Video Games

Topic

Games. A love and loathe activity, especially when you can’t nail a section or take out that one bastard boss.

So, what are you buyin’? What are you playing?

Replies

Ok so it’s out on Steam, I’m gonna buy it… oh also happy to report it’s got a great regional price… so thank jeebus for that…

I’ll try to play a bit and report back on it later =)

Dave wrote:

Cherry seems destined to become a breakout character, she’s a lot of fun with a great set of moves.

Yeah I know she can run, she’s the only one of the new chars… And that’s probably why she feels so much fun, and that’s why I keep bitching about the others not being able to… Adam can dash, so that’s also okay in a way… The big guy is okay if slow, but Axel and Balze should be able to run, tbh… more mobility is always better.

From what I’ve played so far it feels like a good way of keeping the characters balanced so they each have advantages in different areas, just like the old days.

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Ben

I just played a couple of stages with Axel… gonna continue tomorrow… but so far: I love the visuals and the music and the overall package… but the gameplay feels… weird… stiff, actually… I’m not a fan of it so far, but maybe I just gotta get used… it is VERY different though, not as fluid as the other SoR games or even other beat ’em ups…

But again, maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to it, and I still need to try the other chars, specially Cherry, because man… I really HATE not being able to run or roll… I feel SUPER restricted while playing… I can’t escape, I can’t reach to do combo follow-ups, etc…

I get the whole “balance in different areas like in the old days” argument, but nah… SoR3 was also somewhat balanced, and waaaay more free-form and fluid…

Anyways, it’s good overall… specially for the price… nice neat little package, looks like. It probably won’t be super long (they should’ve probably added alternate routes for replayability’s sake) but I guess it’s fine… I mean, despite it being a SEGA franchise, it IS an indie game.

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Dave, Ben

Ben, this is largely for you but I’ve taken advantage of the “Big in Japan” sale and bought Dragon Quest 11.

Following, the Kotaku review, I’ve been playing for about a week now just a few hours every day but I’ve just finished Act 1.

Initially, I wasn’t into it, as it’s super cutesy and I was never really into Dragon Ball which the animation is obviously identical to.

But I’m kind of into it now.  It’s not hard. Like, it’s a pretty basic Jrpg at this point.  As long as you know the basic set-up of every jrpg ever then combat generally isn’t a problem.  I haven’t come across too many boss battles that require serious tactics beyond ‘keep your party healed’ (excepting Japser, that guys obviously going to be a problem moving forward).

In terms of the word it reminds me a lot of Ni No Kuni, partly because of the cutesy style and partly because there are mermaids and locations clearly meant to riff on real world places (briefly: snifflheim = scandinavia; zwaarsdurst = belgium/holland; pnom nomh = cambodia; gondolia = italy; puerto valor is vaguely spanish; there is a city which is sort of turkish and arabic etc).

In any case, this is clearly meant to be a simple jrpg which is accessible in it’s references and mechanisms, but presumably hard-to-master? Or is it really just about grinding? In which case, I have not grinded at all at this point, but I understand the endgame bosses require some grinding to meet (or overlevel) there levels.  Xenoblade had a similar expectation which i just couldnt be bothered with.

 

Jon wrote:

I just played a couple of stages with Axel… gonna continue tomorrow… but so far: I love the visuals and the music and the overall package… but the gameplay feels… weird… stiff, actually… I’m not a fan of it so far, but maybe I just gotta get used… it is VERY different though, not as fluid as the other SoR games or even other beat ’em ups…

I wonder if part of that might be the nostalgia aspect. I’ve played SoR 1 and 2 recently (as me and the kids work through the PS4 Megadrive collection) and this feels like it emulates the mechanics of those games perfectly.

It feels like it’s particularly modelled on SoR2 though (as it should be), so if you lean more towards the slightly nippier SoR3 that might explain the difference.

About nearly two weeks in a doomed attempt to set up a music folder on an external hard drive that the PS4 would recognise and allow me to use as extended storage, I accidentally wiped about 2TB of game data.

Been reacquiring that since, but it’s only game data, so took the opportunity to restructure the PS4 library.

Having got on far better than expected with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, I decided to take another look at Monsterboy & The Cursed Kingdom. The result? Bloodstained does just about the same sort of things as Monsterboy except it’s far, far fairer.  For instance:

• Bloodstained will not drop you into an area you cannot get out of or place you into an area where the enemies are too strong
• The map is far better and easier to actually read.
• You can actually prepare by returning to earlier areas and improve – Monsterboy just drops you in place and if you don’t have stuff? Sucks to be you.

The difference and intelligence displayed in the game design between these two is stark.  Still I know which I’ll keep and which has already been deleted.

Oh and Bloodstianed? Went and handed Zangetsu his atse last night. Again.

Changing tack, The Crew 2 has the worst opening level I’ve played in ages.  It’s awful.  It starts off OK, with you in this street race but it’s the first time you’ve played it, you have no idea what you’re doing so you muddle through.  Then it changes to boats, control scheme is initially weird but it works quite well.  Then it changes to planes, where the controls are fucking awful and you get no guidance whatsoever – the entire thing is an exercise in frustration, with inverted controls you cannot un-invert.

Now, if you get past that final section of utter arse, you get told you have to do these initial trials to unlock vehicles.  One is a race, so forget that, but the other three? Are quite a bit better, hell on the boat one you can come first!  Even the plane one is better because they give you a tutorial that the opening level could not be arsed to do.

And once you’ve done this? You can drive, boat or fly around a virtual US.

What made that opening section so bad is Ubisoft did Steep in 2016, this was done 2018.  Steep is a perfect pick up and play game.  There’s no bullshit, no faffing around, you’re on a mountain, choose your sport, off you go.  So, it’s from the same company, expecting a similar set-up and it has a lot in common with the earlier game isn’t that outlandish.  Instead I get a mountain of starting bullshit.

Now I’m past that? Legging it from point to point, flipping from boat to car, from road to off-road, it’s a hugely fun chill out game.  Yeah, there’s a load of social media campaign bollocks and events but I don’t care about those.  And the depiction of that game world? Is amazing – you just have to get through the start.

Ben wrote:

In other news, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla now confirmed, full trailer tomorrow.

I’m a goddamn sucker for these games and other “fannying about” em ups so I’m interested to this.

Meanwhile I’ve been playing Sunset Overdrive. It’s a lot of fun. Solid, fluid air-grinding-wallrunning-ziplining movement and combat. Nice bright open enviroments to fanny about in! Can totally see why the company behind it moved on to Spiderman. Only thing that’s annoyed me is the dialogue/cut scenes. It’s trying to be cool but not take itself seriously and be all “its so iconic” but it also really wants to be cool but not look like it’s trying and oh god please like me and think I’m funny and clever and whatever. That’s the only thing thats been getting on my tits while playing it.

Bruce wrote:

Ben wrote: In other news, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla now confirmed, full trailer tomorrow. I’m a goddamn sucker for these games and other “fannying about” em ups so I’m interested to this.

All that’s out so far is plot video, no gameplay but confirmed as a launch title for next gen consoles.

Maybe Sony will now take the hint and confirm both Spider-Man 2 and Horizon Zero Dawn 2.

They probably don’t want to draw attention away from their upcoming exclusives.  That seems to be the norm for game companies – they announce new projects after they’ve finished the current marketing push

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Dave

Maybe but Sony’s been way too cautious on their PS5 marketing so far.  Microsoft has been playing the better PR game – a couple of big announcements, including something about backwards compatibility would help.

I’m sure Valhalla will look fantastic on PS5 but that, by itself, isn’t enough for me to drop £500-550 for it.

Im pretty sure they have announced backwards compatibility with last gen?

It varies.  Most PS4 games supposedly will be but raises the Q of which ones won’t be.  Giving Sony 6 months to iron out the PS5 post-launch might be a wise move.

I can’t say I care that much about BC, it’s more a practical matter of not having the space to have a PS3, PS4 and PS5 set up, so if PS5 plays PS4 that solves it neatly.

Sony wouldn’t have to even make any firm promises, just say: Yeah, those leaks are true, yes they will be PS5 games.  People will wait for Spider-man and HZD 2.

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Dave

I’m not even sure if I’m interested in buying a PS5 at launch.  Price speculators have them at 750 AUD which is about standard for a new console at launch, but with everything still being released on the PS4 and the only real advantage at this stage appears to be significantly reduced loading times.  That is, admittedly, an advantage but I’m not sure if it’s an advantage worth 750.  It might be worth it for me to wait until the price drops a hundred or so and it gets some must have exclusives.

I’ve also been considering phasing out my gaming.  There’s plenty I’m interested in this yea, but I probably need to limit my habits, and buying a new console isn’t really conducive to that.

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Andrew

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not even sure if I’m interested in buying a PS5 at launch.

I’m certainly not going to be – I still have a massive backlog of unplayed/unfinished games on the PS3 and PS4 and with the likes of TLoU2 and Ghost of Tsushima on the way I’m not going to run out any time soon.

I’ll probably do what I usually do with new console generations – wait a couple of years until there’s a decent stack of games available and then look out for a good bundle deal.

That was how I bought the PS4 – ahead of Witcher 3 coming out Amazon and Game went to war, big price cuts – bargain.

Meanwhile, FF12 on PS4 just received the enhancements the Switch version got, including job reset.

Massive game backlog? Oh yes and there’s the new game plus run of Witcher 3, yeah, there’s no shortage.

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Dave

@Tim

Re – Dragon Quest XI

There’s quite a bit of difference between the PS4 and Switch versions. May be the PS4 eventually gets the extras added to Switch but might be a while going by the example of FF12

I heavily considered getting the Switch version.

One thing I am finding is the battle music, which is midi synthesized versions of orchestral tracks, is a little grating.   The Switch has the actual orchestral versions but at the time I figured that (and the otjer extras) wasn’t worth the extra 40 bucks to get the Switch over the ps4.

What do you think of my comment on the dificulty/grind? I know youve said that some of the endgame bosses are quite challenging but I’m hoping the depths of the tactical involved become apparent earlier.  I’m just about to head into the Sewers of Heliodor with the hero and the ‘Hero’.

[Ben]

Anonymous wrote:

What do you think of my comment on the dificulty/grind? I know youve said that some of the endgame bosses are quite challenging but I’m hoping the depths of the tactical involved become apparent earlier. I’m just about to head into the Sewers of Heliodor with the hero and the ‘Hero’.

You haven’t hung around, have you?

You’re in Act 2, which is where the game considers the easing in to be over, but the difficulty only really kicks up with Act 3.  Although, if you want to go the harder route, don’t bother leveling.  That said, don’t underestimate the boss you’ll end up taking on next.

Act 2 is where being attentive to buffs, debuffs and weaknesses becomes more important.  By the time you get to Act 3, the game assumes you know all of it and goes full out trying to whack you.  If you play it cautiously, you’ll always be able to likely heal in time to recover, if you’re reckless? Some bosses will punish that.  Oh and remember you can swap characters out mid-battle – I learnt that far too late in the game.

Also be attentive to how it describes stuff, some techniques it’ll say only applies to a group, but if you have, say a 4-hit technique that hits randomly to a group of enemies, and there’s only 1 of that enemy type then the technique hits for 4 times on a single target.  The description can make it sound more random and less useful than it turns out to be.  Watch out for Sword Dance for your main character and Multifeet for Jade, they can be awesome if used smartly.

For you I did wonder if the ‘stronger monsters’ option was warranted, but maybe you’re after something a bit more relaxing?

Oh and “Hero”? Is fucking awesome.

Meanwhile, in Bloodstained I have entered the Den of Behemoths, having first killed Gebel.  Despite the game’s best efforts I still don’t give a crap about him or Alfred, bye bye bastards.  The new area is quite smart though.  The one weakness the game has is some of the stuff in it, including some of the major progression points, are very, very opaque.  Short of hitting the internet, I’m not sure how you work it out with only what the game gives you.

Still, got the map up to 91-92% and have nabbed the Millionaire’s Key for one of the optional bosses. Oh and I took out the Kunekane enemy, the elusive number 44 – opted for a king cheese method of lighting him to death while on a roof he couldn’t get to.  Did it deserve it? Yes, it did.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Ben.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Ben.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Ben.

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Annoyingly, it appears you can only turn  stronger monsters on at the start.

I’m deliberately avoiding overleveling and trying to get to each area close to the expected level (based on guides). I finished Act 1 at level 31 and im 34 now but only due to running into some metal slimes.  The next character to join apparently joins at level 36 so im about on course.

I do like to be challenged, except if it’s Doom: Eternal, then it’s cool if those demons just chill the fuck out for a bit.

The monster designs in DQ1 are bonkers though (and silly).  The guy with the drum with the face that tells at you is a pretty good example.

I really enjoyed the monster designs in DQ11, both the static image and the way they were animated gave a great sense of personality.  Some of the defeat sequences are funny too – like how the cucumbers throw their spear up in the air and impale themselves.

The short answer is the game expects you to be both attentive to how it works and use the tools it gives you.  It’s often easy to restore MP, so you’re encouraged to try stuff out.

Oh and don’t forget to use the bank.

Streets of Rage 4 has been such a massive hit in our house that my daughter asked if we could check out some of the previous games too. So we booted up SoR2, and while I was concerned that she might find the retro graphics off-putting, she loved it just as much – and an hour or two later Mr. X was dead on the floor.

I haven’t replayed it in full for maybe a couple of decades so playing through those final levels again was a huge nostalgia hit.

As for SoR4, we’ve been working our way through and we’re now at around the halfway point. I’ve consciously had to ration our time on it so we don’t blow through the whole thing all at once. It’s full of fun Easter Eggs and nods to the previous games, some of which are cosmetic but some of which are gameplay-related – I particularly loved the boss who uses the SoR1 special move against you, calling in a car which targets you with its cannon. A great idea which works really well.

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Bruce, Ben

We finished it this morning. The last few levels are a great progression with some cool and original boss ideas. Lots of fun.

We already can’t wait to play through on a higher difficulty level and unlock a few more of the bonuses.

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Ben

It’s been many years since I’ve drawn videogame fanart (other than knocking up pictures of Sonic with the kids) but a combination of lockdown, a quiet Saturday afternoon and loving Cherry in SoR4 have inspired me to give it a go again.

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Ben

Haven’t played it a lot since release, partly because I started Fallout 4 a couple of days before it released, and partly because I got severely frustrated with the gameplay… It’s not just the lack of mobility, there’s plenty that’s unnerving me and making me not want to play… I’m gonna need to sit down at some point and understand what it is that the devs want me to do, because it sure as fuck ain’t letting me play the way I want to… so I suppose I need to find the “trick” to it.

But right now I’m fully into Fallout 4, and those games are conuming as hell… so yeah…

Jon wrote:

Fallout 4

Hint: Mod, mod and mod some more

That Cherry sketch turned into a fun bit of inking and colouring practice this morning.

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Ben, Bruce

Ben wrote:

Jon wrote:

Fallout 4

Hint: Mod, mod and mod some more

Nah, it crashes enough already as is… I don’t want to give it more excuses =P

No but seriously, the game is huge enough that I don’t feel a need to add mods to it… maaaaaaaaaaybe when I’m done with all the missions and all that, but even then, I’ll probably be over the game at that point.

Looks great Dave!  You should do more of these!

 

Ben, I’ve been getting the hang of DQ11.  You’re right and it does start to ramp the difficulty in Act 2.  I hadn’t died to a boss until Glydigga, and it really forced me to stop approaching the major fights in the game so casually (like, I pretty much went into that fight the first time with no MP, and got wiped).

I’m also paying a little more attention to the Character Builder and looking at exactly what the benefit of certain skills are.  Right now, there seems to be ALOT that are only really marginally useful and I think you can mostly rely on the same one or 2 skills for each character (for example, with Rab I only really use Right as Rain and Pearly Gates, and if its a boss I use Sap.  The main character is pretty much just using Gigaslash and Falcon Slash).  I do find the resurrection mechanic annoying though.  On a few fights I’ve wasted a couple of turns trying to resurrect a dead ally (because it’s only a 50% chance) and then, when it works, they’re immediately targeted and killed again.  I suppose it adds to the challenge, but the 50% chance thing is mostly just annoying.

I can see how the challenge will develop.  Im guessing things like Kabuff and Sap and Decelerate will become integral to winning the boss fights moving forward.

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Ben, Dave

Jon wrote:

Ben wrote:

Jon wrote:

Fallout 4

Hint: Mod, mod and mod some more

Nah, it crashes enough already as is… I don’t want to give it more excuses =P

No but seriously, the game is huge enough that I don’t feel a need to add mods to it… maaaaaaaaaaybe when I’m done with all the missions and all that, but even then, I’ll probably be over the game at that point.

No, no, no – l’m talking about the in-game mods you apply to your equipment – you can end up with some very good guns and armour.

The other thing that can be fun is the basebuilding, you go from walking through a post apocalyptic hellhole to being in a fully furnished shack with lights and power.

Anonymous wrote:

Looks great Dave!  You should do more of these!

 

Ben, I’ve been getting the hang of DQ11.  You’re right and it does start to ramp the difficulty in Act 2.  I hadn’t died to a boss until Glydigga, and it really forced me to stop approaching the major fights in the game so casually (like, I pretty much went into that fight the first time with no MP, and got wiped).

I’m also paying a little more attention to the Character Builder and looking at exactly what the benefit of certain skills are.  Right now, there seems to be ALOT that are only really marginally useful and I think you can mostly rely on the same one or 2 skills for each character (for example, with Rab I only really use Right as Rain and Pearly Gates, and if its a boss I use Sap.  The main character is pretty much just using Gigaslash and Falcon Slash).  I do find the resurrection mechanic annoying though.  On a few fights I’ve wasted a couple of turns trying to resurrect a dead ally (because it’s only a 50% chance) and then, when it works, they’re immediately targeted and killed again.  I suppose it adds to the challenge, but the 50% chance thing is mostly just annoying.

I can see how the challenge will develop.  Im guessing things like Kabuff and Sap and Decelerate will become integral to winning the boss fights moving forward.

Later, some characters will get access to Kazing, which is 100% effective.

For techniques, I was using Gigaslash and Multiheal all the way to the end. If you’re not already using ‘Hero’ with a greatsword, start doing so – Unbridled Blade, after being Oomphled does high damage.

The trio you mention have decisive effects, as do Blunt and Magic Barrier.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Finished this today and I do mean finished.  As in: 100% demons, 100% shards, 100% map.  Along with some very, very high level gear that annihilated the final bosses – if you get the opportunity to craft Blue Rose or Eternal Blue and you have the passive shards that support both amped up to the max, do so.

Weaknesses? It has a few.  The biggest one, for me, is the opening level.  In that level your offensive, defensive, healing and magic options are, in comparison to the rest of the game, severely constrained.  It would not be a problem by itself, but the difficulty curve for this first level, even on Normal is set way high.  I would not be surprised if, after buying this game, some played the first level, got splatted by the boss and went:”Yeah, fuck this.”  In so doing so they miss the entirety of the game that follows.  And, during the entirety of that game, no boss was quite as hard as the first boss because of the far greater latitude granted to the player.

The directional magic system – I can see the idea here, it gets some very innovative later in the game too and I can’t think of any better replacement.  Even so, I did find that quite fiddly and tricky to use.  It’s no surprise that my directional magic of choice, once I got it, was the no-manual-targeting-required Teps Oceus.

Boss battles where it uses a skewed perspective in order to conjure up a semi-3D effect – it isn’t a good idea because it warps your own expectation of projectile direction, which impacts your ability to evade, which is a key part of the game.  A related point is the Invert mechanic, which the final boss battles expect you to use, is hard to pull off with 100% reliability – and you need that in a boss fight.  The combination of both undermined the finale for me, though I walked into those battles with gear that was superb so it didn’t affect things much.

The quests you get are simplistic, but the way you have to do them is far from it.  Crafting combinations, recipe books, random drops of material – there is a whole load of stuff you will not work out without the Internet.  The food ones were especially bad, as even on a 43″ TV, the image of the food wanted was still tiny.  Of the final reward of one set, one was worthwhile – haven’t tried the other two out.

Right, back to the positives: There is a whole load to enjoy about this game – weapon upgrades, gear upgrades, magic upgrades, passive upgrades, numerous sets of weapons and armour – it drops this on you quite gradually, so you have some time to adjust, but even so, you’ll still be finding stuff out in the endgame – it is a deep, deep system and one that rewards exploration of it.  Those rewards lay in how the pieces interlock and reinforce.  For instance, if you have the dexterity to pull off the techniques with analog sticks – I don’t, but if you do and you master a technique it becomes available for all weapons.

Add in the RNG mechanics and, as a by-product of trying to craft something for which X materials as random drop from beast Y and you can easily end up way over-leveled.  How? Well, each time you kill the enemy you get XP, but it might drop what you want, so you exit the screen and you kill it again.  And again.  And again.  Because you really want to craft that item, OK?  Or you’re after a shard – same mechanic, same rules, save for those guaranteed drops from bosses.

Then there is the map.  This is a complex, multi-zone affair but, unlike some other games that trap the player, plus have a single autosave system that it is very easy to overwrite, so screwing over the entire playthrough, the game plays much fairer with the player.  Waystones are easily available and cheap to buy.  Boss areas are indicated by a boss door and there’s always a save point near to them.  The map also has a set of warp portals.  It is very hard to destroy your progress with one bad decision.  This is a good thing.

Graphically, for a 2D retro-style platformer, they have amped it up as much as possible.  Each zone is distinctly different, without repetition of style.  Sure the same enemy designs, albeit with a different colour, pop up, but that’s a retro calling card too.  The game still manages to distribute them widely enough so as to ensure enemy variety.  Still imagery doesn’t really do the game justice as they’ve added lots of little animations that really improve its looks.

Music is excellent throughout.

I suppose it could be said I was being cautious on this one.  I got it for just under £15, didn’t expect to get that far in it but didn’t reckon on its quite fiendish gameplay loop.  Explore new item, get whacked, retreat, return, kill some more, level up, craft better gear, return, kill boss, get access to new area, repeat.  It is very effective.  Although there is loads I’ve left undone – done have all the weapons, armour, materials etc.  Techniques I have got nowhere.  If you are inclined to be completionist, maybe avoid this one because you’ll be at it a long time trying to 100% everything.

As a final parting shot – and much delayed act of vengeance – I fired up New Game Plus and went and obliterated the first boss.  Hugely satisfying.

For a game that was supposed to be only 15-20 hours, I got a whole lot of fun out of it over about 35 hours.

For all that it is an indie game, with resources to match, it looks and sounds very good.  It plays very well and I don’t think the graphics could be improved that much without losing the retro feel it is going for.  It’s not perfect, it has a couple of major potholes but only a couple.  Is it worth your time and money? Yes.  Will I buy the DLC if there is any? Maybe, depends on what the chatter is around it.

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Dave

I have been playing the truly bonkers Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise.

I remember not being a fan of the demo, Kenshiro was no Kiryu – the guy casts quite the shadow, didn’t like the QTEs either.

So how does the full game succeed where the demo didn’t? The full game eases you in more. The Easy option looks to slow down the QTEs just enough, with my hit rate having gone from near-zero to partial. Going in not expecting a reskinned Yakuza game helps too, though the Kiryu game skin is pretty damn cool.

The one weakness was the Devil Rebirth boss – which would have been immensely helped by a nutcracker move, or even better, Kenshiro busting the crap out of a giant ballsack. I mean , it’s an 18-rated game, you’re fighting a guy 20-foot tall, might as well bust him up good, right? As it is, it wasn’t the most inspired boss fight, but no game’s perfect.

The rest of it? Overkill is the name of the game.

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Dave

I’ve been really appreciating the social aspects of video games lately, as my kids have been able to stay in touch with their friends through regular Minecraft online multiplayer sessions.

It’s hard to overstate how important this is for them at the moment – my daughter gets to meet up regularly with her two best friends and do some very creative and fun things on there, and my son has been doing the same with his best friend.

Without being too pompous about it, the whole lockdown situation has made these games take on a significance that they didn’t have before – for me, jumping on the PS4 after a long day of work and homeschooling is an escape and a way to relax, and for them it’s even more than that – a hugely important part of their social life at the moment.

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Ben

Dave wrote:

I’ve been really appreciating the social aspects of video games lately, as my kids have been able to stay in touch with their friends through regular Minecraft online multiplayer sessions.

I’ve been running a small Minecraft server for me and some friends that live far away and it’s really been amazing beyond my expectations. We’ve played other games (like Hearthstone and Borderlands2) regularly for years, but Minecraft definitely feels different not only in that it’s cooperative and creative rather than competitive, it just feels like we’re hanging out again.

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Dave, Ben

That’s exactly it. You don’t really have to do anything, just sharing that virtual space is fun enough.

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You don’t have to do anything AND you can do pretty much everything.

I really like how our server went from a slow controlled effort to pure chaos in a matter of days. One player is cultivating a swamp and scouting the world for an ozelot, another is obsessed with leveling up for gear enchanting and regularly dies while in the nether and I’m currently conducting an optimized mining effort while building a 1:2 replica of the great pyramid of Giza to live in.

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Christian, Dave

It’s such a brilliant game in that it can be played any way you want to. I didn’t grow up with it, obviously, but it’s in my all-time top ten now.

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Far Cry 5 wasn’t that great on the replay so I had a look at what was on sale in the PS store. Red Dead Redemption is still full price digitally, so pass – I’m sure I can snap up a pre-owned disc for 40 dollars or so; as soon as I make my way to a shopping centre I’ll seek it out, having loved the first game.

So, what was on sale that I was somewhat familiar with was Hitman – I played Hitman 2 on PC, wow, 18 years ago. The relatively recent PS4 release in the series was on sale for ~$15 so I snapped it up.

Man, it’s a difficult game. I spent last night just on the training mission, and several hours this evening on a first pass of the first mission. I’m slowly getting the hang of it, but it’s not helped that the non-game UI is very confusing.

It certainly will take a while to get through, so it will be a good value purchase.

Dave wrote:

all-time top ten now

If the need arises, just let me know what your nick is so I can whitelist you and supply the adress to our world.

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Dave

Thanks but I don’t really play it much myself. I admire it from afar though.

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Ben wrote:

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age After around 130-135 hours, I reckon I racked 5 more by being unable to really pause the game, I went and finished this one. The ending? Very satisfying and quite clever. This is a very timey-wimey tale, whatever the creators may want to say about there being a single timeline. Much disagreement is going to be had with that, especially in light of the endgame revelations. The final fight? Pretty damn good, save for a couple of cheap moves, though they are ones with precedent in earlier games, still cheap. Graphically, it looks amazing with a wonderful sense of personality to both your party and your enemies. Add in visible enemies and all members getting XP, whether in or out of the party and these take what is mostly a retro game more into the modern era, but not that much. This is an old-style game, which is part of the charm. If you want a more modern mostly turn-based JRPG you’d be better off looking at the likes of 2012’s Xenoblade Chronicles. The pacing is pretty good throughout, you always know what you’re to be doing and where to go, except in Act 3, where it goes far more open and contraflow to the preceding sections. The benefit of having a clear objective can be seen in the likes of Divinity: Original Sin, where in that CRPG you can easily end up stumped as to what to do and when. The turn-based battle system has quite an amount of depth to it, with the game expecting you to be attentive to enemy weaknesses, your gear, buff and debuff, spells and abilities – it gives you a lot of tools, more than you’ll likely keep track of. The game also expects you to use them – and if you do successfully there are some very noticeable differences in battle as a result of your actions. Is it possible to over-level? I think not. Even taking on the last boss at Lv 99 can be dangerous if you get cocky, which is true of the Act 2 final bosses too. Is playing the game without using any of the Draconian options that easy? For the most part, it’s straight-forward but the bosses can and will cripple arrogant players even on the standard settings. Weaknesses? The casinos suck. They are awful. The Wheel of Harma challenge, with its turn limitation, is hard to complete, even with use of online guides but doesn’t feel particularly fair in its set up either, some of the later Drustan trials are similar. Crafting? Despite being the mandatory method to get the best gear you’ll need for the endgame – and the appearance upgrades are sweet – even when crafting on Lv 99 it’ll throw random stuff in you don’t see coming. It’s not as bad as the other two aspects but neither is that good, the gear is worth persevering with it. The one big flaw is the game gives you a back-handed reward for getting to Lv 99 that caused me to question the worth of having done so. This is in relation to the skill points you need to open up character’s skill grid, or rather the lack of them when you get those final level ups. Even so, in what is a 130+ hour run – and I’m a long way from completing it all, one character wasn’t at Lv 99 at the end, these are minor elements. They won’t kill the game, though there will be times when you feel they do. It is a fair criticism that Act 3 is a grind. In terms of the controversy around Act 3, without invoking spoilers, I don’t think it does do the game any damage. It picks up pieces seeded in Act 2 and brings it all to a very definitive conclusion in a way Act 2 alone does not. There’s enough temporal shenanigans to justify the more abbreviated playing out of the character stories in Act 3, as the player saw a more detailed version in Act 2. In representation terms, the game will get a bit of flak because it really leans heavily on stereotypes, some far more obvious than others. In its favour it does use some of those stereotypes very effectively and with a great deal of charm – see Sylvando. The game world is big, not the biggest ever, but has very carefully done aesthetics and design to bolster it. Sailing and flying later in the game only emphasises this. I can’t say there’s that much in the way of innovation here, it’s just not that type of game, but what it does, it does very well.

I finished this today, Ben.

All in all I did find it quite enjoyable. I didn’t spend as much time with it as you (this may be because I felt the monsters on the field were rarely worth encountering).  It took a while to take hold for me, at least until the middle of Act 2. I did enjoy the looser constraints of Act 3 and I did overcome the major optional challenges ( The 5 Drustran Trials and the 5 Wheel of Harma trials – within the strictest move counts).

I didn’t get into the crafting until later and I never really paid attention to the accessories until right at the end (for the fifth Drustran trial). I also found the casinos a bit shit and I really disliked the horseracing.

It’s more of a breezy charming JRPG then the likes of your final fantasies.  The slimes are cute, the combat isnt too challenging but it certainly requires skill and knowledge to master.  It’s quite a lovely fairy-tale esse type story (with some time travel) which reminded me a lot of Ni No Kuni 2.  I think I liked this better then NNK2 though because the combat is a little deeper.

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Ben

The casinos I loathed and didn’t like the racing either – I’m certain those horses were drugged to the gils.

But yeah, it has a lot of charm.

Locking the forging hammer behind the Platinum Cup was a mistake… the racing isnt particularly well designed and it’s such a foreign mechanic to the rest of the game.  I know some people live JRPGs for their minigames (Chocobio racing in FF7 for example) but theyre generally a little better designed then this was.

If your curious, the toughest fights for me are sure to be different to yours due to how the game doesn’t telegraph what level youre expected to tackle them on, but they were: Glydigga, Alizarin, Aural Serpent (both versions), Mordragon, Bathysfear, Malicious Jormun, Merman King, Abject Terror and Darkest Despair,  and Overweening Pride.

I didn’t play on Stronger monsters but I’m sure I would have been far more frustrated by the RNG aspect of the mechanics then I was.  Apparently the game does a massive difficulty uptick at Dora-In-Grey.

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Ben

Having finished Golf Story, I was at a bit of a loss of what to play next. Then Nintendo told me I could have a 7 day free trial of Switch Online again, so I decided I’d use the NES library that comes with it to finally have a proper go at the original Legend of Zelda

I’ve, well not so much attempted it, but had a quick go on it a couple of times before and it’s never really grabbed me. The lack of direction scared me off to be frank. I briefly considered playing this properly – going alone and working it all out for myself, like someone in 1986 would have. And that was tempting – making my own hand-drawn map as I gradually explored the overworld. But a) it would have taken ages and b) I couldn’t even remember how to get to the first dungeon, so I resorted to a guide, which practically said “sure, you could go straight to the first dungeon, or you could go and get all these upgrades first!”

So I bailed and played it in a thoroughly 21st century way – with an internet walkthrough providing maps and thoroughly abusing save states. I feel no shame in that, as it’s still a challenging game and I think if I’d had to restart in the opening location with only three hearts every time I died, let alone with a map telling me where to go, I’d have got hacked off with it. It’s still a challenging game, especially when you’re in a room with bloody Wizzrobes. Weirdly, the game doesn’t get any easier when you get the final sword upgrade. You’d think that’d have you scything through enemies, but it’s like the game scales up their power at the exact same moment so there’s no difference. Similarly, there’s a second defensive upgrade very late in the game that offers little to no benefit.

I managed to finish the game yesterday, only using a map, not a guide for the final dungeon. I even managed to beat Ganon first time, despite not knowing what the hell was going on with it and what I was supposed to be doing. It was a decent game over all. I’d say modern technology has helped it age better than it possibly deserves. The most interesting element was seeing how much of direct influence it was on Breath of the Wild. There’s so much more of that than I realised which is directly trying to recreate and update experiences and ideas from the original Zelda.

After seeing that off, I decided to try Zelda 2. Whereas I’d briefly dabbled in Zelda 1 before, Zelda 2 I’d had a couple of quick blasts on over the years and thought “fuck that noise”. This time I gave it a few hours before deciding “fuck that noise”. It’s just not fun. The gameplay switches to a very zoomed-out overworld, lifted straight from Dragon Quest practically, on which monsters will spawn when you go over certain places (its seems. I don’t think it’s random). When you hit one of these, you get a side-scrolling section which is straight up NES action RPG. Link now has a magic bar and you gain experience points. But it’s a weird system. You get XP for killing say, slime things (again, seemingly straight out of DraQue) but not for killing humanoid animal knights that come for you (and endlessly spawn). And you can lose XP for taking damage. Combat is a real pain in the arse, with enemies frequently scything off huge chunks of your health bar even after you’ve apparently upgraded it. The magic system is awkward and, from what I saw of it, largely pointless. It’s just not a fun game at all. I finished the first dungeon, hit a dead end going where I think I’m supposed to for the second and chucked it in.

So I’m using the rest of my trial time to have another go at Star Tropics, another NES game, a Zelda inspired one in some ways, which I’ve made several goes of over the years, on different platforms (ROM, Wii, Wii U) and aim to actually finish this time.

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I had not realised the pedigree of the Dragon Quest series and the love it has in Japan, until playing this most recent one.  I now know it was the game that spawned the genre and the new one is absolutely soaking in nostalgia and little emotive twirls for fans.  The end credits even have an “evolution of the series” type thing showing gameplay videos from every main entry through 1 to 11, seemingly just to tug on the heartstrings of the fans.

I’ve always thought the essential RPG series from japan were Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda, but now I understand these were really kind of franchises expired by the success of DQ.  To be honest, with only Dragon Quest 11 as my base, and with probably 5 or 6 Final Fantasies and Zeldas each, I do think FF and LotZ pushed the envelope more while Dragon Quest seems to continue to play to just the fans.

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Ben

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve always thought the essential RPG series from japan were Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda,

Dragon Quest was the great rival to FF during the 80s and 90s. It’s always been overshadowed by Final Fantasy in the West, even in the days before FF getting regular releases and the Squenix merger.

It was huge in Japan though, to the point that Enix had to make special arrangements to release the games on Saturdays instead of the usual Thursdays to cut down on people playing hookey from work and school to play it on release day.

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Ben

Yeah I did read that, I think that’s just a rumour about the reason for the Saturday release though.

EDIT:  Semi-related, browsing a little bit through Famitsu I realise that theres a massive anticipation for the Tales of Arise release which is meant to be released this year, with concurrent japanese and englishe localisations.  Seems to be the same level of anticipation in the east as things like Cyberpunk and the last of us have in the west.  Perhaps one for me to keep my eye on, although I have never played a “Tales” game.

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Ben

I’ve played Tales of Symphonia. If you saved the world you were in it damaged a parallel one. Really good game.

I think they’re up to around 18 in the series by now.

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Ben

My wife isn’t a big gamer but she likes Sim type games, and we downloaded Cities: Skylines after it came up as free on PS+ this month – and she has got into it in a big way. I haven’t played it myself yet but it seems like there’s a fair amount of depth there, similar to the old days of Theme Park and its ilk.

(We also downloaded Farming Simulator 19 which is also free this month, but that hasn’t been such a big hit yet.)

[Martin Smith]

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah I did read that, I think that’s just a rumour about the reason for the Saturday release though.

No, it’s legit. Enix made the decision though, it’s not due to a law the Japanese government passed, as some people claim.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Martin Smith.

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Ben

Ben wrote:

No, no, no – l’m talking about the in-game mods you apply to your equipment – you can end up with some very good guns and armour. The other thing that can be fun is the basebuilding, you go from walking through a post apocalyptic hellhole to being in a fully furnished shack with lights and power.

Oh right, yeah, I’ve been using those… kinda lame that you need to spend upgrade points to unlock modding skills though, but hey at least this game doesn’t seem to have a skill cap, but yeah, you can create some cool weapons. I’ve gotta say though, the base-buidling aspect looks like it could be fun, but they should’ve at least included some kind of tutorial or something because it took me forever to understand some basic things, and then again, I ended up looking up for the “how to’s” on the internet for most of it, and I haven’t even dived into that whole base-building aspect all that much. Also, it seems like a drag to use… very clunky interface and mechanics.

So far I’ve just been doing side quests and getting all companion’s affinities to max so I can get their perks, before going forward with the story (I’ve only got a couple left, the BoS dude, the super mutant, the institute guy who I haven’t even met yet and the 2 DLC ones), since I’m assuming there’s a point of no return where you need to choose a path, so I’d rather do as much as I can before that.

It’s been fun, but I gotta say the story ain’t as good as New Vegas… some of the companions are woefully flat too. One thing that’s been bothering me to no end is the absurd amount of pre-war characters you meet throughout the game… it kinda takes away from the special-ness of the main character when half the people you meet come from your era… =/

Oh and the game is choke-full of bugs and crashes, but eh… it’s a Bethesda game…

I had forgotten they removed fan mods in order to do their shitty micro-transactions thing, baaaad move… I guess that was the turning point in making Bethesda a shit company instead of a fan favoirte despite all their flaws.

Anyhoo, I’m enjoying the game ’cause I love the Fallout world (I’ve never bothered with the Elder Scrolls series, and probably won’t), but I don’t know if I’d wanna play Fallout 76. I do hope they make a proper Fallout 5 at some point, with a kick-ass story… so far New Vegas remains king in the series.

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Ben

The remaster they did for Skyrim was excellent. As to FO4, a fully modded combat shotgun blast to a raider’s head never goes out of fashion.

I’ve got nothing in my queue to play until Last of Us 2 so I’m open to suggestions.  Things I’m looking at are:

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Ben, I assume this is the version you have just played).

Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition

Prey

Dishonoured: Death of the Outsider

Evil Within 2

Dead Cells: Bad Seed DLC compilation

Alternatively, I could check out some of the previous PS PLus games I downloaded but never got around to playing like Ratchet and Clank and XCom 2.

 

I will be pleased to have your advices.

Kindest regards

Be interested in your take on Dead Cells, think you’d enjoy Bloodstained, wouldn’t last you long but think you’d have a good time.

Ratchet and Clank is very fun too.

I’m less keen on Dead Cells than you might think. I think I’ve said before I’m not much of a retro gamer and the style doesn’t really appeal to me.  It’s the same reason I haven’t really looked at Celeste or Octopath traveller.

I think I’ll go with Ratchet and Clank for now and may pick up Bloodstained later. It’s on sale until the 21 May so I’ve got some time.

If you want to try a modern roguelike I recommend Everspace, unless you don’t like space combat / exploration.

Another great little indie game is the future racer RedOut.

Both are on sale but might be only until 13 May

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I really, really enjoy Dead Cells, the retro pixel graphics and art style are nice but the main draw for me is the quick-paced platform style and the unnerving difficulty.

There’s also Minecraft. Haven’t been this sucked into a game since my dad bought me a nintendo in 1990.

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I’m sort of inclined to pick both up at once. Both are similar style metroidvania games and they might play well back to back?

Depends, which two are the ‘both’ you have in mind?

Bloodstained and Dead Souls.

I’ve been playing a little bit of Ratchet and Clank – 2 hours tonight and last night.  It does not seem like a very long game so at this rate I should have it cleared by this time next week probably so I’m going to need to find another lock down title or titles. I’m also curious about Days Gone, particularly since theres been apparently a ton of quality of life update since the inital poor reviews, but I’m not interested in buying it without a discount.

Everspace isn’t interesting to me.  Neither is No Man’s Sky really. I don’t really much like space shooters.

There is a couple of VR games I’ve got my eye on – Astrobot and Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.  Both review well and apparently demonstrate innovative design ideas and utilise the PSVR uniquely.  No point picking them up until they’re on sale though.

In that case, yeah, probably work well, there will be a good bit of difference between them.

Ratchet and Clank looks lovely, plays well but won’t occupy you long.

Anyone who played (and liked) Thimbleweed Park might be interested to know that there’s a free mini-follow up called Delores available now on Steam and Epic Games.

So I’m playing Final Fantasy X/X2 remastered at the moment after completing FFXII last month (yeah I know, weird order).

I am at the section just before the end of the story and working up to beat the optional super baddies of which there are loads. The levels you can lift yourself to are crazy from what you need to beat the story. Even the lowest level optional baddies are super tough so you have to pretty much max out your characters.

Which means when I do finish it I will most likely one-shot the final story bad guy (on FFXII it took me 3 attacks, about 20 seconds).

I know most people finish the story and then go back to the last save file to do the 100% stuff later but for some reason psychologically I can’t do that. I have to have the story conclusion and end credits run to say goodbye to the game.

Is it just me or anyone else do that?

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Martin Smith, Ben

Being completionist on FF games is going to take up a lot of time.

I get my money’s worth that way.

Although I don’t really go fully completionist, if the task is tedious then I won’t bother. I just like to whack the omega/ultima villains. I’m not really arsed if I don’t get everything but it’s more that I have to do it before the story ends.

There’s something final about that and I have absolutely zero interest in stuff like ‘New Game +’, once the credits roll I am done. Mic drop.

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Ben

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21254430/tony-hawk-pro-skater-remaster-ps4-xbox-one-pc-release-date

Aye, I reckon I’ll be getting this purely for the nostalgia.

garjones wrote:

So I’m playing Final Fantasy X/X2 remastered at the moment after completing FFXII last month (yeah I know, weird order).

I am at the section just before the end of the story and working up to beat the optional super baddies of which there are loads. The levels you can lift yourself to are crazy from what you need to beat the story. Even the lowest level optional baddies are super tough so you have to pretty much max out your characters.

Which means when I do finish it I will most likely one-shot the final story bad guy (on FFXII it took me 3 attacks, about 20 seconds).

I know most people finish the story and then go back to the last save file to do the 100% stuff later but for some reason psychologically I can’t do that. I have to have the story conclusion and end credits run to say goodbye to the game.

Is it just me or anyone else do that?

This is one of the main draws of the Final Fantasy series for me and JRPGS in general (where it seems to be a general, but not universal, occurence).

I’ve done this with most of the FFs (including FF7R where the superbosses actually only appear in the new game plus type situation) and usually, like you, Gar, I have to do them before the credits roll unless there is some kind of other mechanic preventing that.

The only FF game I’ve played which I can recall NOT fighting and beating the superboss(es) is Final Fantasy 15, which kind of shat the bed with it’s post-game stuff, despite giving you the really cool flying car thing.  I just wasn’t interested in the platforming aspects of the final dungeon and the Adamantoise was apparently a really boring fight (for all intents and purposes this is that games Ultimate Weapon)

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garjones

garjones wrote:

I know most people finish the story and then go back to the last save file to do the 100% stuff later but for some reason psychologically I can’t do that. I have to have the story conclusion and end credits run to say goodbye to the game. Is it just me or anyone else do that?

I’m not quite at the same level on that as you but it is very weird sitting through the end credits of a game feeling a sense of closure and then it throws you back into the game world and essentially says “carry on, still lots to do”. So I do tend to try and sweep up side-stuff before the finish. I certainly did with Spider-Man on PS4. The trouble with that is that it means the rewards for completing the main story (a new suit) are pretty useless because you’ve got nothing to do with them. Mind you, there’s a suit reward for actual 100% completion which is even more useless. You’ve literally done everything in the game, why would you want or need another suit option after that?

There’s been a semi-increasing trend to trick the gamer into thinking the game has ended by having a couple of “end credits” and then continuing the story in a very substantial fashion only to have the “real” end credits later.  There’s two games I’ve played very recently which have done this (spoiled here : Dragon Quest 11 and death stranding ) and I think there’s a few more I’m forgetting.  I’m sure there’s more.

Speaking of endings, I finished Star Tropics yesterday. It’s an interesting game overall. It’s hard to say whether it’s good or not because it’s a NES game and I find it hard to judge those in some ways. Like, the graphics aren’t terribly good, especially on the overworld, but that’s me as someone who really grew up with 16 bit graphics at least judging them. It’s pretty hard too, but then most NES games are. It’s definitely cheaper with its difficulty than it needs to be. There’s a bit too much trial and error exploration with lethal consequences (mollified by being able to rewind on Switch) and like Zelda, if you’re not at full health, you’re massively hindered in your ability to attack and thus progress.

In fact, it feels a lot like Zelda all round. That’s intentional. It was developed internally in Nintendo specifically for the US market where Zelda was pretty damn popular and the SNES was a while off. If you reskinned StarTropics as a Zelda game, it would easily feel like a legitimate third NES Zelda. It blends elements of the original with aspects of Zelda 2. I do wonder if, even though it wasn’t made by the team that did Zelda (it was made by R&D3, who mostly did hardware, but also Punch-Out!!), it was looked at internally to help shape how Link to the Past would and wouldn’t work.

I’m not sure it really sets up the alien stuff at the end well. There are oblique mentions of aliens, but the majority of the game is just tropical islands and monsters and then suddenly you’re in a UFO fighting aliens and it’s just a bit jarring. Strangest of all though is that when you finish the game and the end credits roll you get this lovely bits of pixel art recreating key moments from the game (including Mike shoving bananas in his ears at one point). Which is great. But I don’t understand why they weren’t used in the game. It seems a bit of a waste just having them at the end, where only a minority of players are going to get to them. It’s especially odd because they’re the only times the game gives you a good look at Mike (his overworld sprite is tiny and even his dungeon sprite is pretty bland). Though I suppose original players would have had the manual and that presumably would have had some art in it.

Martin Smith wrote:

So I do tend to try and sweep up side-stuff before the finish. I certainly did with Spider-Man on PS4. The trouble with that is that it means the rewards for completing the main story (a new suit) are pretty useless because you’ve got nothing to do with them.

Yeah that’s one downside and with RPGs it’s also that for the big story conclusion you get all the drama and  bluster from the main baddie and then swat him or her like a fly. I can’t change though.

Martin Smith wrote:

Mind you, there’s a suit reward for actual 100% completion which is even more useless. You’ve literally done everything in the game, why would you want or need another suit option after that?

Because it’s fun to try out the new abilities?

Something like Spider-Man is a game where you can just jump back on for a quick blast, just for the fun of swooping around and beating up bad guys for an hour. Certainly I used to do that after completing the Arkham games.

If there wasn’t a bonus for people getting 100% you’d likely have people complaining about the lack of reward or recognition.

Ultimately, the point of all of these games is to have fun playing them, and you can do that even with nothing new left to do.

It depends on the person (and the game too to an extent).  Some people like to follow through with system of progress and accolades and feel like they’ve exhausted the game when it tells them there isnt anything left to achieve.

Others may be happy never completing the story or getting a trophy as long as there is a space to play how they want.

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Martin Smith, Dave

On both AC Black Flag and Syndicate I hit points where abandoning the campaigh became the best solution. Still powered up the Jackdaw and conquered London

I found the original DOS game of Prince of Persia in
the Microsoft store for FREE!

Exciting eh?

Al-x wrote:

I found the original DOS game of Prince of Persia in
the Microsoft store for FREE!

Exciting eh?

More like you’re about to get brutally annihilated.

In other news….

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

OK, let’s get something out of the way first – this is no match for the same studio’s other work, the Yakuza series, it doesn’t come close.  Is it fun to play? Initially yes, but the more you play it, the more its flaws become apparent.

The game’s combat is its main selling point and it starts off great, you batter enemies, unleash special techniques in spectacularly gory sequences, what’s not to like? Well, later it introduces bigger and then giant enemies.  The bigger enemies have infinite block; the giant ones are, as big humans, able to manifest personal forcefields and have infinite block.  Both are fond of doing off-screen attacks from the camera blindspot, as are crossbow enemies, whose bolts will not only be fired from off-screen, but will magically phase through the enemies in the way to only hit you.  This in turn reduces your combo bonus in a way that always feels cheap.

The other big weakness in combat is the game really wants you to use the special techniques frequently, so as to upgrade them, but there’s not that many and it’s pretty random as to which you do when.  With 200 street battles racked up over 20+ hours, you’d think some logical mechanism would become apparent but it never did.  Your regular attacks? Just don’t do enough damage and if it doesn’t want to trigger the technique? Stuffed art thou.  Playing on Easy mitigates a lot of this but a cheap attack always feels like a cheap attack – there were a couple of times where it swarmed me with enemies that stun-locked me to the point of having to use its rage mode.  Nor is your targeting that accurate, which shows up in the big fights.

The other stuff?  The wasteland buggy sections are awful, as is its RNG-powered parts / materials set-up.  The minigames? If you liked them in Yakuza, you’ll like them here but I didn’t and that was reflected here too.  They’re pretty crappy.

As a cheap buy? It just about works.  Story is OK but the last two levels are a slog.  The other story weakness is it relies on Kenshiro, who kills enemies 10-20 at a time, not killing certain characters, which severely undermined its narrative.

Finally, there is a Kazuma Kiryu  skin that is kind of fun, but Kiryu doesn’t look quite right.  It also only emphasises the difference between the two characters.  On the face of it, Kenshiro, who casually goes around exploding heads is a bigger bad-ass than Kiryu, right?  Wrong.  Kiryu’s array of defence and offence options is far larger than Kenshiro’s, his dodge move is actually effective, he’s faster, he can stomp on a downed enemy three times in a row with a heat move that Kenshiro has nothing to match, you can choose which heat move to use so allowing far more tactical and strategic play, you can pick up weaponry easily and grab enemies….It’s no contest, Kazzy wipes with the floor with Ken and that’s before he beats someone up with a motorbike.

It’s a fun enough title, but even as a cheap buy, it has major flaws.  I got my money’s worth having bought it for £13, but I can easily see others feeling ripped off even at that price.  There is also a large amount of QTE bollocks and the game really mucks around with its registration – or rather lack of – where your button presses are concerned.  So, yeah, as a dumb fun game it works well enough, but it never becomes more than that.

 

This is pretty stunning stuff.

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It is.  Although might not be until late next year we see the full effect of it – which is fine, I’ve a major backlog to playthrough.

Ben wrote:

It is.  Although might not be until late next year we see the full effect of it – which is fine, I’ve a major backlog to playthrough.

Epic have said outside developers won’t get access to Unreal 5 until 2021, so given how long it takes to make a big budget game these days, we’re not going to see results from it until about 2024 (and that’s assuming people other than Epic get the hang of it quick enough to come up with stuff as impressive as that demo).

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Ben

 

And it looks lovely.

Not the most innovative but I don’t think that’s expected, more a very effective synthesis of existing ideas and systems.

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Dave

Assassin’s Creed III

I went back to this, did its crappy set of second missions, with their bullshit structures.  After one mission with a big fight, after that, it came up with how to do killstreaks – something that would have been a help several levels previously!

And that combat system? It’s built around:

• Ah, sir, I will permit you the first blow. <you don’t hit the counter button in time>
• Tis but a scratch! Again, sir! <you don’t hit the button in time again>
• It’s a flesh wound, once more…. <you hit the button and kill 20 people in 10 seconds but don’t understand how>

That’s it. The problem? What kind of assassin will operate like this? It’s ludicrous.  Also, did you know in the American war of independence the British had zombie terminators that could only be defeated by counter killing? No? Well, they did, because that’s what your enemies are.  Add in a crappy camera and it’s a shitty system.  Too bad Black Flag ported it over as if nothing else I now know why the combat system in both games makes no sense to me.

Even so, that’s not enough to kill the game.  Even the crappy eavesdrop and follow sections weren’t able to kill it, severely injure it yes, but I was still playing.  No, what it took to kill this game was QTE sequences with wolves where failure is punished by death and a checkpoint system that is crap.  I did manage to do the first part, but that whole chase sequence that combines the ‘stay close to target’ with those same damn super-wolves? Fuck. This. Game.

The only motivation that makes any sense for the design of this game is the developers don’t want me to play it.  Ok then, I won’t.

It’s a shame because Boston is a well designed city.  The day night cycle works well, it looks nice.  But all of its game mechanisms are awful.

This Final Fantasy X system is a little insane. So normally, but not always, the series uses levels. Naturally following the story you may be level 50 or so and complete it okay. You can then try and double that up to 99 to take on the crazy optional bosses (they always have some shortcuts to quick levelling that is clearly deliberate). FF8 and 12 I just played were pretty much like that.

In this one they use a ‘sphere grid’ that adds stats as you go along. There are 7 characters and each one has their own grid, you would be expect that to be enough to complete the story if you complete the individual grid. You can though cross over and each character can complete all the sphere grids, which means you are 7 times more powerful, not only that but they leave many spheres empty that you can convert to added stats.

So to beat the insanely powerful optional bosses that often kill you in one move, you need to max out the stats making you 10 to 12 times more powerful than you need to end the game.

This end guy in the story mode is so going down to one shot.

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Christian

Oh yeah, FFX’s sphere system is nuts but in the best way.

Had thought these buys couldn’t go wrong, scratch that, £18 down the drain, but has also I suppose saved me about the same as I won’t have to bother with the other games for one of them.

Far Cry 4

I may, may, come back to this but I suspect not.

The only way the opening levels make any sense to me is they were made with the absolute assumption that everyone who played this game has also played its predecessor.  It will say things like ‘you can swim underwater’ and? Nope, that’s it – no control indicated.  Later it had this gap where you have to sprint and jump, only reason I knew that? Had watched a video when trying to work out if it was worth buying.  After that bit? There’s another one, exactly the same but this time it does give you instructions.  It was one of the most haphazard, inconsistent and shitty tutorials I’ve played.

Did a couple more missions.  The bell tower idea, seems familar – that mission was OK.  Then did this supply mission that was blighted by fucking eagles, who can tear through body armour by the way, which then sprang a time limit out of its arse.  There was no reason for it.  It was nothing more than sheer ‘game says so’ artifice, but it also added in the bane of open world games – you stick a glowy point with a distance but don’t give a route or anything – and it did this with a fucking time limit.  Those driving ‘controls’? Awful.

Did it with 20 seconds left.  Then did some hunting, but that ‘clean kill  ‘ bullshit? Yep, bullshit of the purest nature – if I want to bazooka a deer, that counts, fuck your honourable hunting bollocks.  And at that point it became very clear that is was a very pretty but unsatisfying time sink.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles

The big problem with these three games is this: Had they sold these games as pure, one-hit-kill-if-detected very few people would have bought them.  Some would, because that type of game has its fans – I’m not one of them.  Instead, they sold them as AC games where, you can normally take at least a hit or two.

The other problem was its tendency across all three games to use inconsistency and ambiguity in how its game worked.  At one point I could assassinate from background hiding place, at another I could not.  Enemies could see into the foreground but not the background.  But, you can also walk up right behind a guard, with their back to you, with another guard looking at you – and nothing happens.   At no point did I have a full understanding of what the guards were and were not capable of on a consistent basis.  For stealth games, this is particularly important and here it’s all over the place – yes, you can assassinate a guard and hide the corpse, no you can’t, yes you can but you can’t hide the corpse in the foreground.

The art styles for each of the three games is quite nice, two of the characters were interesting, but the Indian was instantly dubbed ‘fucking moron’ because at the start of his game he declared he had walked into this enemy area with no weapons because he thinks he’s that good.  Yeah, not anymore you’re not.  2.5D platforming? Doesn’t work for me at all. On one bit, from one angle two levels looked skewed, then when jumped down from the top one, they became pure vertical.

Resident Evil 7. Who do I send my laundry bills do? Because this game has repeatedly made me shit my pants.

I remember someone here saying they played the VR version. Fuck that for a laugh! It’s bad enough in a fully lit room on a screen.

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Hank Cannon, Dave, Ben

Yeah that was me.  Best VR experience ever.

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Hank Cannon, Bruce

Ben wrote:

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles

I absolutely loved these 3 games… they have their flaws for sure, I mean, they ARE handheld ports after all (don’t remember which one tho) but they’re at least different and I do love me some 2.5D action. The thing I loved the most was the different art style for each game.

But probably the reason why I liked them so much is that they reminded me of Prince of Persia… and I still wish someone would release a Prince of Persia game that looked like AC’s Chronicles: India.

Speaking of which, I still need to play AC3… I’d like to finish Desmond’s story… but after that one, I’m absolutely not interested in any other AC game (except the Chronicles of course)… can’t believe they’re still releasing a new one every other year =/

I only wish Ubisoft wasn’t such a shit company in terms of pricing.

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