Topic: Rate The Last Game You Played

[Halbred]

Beat BioShock 2.

My biggest disappointment is that the game doesn't have any sort of jaw-dropping "makes you rethink the entire game" moment like the first one did. It's more of a steady build to a barely interesting (in retrospect) plot point, and the game's grand finale is anti-climactic. Overall, Bioshock 1 is a much better game, but there are moments of brilliance in Bioshock 2. It is by NO means a bad game. It is excellent in its own right--it just had WAY too much to live up to, and that's not really its fault.

[broodwars]

God of War III - 8.5/10 - I'm not usually a fan of hack-and-slashers, but this one's pretty decent.  The game has all the usual flaws and annoyances the series has had since its inception: horrendous camera for platforming, random difficulty spikes that lead to unnecessary frustration, unlikeable protagonist, silly and convoluted story, etc.  However, for all that this game does wrong, the gameplay is still solid; the Greek mythology (even as loosely-interpreted as this series uses it) is well-implemented; the production values are outstanding (though, IMO, not quite up to the level of something like FF XIII or Uncharted 2); the puzzles can be both interesting and clever; and this game has some incredible set-piece moments that are really exciting and fun.

[KDR_11k]

Picross 3D: Start playing and you'll have to force yourself to stop. It's awesome.

[broodwars]

Final Fantasy XIII - 9/10 - I'm going to try to keep this mini-review short, because I just now utterly finished this game (Platinum #16) and I'm exhausted.  The plot is good, the characters well-defined and well-voiced, the graphics gorgeous and extremely well-designed (seriously, this game is going to look outstanding for years out of sheer art design), and the soundtrack is one of the best Square-Enix has ever done (naturally, this means they fired the composer shortly after the game's release, along with the rest of their musical pool).  The battle system is also IMO the best the franchise has ever had, a perfect balance of strategy and action that leads to hectic and difficult fights the entire game that requires wit and fast reflexes to overcome.

Where I have problems with this game is in the finer details: the battles are so taxing and come so frequently that it's very easy to get tired and even a little irritated.  I don't miss JRPG towns and their incessant and inane fetch quests in this game, but I will admit that I could have used more of a breather in places during this game.  While I find the game beautiful, there are a lot of cut corners in the form of enemy palette swapping and I don't care for the techno-organic look of some of the enemies that comes off a little generic.  The game also takes way too long to roll out all its systems, to the point where a lot of players will give up before they've truly seen what this game can do.  It's much the same problem that Nintendo has with the Zelda series, where it constantly treats the player like an idiot that has to be spoon-fed every wrinkle of the mechanics before finally taking the training wheels off.  The weapon upgrade system is also abysmal because of this, as you don't receive either the components or the cash to partake in the system till you're nearly at the end of the game and don't care anymore, and even then you don't get much of either unless you grind.

And speaking of that most-loved of JRPG conventions, this game has an extensive series of bonus missions that pad out the post-game content (most of the trophies are awarded here).  Generally, these expand the game world; give you a much-greater appreciation of the nuances of the battle system; and are generally quite enjoyable.  It's the free-roaming exploration that everyone who reviews this game whines about not being present.  Where this pisses me off is that everything outside the game's main storyline is grinding-centric.  I hate grinding.  It's lazy, tedious, and stupid.  Do you want to have a fighting chance at clearing the missions?  Go grind for CP to upgrade your characters and components to upgrade your weapons.   What?  You want to know where you are supposed to get such massive amounts of cash?  Go kill one of the most difficult enemies in the game repeatedly for 20+ hours (seriously) for your 1/5 chance he'll drop an item worth a great deal of gil (and this is the only way to obtain the kind of money you need).  Want rare components that all the best equipment and weapons require?  Go kill the TWO most difficult enemies in the game repeatedly for hours upon hours for your 1/10 chance they'll drop those components, or see the above sentence about how to get the cash to buy them.  Seriously, I have never seen a game so gleefully, deliberately designed to waste your time in the most painful of fashions.  This game is supposed to be the one that pushes JRPGs in a new direction, yet its bonus content is held up by endless and incredibly-painful grinding that's been derided in JRPGs for several decades now.  It's just unbelievable.

Oh, and by the way: one of your tasks is to do these monster-hunting missions until you beat them under a certain time limit (which is determined by your equipment and character stats), yet Square-Enix for some bizarre reason decided not to give you a "retry" option for missions you've already completed.  This means you are constantly running from one end of the game world to the other, activating Mission stones and then running all the way back to where the Hunts take place.  Why?  The only reason I can think of is to pad the playing time.  Yes, you do have Waystones you can use to teleport your party to certain sections of the game world, but it still takes way longer than it should.

A great game that's less than it should have been because Square-Enix didn't have the guts to really give us the game that a nation of RPG fans constantly living in the past (Japan) would hate for being too different.  And they hated it for that anyway.  Figures.  And this review went on way longer than I anticipated.  Figures.

[KDR_11k]

Beat Hazard: Effin' awesome. I tried the 360 version but honestly, the PC one has much better music included and it's probably easier to get your own music in there too. Basically a twin stick shooter that uses music as its level generation system and flashing lights EVERYWHERE.

[D_Average]

Hazzard sounds pretty cool. Is it on PSN at all?

[Halbred]

Odin Sphere. The slowdown is just unbelievably bad.

[KDR_11k]

Hazzard sounds pretty cool. Is it on PSN at all?

No idea, I don't have a PS3 but I doubt it. It's an indie game on the 360 so the developer probably doesn't have any full dev license.

[D_Average]

Sonic and Sega All Star Racing 5/5

Man, I picked this PS3 game up on a whim after playing the demo, and bam, this is what I was looking for in a kart racer!  Fans who declare Mario Kart 64 the premiere game should definately check this out.  It seems faster than Mario Kart Wii and the developers really put a lot of TLC into the tracks.  Its like candy for the eyes.  They look great, with tons of variety.  Each one really has a different feel and speaks volumes to the game it represents.  And man, the Samba De Amigo track absolutely blew me away.  Blew me away, like playing Rainbow Road for the first time on the SNES.  The announcer is cheesy, but a good cheesy, had me cracking up with his casual sarcasm.  Usually I turn the sound off and listen to music or a podcast when playing racing games, but the annoucer, combined with the music and characters voices made keeping the sound on really worth while.

The only thing you can knock this game for is its another cart racer.  I say big deal.  Games copy each other all the time, and its for the gamers benefit.  On top of that, almost every other non Mario kart racer has sucked, so churning out a good one, is a rarity these days.  The development team didn't just take Mario Kart and slap Sega skins over it.  This team really understood what Sega stood for and completely interjected that personality into this game.  I'll go ahead and say what all the mainstream reviewers didn't have the balls to say.  Sonic and Sega All Star racing is the definitive kart racer this generation!


Sadly, it will receive mediocre sales as teh casualz already have Mario Kart Wii.  Why on Earth would they try another game? 

[broodwars]

Fragile Dreams: Farewell to the Moon - 3/10 - Long story short: Beautiful visuals, great music, and one of the worst gameplay experiences I've played in years (it seems to follow in Suda 51's footsteps by "daring to be boring").  Insipid dialogue, constant barrages of never-ending insipid dialogue, boring combat, stiff and clumsy controls worthy of a Wii launch title, pointless mini-games (also worthy of a Wii launch title), mediocre localization, tedious backtracking, and a dull story all destroy what could have been a great game.  I really wanted to like this game, but I just can't.  Hopefully the art and musical talent from this game get another crack at actually doing work on a good game sometime in the near-future, because they turned in an outstanding effort here.

God of War Collection- 7/10 - It's God of Wars I and II in HD, which looks perplexingly both more impressive (things look nice and shiny) and less impressive (it's still PS2 visuals) than you'd expect.  The problems with the games' conversion to HD have been well-documented (though, to be honest, seeing the original graphical quality of the 2 games in the in-engine cutscenes gives you a lot more appreciation for just how much work went into making the main game experience look as good as it does in HD), but the big problem with this collection is the sheer presence of God of War I.  I hate that game.  I hated it back when I first played it, and time hasn't made it any better (though surprisingly I had much less trouble with the horrendous platforming this time, especially in Hades).  God of War II is still quite enjoyable, though, with great pacing; great boss battles; really good art design; and just a good sense of fun.  In fact, I think I enjoy GoW II much better this time around, especially since playing the two games back-to-back I can see that all but one of my most-hated moments (the "one" being the final QTE in GoW II) in the series originated in the first game instead of the second.

[King of Twitch]

Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past 10/10

- Gets annoying when enemies are stuck in you.
- Some framerate slowdown.
- Dungeon maps are way too small
- Sometimes refuses to give bombs or magic when I need them the most. It's like the game can read the fact I have jars of blue magic that I'm saving for a boss battle and will decide that enemies will only drop rupees.
- Devilish dungeon design wants to kill you.
- A few unclear objectives.

+ A sense of surprise under every tree and rock. Seriously, my favorite part was ramming into things hoping it would shake loose a fairy instead of angry bees, and how later on in the game it becomes a useful strategy to memorize them so that I wouldn't have to hunt down the fountains between dungeons. This element is missing from the 3D games thanks to fewer, weaker enemies and giant empty spaces.
+ Music and characters. There are good guys, bad guys that try to kill you or steal your stuff, and bad guys who sit around in caves saying they're bad guys and that you shouldn't be there, but don't mind giving you rupees or advice (laughter).
+ Devilish dungeon design comes with a sense of accomplishment.
+ Oh yeah, the whole Light/Dark World thing.

[KDR_11k]

Resonance of Fate: So far I really like it but the balancing between hero actions and normal attacks seems out of whack, it's fairly easy to regain those hero points and there's only disadvantages to using normal attacks, can't even be sure you get the time to charge the shot to level 1. I'd have liked some kind of precision aim bonus for regular attacks so you can use them for accurate attacks while using hero actions when you just need to deal damage up close...

[broodwars]

Resonance of Fate: So far I really like it but the balancing between hero actions and normal attacks seems out of whack, it's fairly easy to regain those hero points and there's only disadvantages to using normal attacks, can't even be sure you get the time to charge the shot to level 1. I'd have liked some kind of precision aim bonus for regular attacks so you can use them for accurate attacks while using hero actions when you just need to deal damage up close...

As you progress through the game you'll run into enemies that can't be easily dispatched in 1 or 2 Hero Actions (especially the second boss, which is a giant electric turtle), and that's when Normal Attacks come into play.  But yes, they are kind of a "last resort" sort of thing.  I have a lot of problems with Resonance of Fate, and if I ever get back to playing it I probably won't have a favorable review for it.

[KDR_11k]

Giant electric turtle? You mean in the powerplant? I completely wiped the floor with that thing using hero and resonance attacks.

[broodwars]

Giant electric turtle? You mean in the powerplant? I completely wiped the floor with that thing using hero and resonance attacks.

*shrugs*
 
Well, it was the last boss I had any trouble with, and it pretty much required using Normal attacks for throwing grenades and whatnot since I needed to save all the Hero Actions for my Machine Gunner.  Unfortunately, the game kind of goes downhill after that fight (I believe I'm in Chapter 6-7), with grinding quickly taking a choke hold on the game.

[KDR_11k]

Grinding? I feel like I'm only grinding to get energy hexes (and that's because I love to throw them everywhere), in combat it's more about figuring out the best way to use the hero actions, kinda like a puzzle game. I feel like I need a second SMG for more tactical flexibility though.

[broodwars]

Grinding? I feel like I'm only grinding to get energy hexes (and that's because I love to throw them everywhere), in combat it's more about figuring out the best way to use the hero actions, kinda like a puzzle game. I feel like I need a second SMG for more tactical flexibility though.

I'm through the critical path in Chapter 8 with all characters level 58-59 (I'm back to playing the game now), and I've had to do all sorts of grinding: grinding for colored energy hexes, grinding for level-ups (mostly in the arena), grinding for components to make new gun parts and fulfill guild missions, etc.  If you don't have the First Aid Kit equipped on a character when you enter the dungeon (and I don't because Leanne needs that second pistol a LOT more, as does Zephyr with his second machine gun and Vosh with his grenade box), you have to trudge all the way in and all the way out when you defeat the boss, fighting enemies every goddamn step of the way because the game won't let you access your inventory screen.  Trying to get from Point A to Point B on the world map takes forever because you have random encounters popping up every few steps that take upwards of 5-10 minutes to defeat.  While I kind of like it for its setting and underplayed story, it is one of the most thoroughly tedious and unenjoyable games I've ever played.  I easily understand now why so many RPG gamers hate Tri-Ace (outside of Star Ocean 4, which I've played a bit of and liked): they're just utterly incompetent at making entertaining games.  If RPGs like this are what Japan's into now, I wouldn't mind if the entire J-RPG genre just died.

[KDR_11k]

I suppose it starts out much better than it goes on.

[EasyCure]

mushroom men: the spor wars - 3/10

this is one of those games i bought for cheap, played for an hour and left collecting dust for some other, bigger game.
After finally starting to catch up on my backlog of games, this was one of the first games i tried to finish.

the controls are horrible, especially the camera. it auto adjust behind your character and its a constant battle to move it, via the dpad, while also switching back to hitting the A button from the constant jumping you have to do. What this means is horrible hand-cramps for the player.

the level design has good intentions but falls short. being a tiny mushroom in ordinary real world environments gives a good sense of scope, and most levels have a lot of vertical room too, which make for some awesome platforming moments. However, there are far too many times where items or exits are hidden in the most retarded places that, in conjunction with the horrible camera, are almost impossible to find. It's not too bad with items, like say.. a powerup "hidden" behind a tiny crevice behind the toilet, or a cracked open medicine cabinet, but when an exit is hidden behind an unassuming pile of leaves and you can't tell unless you've happened to fall thru the little ditch near said pile of leaves, it gets frustrating. The muddy graphics don't help either.

the storyline was pretty basic, got a litle more interesting halfway thru, juts enough to keep me from giving up on the game, but i had to trudge thru it because of the contorls. Also, this game has the most anti-climactic boss battle ever (unless i'm missing something) and the ending is just.. well, stupid. so stupid i dont even remember it.

[KDR_11k]

Is that the Wii or DS version?

I'm through the critical path in Chapter 8 with all characters level 58-59 (I'm back to playing the game now)

I just got that far and my characters are levels 32-34 (main weapons ~level 20), I guess that shows a difference in playstyle. The only one I could even use extra levels on is Zephyr because the SMG does more damage with higher levels and I've upgraded my current one to the point where I can reach maximum charge even during a normal attack. I don't use guns akimbo much, pistols akimbo has little use because you rarely need them doing damage, any serious target is too far out of their league and I've decided to upgrade only one SMG and do that without weight limits (guns akimbo means all stats except bullet count and damage are averaged between them so I'd need all that expensive gear on both guns to get comparable akimbo performance and the weight limit doesn't permit that), means I have no trouble getting maximum multiplier shots off and those seem more important than more bullets to me. Using special bullets can make a massive difference (going from 1 to 10 base damage on heavy armor with FMJ rounds, for example) and I find them more useful than bothering with grenades (which do as much damage as one bullet from my SMG right now so they're not good for big damage and since they hit only one body part they suck for fixing scratch damage too).

Seriously, my SMG is like 200+ base charge speed and 28% speedup. That thing spits out max multiplier attacks like nobody's business. If something doesn't go at least 60% blue with one attack from that you're using the wrong bullets. Right bullets+max multiplier = all blue in 1-2 attacks (only needed 2 on really tough enemies like chapter bosses and extra bosses).

Of course I can't be arsed to bother with the arena, the rewards worth getting all require gold coins anyway and I didn't even see gold coin challenges in the list when I last checked so I assume I have to go further in the story for that. The only good I got from the arena was a ton of energy hexes (I played up to rank 8 IIRC).

[broodwars]

Of course I can't be arsed to bother with the arena, the rewards worth getting all require gold coins anyway and I didn't even see gold coin challenges in the list when I last checked so I assume I have to go further in the story for that. The only good I got from the arena was a ton of energy hexes (I played up to rank 8 IIRC).

I'm going to try to keep this brief (any more discussion of this game's gameplay would warrant its own topic), but suffice to say I'm in Chapter 10 with all Ranks cleared with a Star ranking up through Rank 40 (my characters are all level 80-81).  The Arena basically exists as the best place in the game (until Neverland) to level-up your characters and get energy hexes/components/cash, and that's about it.
 
Honestly, the more I play this game the more it looks like its main problem is just that the developers created a fairly minimalistic critical path, and then padded it with really tedious; grind-intensive; backtrack-favoring; and sometimes just blatantly unfair optional tasks (the challenge battle against 3 Mad Goliaths comes to mind) and frustrating random encounter rate.  The story-related stuff can have some pretty tedious dungeon crawling, but overall it's not too bad (especially because my severely overleveled characters just massacre anyone in their way).  I get the feeling this is a game I'll enjoy better on a New Game + when I can just focus only on the critical path.

[KDR_11k]

The 3 Mad Goliaths did take me a few retries but didn't feel all that unfair, it requires precision play and using all your abilities but that's how RPG battles should be, not just waltzing in and letting your stats do the talking but actually watching the situation and reacting appropriately. I think they might have very hard armor so if you went in without an ammo box you may have crippled yourself there. When pushed to the limit RoF's battles feel pretty puzzle-like.

[broodwars]

The 3 Mad Goliaths did take me a few retries but didn't feel all that unfair, it requires precision play and using all your abilities but that's how RPG battles should be, not just waltzing in and letting your stats do the talking but actually watching the situation and reacting appropriately. I think they might have very hard armor so if you went in without an ammo box you may have crippled yourself there. When pushed to the limit RoF's battles feel pretty puzzle-like.

Yeah, that I did.  I didn't have either the ammo box or the first aid kit equipped, given that 90% of the time my characters have done just fine with Vashyron being the only one with an alternate weapon (grenades) and the other two dual-wielding machine guns (Zephyr) and Pistols (Leanne).  In fact, those are the very loadouts that got me through the Arena battles, which get fairly difficult towards the late-30s.  I ended up having to get really lucky with Vashyron chucking Molotov Cocktail ++s, which on one run severely crippled one Mad Goliath and instant-killed another. Otherwise, my characters could barely dent those things even at full charge and I ran out of Bezels quickly, especially when the Goliaths would finally succeed in putting full scratch damage on a character to force me to lose 4 bezels at once.
 
Where I found that battle blatantly unfair is that when you enter these battles, you don't know what you're going to be facing and once you're in the battle you can't get out of it unless you win or load an old save.  If the game allowed an FF XIII-style system where you can change-up your weapons loadout upon retrying a lost battle, the game would become about learning from your past mistakes and adapting.  Instead, the game's just punitively hard when it wants to be and you have to pray you can get lucky with the equipment you have.  I'm fine with the whole "puzzle" aspect of battles...I just wish they had designed the game's mechanics better to be more user-friendly.
 
And what is this game's problem with not letting you access your inventory screen once you're in a dungeon?  I can't think of a single good reason for the designers to implement that.

[KDR_11k]

I always save before going for an extra battle but yeah, that needs a "restart before joining the battle" feature. More silly is that you cannot trigger escape cells from a dungeon "middleworld", only in an actual battle area. I suppose the inventory limit is so you've gotta decide on a loadout and keep it for the whole dungeon (if you find it inadequate early you can still leave on foot).

[broodwars]

Resonance of Fate - 3/10 - We've already had a bit of discussion on this game here, but now that I've finished it...twice (yes, for trophies.  Shut up.)...I can now render final verdict on it: this is one of the most tedious games I've played this generation.  But let's start at the beginning: the back of the box promises that this game is "RPG Redefined."  Well, "Rocket Propelled Grenades" might certainly be redefined by this game, but in terms of being a JRPG it's the same ol' JRPG crap: objectification of women (from multiple breast jokes and sequences to Leanne's painties clearly visible when she attacks in the air); convoluted battle system that's only complicated because no one explains it very well; an extremely nonsensical story that the game doesn't even bother having go anywhere; and a short critical path (seriously, I completed my second playthrough in 5 whole hours in New Game +.  Even accounting for my characters' extreme over-leveling, you're looking at maybe 15 Hours before diving into sidequests) padded by extreme amounts of filler sidequests (the vast majority being fetch quests), constant random encounters, constant backtracking, and battles that take way too long to complete.  Considering the eccentric nature of JRPGs, I was also surprised to see that every single character in this game (save perhaps for Nolan North's character, and that's only because Nolan North voices him) is completely forgettable and lacking in any depth whatsoever.  In fact, one of your party members grows increasingly unlikeable over the course of the game as you learn the 1-2 details of his past the game deems worth noting.  Also strange for a JRPG, while the concept of the world is very interesting, the art direction is not.  This is a game Pro could make a brown shading joke about, and I'd have to completely agree with him: color seems to have been completely banned from this game, outside fiery explosions; your characters' outfits; and the color gray.  The vast majority of the game just looks identical, and monotony sinks in quickly.  Easily the worst offender is the story, though: I've played through the entire game twice now, and I still couldn't tell you what the story was, or what the goals of the various characters were.

And heaven help you if you're OCD like me, because this game has one of the worst Platinums I've ever faced at 133 Hours of pure grinding and tedium, mostly in the Arena and sidequests.  And I thought Final Fantasy XIII's was bad at 105 Hours (most of which spent grinding)...Man, I'm increasingly starting to think the Japanese just don't understand that Achievement systems are supposed to make you better appreciate a game's systems and try out aspects of the game you wouldn't otherwise.  If you must play the game, just ignore the achievements because the ones here will just drain the life out of you.

Now, it's not like this game is without any redeeming features.  When the game is at its best, which honestly is probably the Bonus Dungeon Neverland, the battle system can be extremely strategic and rewarding.  I also like the extreme amount of customization you have with your characters' outfits, which are reflected in all the cutscenes.  The world Tri-Ace created here is interesting...they just didn't do anything with it.  And as bad as this game's Achievements/Trophies are, Tri-Ace at least was kind enough to put in something that apparently no one else feels necessary: an in-game chart where you can keep track of your trophy progress.  The voice acting, at least for the main cast, is also pretty decent.  The problem is, this game is not fun, and why should I recommend even stalwart JRPG fans play this game when we have much better games on the market (Final Fantasy XIII, Star Ocean 4, Valkyria Chronicles) they could play instead and actually enjoy?