in this series seem to engender in the people playing them says more about their ultimate worth as a form of entertainment than anything else.

@Ralizah I definitely agree with your thoughts on cryptic storytelling. Sometimes it can work well like the aforementioned examples of Hollow Knight and SotC but ones like the Souls games just never sat right with me. If a game requires you to go on the wiki for hours and look up ‘lore’ to understand the plot then it’s failed as a storytelling medium imo.

Even if you were kidding I do hope you genuinely like FF VII @RogerRoger!

I don't hate it myself... very "meh" about it.

Had I gone in with expectations similar to when I tried The Legend Of Dragoon (I'd only heard average to mildly positive things about that JRPG at the time) I'd have probably enjoyed it about the same.

I do need to revisit the original FFVII at some point though to see if my feelings on it have changed at all!

Yesterday I beat Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD on the PS3 so thought I’d try and get back into the habit of writing reviews with a “mini-review”.

Originally produced for the PSP in 2010, Peace Walker is perhaps my least favourite MGS game thus far as it makes a few too many cutbacks to the gameplay and presentation in order to squeeze the package onto its original handheld platform. The HD port itself is fine, although it does show the rough edges and blurry texture work of its source material. And although the game mostly runs smoothly there are some inexplicable performance issues in a few optional missions.

Eschewing the cinematic presentation and hour-long mini-movies of earlier Metal Gear Solid games, Peace Walker instead utilises semi-interactive comic-book styled cutscenes to move the plot forward. It’s understandable given the limitations of the PSP’s UMD storage media and while some fans may miss full cutscenes, the illustrations are attractive and generally do reasonable job moving things along. Unfortunately series staple codecs have been scaled back enormously - there’s now a simple radio option in the menu producing a short message from a random supporting character. Overall I like the characters and how Peace Walker continues Big Boss’ story - particularly his coming to terms with certain plot points from the ending of Snake Eater - and the beginning of his road to villainy. A few plot holes from Metal Gear Solid 4 are also explained a little. Voice acting is generally good - notwithstanding a few overdone Latino accents - although dialogue tends to be a little hammier than usual and the game is a little clumsy in its examination of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction and the geopolitics of 1970’s Central America. Music is excellent, as to be expected from the series.

I particularly like this boss theme

The biggest change is in how the game is structured. It’s very much built as a handheld game intended to be played in short burst on the subway, with short missions in small areas replayed multiple times. In addition to “main ops’ missions that move the plot forward there are a large number of “extra ops” side missions, which are mostly quite fun. These range from collecting documents to rescuing hostages, stealthily holding up enemies, and shooting down the balloons of escaping soldiers. It actually reminds me a little of the mission structure of games like Monster Hunter. Perhaps this wasn’t a coincidence given that series’ popularity in Japan at the time. Unfortunately all this goes against the grain of what I’ve enjoyed about previous MGS titles in that it lacks a cohesive narrative flow. Everything is a little disjointed and piecemeal. It all moves along at quite a snappy pace, yet combined with the short missions means that some plot ideas and characters never receive the development they fully deserve. And then the main story ends rather abruptly, just as things start to heat up. After the credits roll there’s a rather excruciating epilogue where it seems Kojima’s team ran out of time or Konami ran out of patience. The same basic story mission is replayed six times, interspersed with a lot of extra ops missions and repeating earlier boss battles. The game doesn’t actually do a very good job telling you how to go about reaching the ending, and so I had to look it up. Getting to the final boss - which is an extremely impressive battle - and true ending is worth it, but the plot twist does come a little out the blue, especially after all the busy work that precedes it.

The gameplay itself is quite slow, with everything seemingly taking an age. Snake moves slowly, switches weapons slowly, reloads said weapons slowly, climbs ledges slowly and rolls out the way slowly (rolling also sometimes gets confused with crouching). There are also some bizarre cutbacks from previous MGS games; for instance Snake can no longer crawl along the ground, limiting his stealth options a little. CQC has also been radically dialled back from Snake Eater. Despite all the nips, tucks and chainsaw hacks Peace Walker still manages to feel like a Metal Gear Solid game, which is a good thing.
Boss battles are impressive, screen-filling and fun, with various strategies required in order to emerge victorious. There are a large number of different weapons at Snake’s disposal, from assault rifles to rocket launchers and pistols, bringing some variety to how you go about things.

The real star of the game is its base building feature, aptly named “Mother Base”, and is an excellent time sink. Primarily utilising soldiers kidnapped from the enemy side during missions (via a rather amusing balloon), Snake can build up his MSF paramilitary organisation. This provides him with a supply of weapons, items and other equipment, which is essential for harder missions and bosses. “Recruits” can be sorted into a number of categories depending on their skills - such as R&D, Intel or Medical. Soldiers can also be sent out on automatic “Outer Ops” missions, usually resulting in specifications for equipment or new recruits impressed by MSF’s military force.

On the whole I enjoyed my 40 hour playtime with Peace Walker. Whilst I could have happily read the story on Wikipedia or watched cutscenes on YouTube, I’m still glad I played it. On the PSP it legitimately pushed the hardware with its visuals and array of gameplay modes, but blown up on the big screen all of its compromises are amplified. Despite these compromises it manages to introduce some interesting new ideas - primarily its base building feature and array of side missions. It doesn’t come close to to the brilliance of Metal Gear Solid 3 or 4, but it is nonetheless an interesting piece of the Metal Gear saga and I’m excited to see where Big Boss' story goes in Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain.

@mookysam You’re in for a treat with MGS5 if you liked Peace Walker. Similar, but a more fleshed out story and much deeper gameplay on top of the Mother Base building that was introduced in PW. I enjoyed reading your review.

@KratosMD Really great write up as well; I agree with your assessment of UDG. It was a nice fresh take on the franchise and game world. Still has that Danganronpa charm, but played very differently. I didn’t realize you hadn’t played it yet, so I’m glad you finally got to experience it and revisit that fantastic and quirky universe.

@Th3solution Cheers. I've had trouble writing since being in hospital but am going to be a bit more proactive going forward otherwise it'll never improve. Yeah, the base building is really fun. Peace Walker certainly has its flaws, but if MGS5 can build on the aspects it did well I think I'll enjoy the game.

@KratosMD Apologies for missing your review. I found Ultra Despair Girls quite creepy and unsettling! The villains had endured some really horrible things and it was hard not to feel sympathy for them. I didn't find the shooter gameplay too engaging as it's quite repetitive, but enjoyed the story and found it worth playing through for that. Especially for the return of one of my favourite Danganronpa characters. That said, some of the "fan-service" almost made me quit at one point.

@KratosMD Yeah, actually I played D1, then D2, then UDG and haven’t played D3 yet. I know 😄 — I really need to play it. Part of me might be holding off because it looks to be the last Danganronpa game we’ll get, so I’ve been saving it for a rainy day, so to speak. I’ll get to it eventually. There was a mini resurgence in Danganronpa interest last month and so it may be time for me to dig it out if some more of the community starts to play it.

Whoops looks like I posted just after your comment @KratosMD. Nope, I haven’t played Portable Ops. I’ve read it isn’t strictly canon and given it’s reputation I’m not too fussed about playing it. Base building in games is always so addictive! It’s the kind of thing I always seem to get lost in for hours and then wonder where the time has gone. It’s a shame you lost your MGS5 save but if you do start again would you find it interesting to play it with fresh eyes after such a long gap? I remember you got a bit burnt out on Metal Gear after playing them all in quick succession.

@Kidfried @Th3solution Ah V3 is brilliant! One of the best games of the generation.

Yeah, V3 was a fantastic experience. It took me a bit to warm up to it, but I think it's the strongest game in the series all-around.

@Kidfried For sure! It would be great to go through it together. The games are so fun to discuss. I’ll need to watch or read a summary of the first two games so I can remember everything since it’s been a while for me.

@Th3solution Me and Foxy still have 2 to play but we could end up all playing V3 at the same time at this rate!

@Kidfried Could be worse, I've only played the first two games.

And glad that you enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls @KratosMD. That and V3 are on my todo list, I'll get round to them eventually.

@nessisonett @crimsontadpoles @Kidfried @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
Wow, we have quite a little Danganronpa V3 coalition going. It could be a Game Club type situation if we want to all coordinate. Since some of you all haven’t finished D2 then I’ll have time to mop up some other games. We should synchronize on the Danganronpa thread.

Sly 2: Band of Thieves, played the Vita version. I got 100% in the game, and the Platinum trophy.

This game was a big step up from Sly 1. It's a lot more open than the first game. Whereas Sly 1 had small hub areas leading to individual levels, Sly 2 has larger, more open areas for each chapter.

There's much more variety in this game as well. Most of Sly 1 had Sly collecting a key from each level in order to unlock something. But in Sly 2, chapters generally involves a heist of some kind. Missions will involve preparing for the heist, such as gathering intel, stealing something that's needed for it, or sabotaging something. The occasional hacking minigame, turret and vehicle missions also help to mix things up. Once Sly and the gang have prepared for a heist, they then get to put their dramatic plan into action.

The game does a good job at making the player feel like they're playing as a thief. Sly will tiptoe past guards, avoid alarm systems, and can also pickpocket the enemies. Guards holding spotlights are best avoided, or taken out stealthily from behind. Sly has a variety of means to avoid guards, such as climbing up lamp posts and running across the rooftops.

One thing that's not obvious at first is that enemies will often have valuable items as well as money. These items can be sold for quite a bit of money if you can pickpocket them. It's easy to miss this feature entirely, as not all enemies carry anything of interest. Generally guards with glowing pockets have something worth taking. I completely missed this until I was going for the last few trophies I missed, since it's much quicker to just stealth kill enemies instead of pickpocketing. Once I knew about this, it became fun to steal from everyone to see what they had.

Sly also has the help from his buddies Bentley and Murray. They can be controlled by the player, and have their own missions as well. Bentley is the brains of the team, and can use bombs. Murray is the strong one, being best at a fight. These two have some fun missions, but it's not so fun to nagivate the open areas with them. They don't have access to Sly's stealth moves, so they can't take a shortcut climbing up poles or swinging across gaps for instance.

Exploration of the open areas is encouraged by the clue bottles. Each chapter has 30 bottles outside somewhere, and finding them all will allow Bentley to solve the combination on that chapter's safe. It was fun to hunt down those bottles, and isn't too tedious to find them all. Bottles emit a noise, making it much easier to pinpoint the last few missing bottles. If you don't care for finding collectables, then it's worth mentioning that the Platinum trophy only requires finding all the bottles in any one chapter, meaning most of the bottles can be ignored.

So overall, the game is a lot of fun. I enjoyed my time with it.

@RogerRoger Cheers. Not a fan of peppy J-Pop? 😂 I think it’s quite nicely juxtaposed against the backdrop of the boss battle and makes the whole thing even more bonkers. Yeah, I already know about the second half of The Phantom Pain. I don’t think it would retrospectively diminish the tedium of Peace Walker’s final chapter though. It is a shame that it happened two games in a row - and to a much higher degree with TPP! MGS4 worked as such an incredible send off for the franchise.

@crimsontadpoles Brill review! Sly 2 is a very enjoyable game. Sly himself controls really nicely and I enjoyed exploring the larger levels. Bentley’s sections were sometimes a bit frustrating as he’s so frail.