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Gaming Forums => General Gaming => Topic started by: Khushrenada on December 05, 2021, 08:46:45 PM

Title: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 05, 2021, 08:46:45 PM
Much better than Indie-cember! It's Deadline December!  ;)

With the end of the year almost here, what games are you hoping or trying to complete and wrap-up before the end of this year? Combining the fun of having to get an assignment in on time along with the stress of the holidays, it's the best Community Gaming Event yet!

Sort of like Backlaugust, just list off what is you would like to wrap up on this side of 2021 and post in here how it's going through the month of December. Simple!
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 05, 2021, 09:26:52 PM
For myself, I'd like to finish the following games:

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Stated playing this in November after wrapping up Metroid Dread. After playing quite a bit of it on the Wii U, I hadn't really bothered to do much with this game on Switch. In fact, I hardly did much with 200cc mode when that came out. However, coming back to this game now, I've come to appreciate just how good this package. A lot of really great courses. And I've ended up getting 3 Stars for all the Cups on all Modes including 200cc. I'm just trying to unlock the last gold kart pieces now. As such, I'm now going the 150cc Time Trials. Much nicer as well is that only 5,000 coins are required to unlock one of the parts unlike MK7 and its 10,000 coin requirement for one of the parts. I'm over 4300 currently just from racing and getting all those 3 Star Cups and Time Trials will surely get me much closer to that as well. Should have this wrapped up pretty soon.

Shantae GBC - Have this on the 3DS VC. Have also been playing it here and there. Am currently on the hunt for the 4th Labyrinth. Would like to get back to it this month and wrap it up.

Part Time UFO - Another game I've been playing off and on with MK8. I've beaten the game but there's still a bunch of other tasks to accomplish in it. I'd like to get those extra things done to put a bow on it and wrap it up.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - Remember me talking about this back at the end of Backlaugust and into September? Guess what? I still haven't wrapped it up!  :-[ When I last left this game, I had gotten to the final stage of the last boss and proceeded to completely choke and play it poorly. I know I should be able to get it done but it's just the time it takes of having to get through all of that Phaaze planet and the Dark Samus / Aurora Unit fights that has kept me from loading this game up again for the past few months. However, I definitely want to finish 2021 with this finally done.

Hello Kitty Roller Rescue - Another leftover from Backlaugust. Beat the game but there were a few collectables/unlockables that I've meant to get so as to mark this game complete and wrapped up. Want to get that done also.

Luigi's Mansion GC - The first time I played Luigi's Mansion, I was about 5,000,000 short of getting the A rank mansion. Which isn't that much based on the game's currency. I was very close. I started doing the Hidden Mansion 2nd Quest but my interest petered out at some point and I never got around to finishing it. Then I did the Luigi's Mansion Mafia game and thought about getting back to it in order to give me some more inspiration for that game but the game started before that happened. I know it's a shorter game so I'd like to finally go back and replay it again after 4 years or so since first playing it and also get that final goal accomplished.

Pikmin GC - I've played this a game a lot because, for awhile, it was one of only five GC games I owned in the early GC days. But then, I got an income and suddenly it was easy to start getting all the games I wanted. Now, I've still got GameCube games to this day I have yet to play! What a time to be alive! About 10 years ago, I had some data on one of my GameCube memory cards get corrupted and I lost my Pikmin save data. I figured it be easy enough to pop this in at some point and beat it again. So easy that I've yet to do so. With my next Mafia game being Pikmin themed, I'd like to replay this now also and refresh my memory of the Pikmin franchise. Again, it's short enough that I think there's a good chance of squeezing it in when holiday time comes around at the end of the month.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - And now we come to the big one. The game that dominated my first half of 2021. This was pretty much all I was playing through the first 4 months of the year although there were also periods where I wasn't playing it because of having to move and other life tasks. I had gotten to the point of getting flight for my Skell and then my interest in the game crashed because there wasn't that many new and exciting things to see after getting flight and all it seemed to do was show me a bunch of high level creatures meaning I had more grinding ahead of me. I was not in the mood for more grinding after all the time I had spent up to that point. Yet, now enough time has passed that I'm ready to get back in that cycle. While I don't expect to fully complete XCX in December, I do think I can get through the rest of the story and at least beat the game for this month. We'll see how much more I stick at it afterwards. Having been such a large part of my 2021, I do think I should at least beat it before this year is up.

8 games. That's my December Deadline Mission.

Although maybe I can get to 10. I'd also like to finish Mario's Super Picross on the Switch SNES app and I suppose I should just look up a FAQ to figure out where the few bonuses are in some DKC levels that I've forgotten about and just cannot find to also wrap that game up.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: TOPHATANT123 on December 06, 2021, 07:54:28 AM
If I can finish 3 more games I'll hit 52 completed games for the year. Mostly on account of not really playing many JRPGs this year and playing a lot more story games.

In December I'd like to finish with...

Horizon Zero Dawn - Been playing this on and off all year, about 70 hours in. I like the combat and the story is getting pretty cool, but I think the game has room for improvement with things like side quests and progression.

Robotics;Notes Elite - So far I'm enjoying this visual novel, having finished the first chapter. The writing is funny and cute, but like Stein's;Gate there is something mysterious lurking beneath the surface. They've already played with some clever twists on tropes and I'm interested to see where it goes next. It's also got some neat features I really appreciate like an in-game calendar and map, to help immerse you in the world.

Shin Megami Tensei 5 - Loving every moment with this. A master class in game design. For me it's always "one more boss battle" or "one more demon fusion". The game is so addictive and even on hard the level of challenge has been perfect.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 08, 2021, 10:44:10 AM
I have been in the middle of two big games for a while now and hope to have both finished by the end of the month/year.
Fallout 4 - I am about halfway through the main campaign but usually do a few side quests between each main mission. I think I have spent about 50 hours on it, maybe 50 to go. I am hoping to get this completed before I get a PS5 (which is taking forever).

Astral Chain - I played this when it first came out on casual. It was fun but I did not bother with getting collectibles, side quests, or S+ ranks. Well I am back replaying on the standard difficulty and doing all those things. Also about halfway done. It really is a great game with a lot of content. I want to finish this before starting SMT5.

Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: BeautifulShy on December 08, 2021, 02:14:09 PM
Khushrenada with Metroid Prime 3 is it that you are trying to finish it on Hyper Mode like I was or is it the normal difficulty?

TopHatAnt123 with Horizon Zero Dawn what is your fave aspect of the game?

MKBungle Astrial Chain is so fun and I really need to finish it.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: BeautifulShy on December 08, 2021, 02:40:29 PM
As for myself I have so many games I need to complete. Sonic Mania and Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition are still in the shrink wrap.

I am also playing through Breath of the Wild.  It is just so expansive and I like to explore the world and I just get so in tuned with the world.   

I also have Smash Ultimate. I still need to complete World of Light and I play that from time to time.

Finally I have Astrial Chain I need to finish.  I think I am half way through it. I played it so much when i got it but got distracted by other things and haven't gone back to it.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 08, 2021, 04:32:41 PM
Khushrenada with Metroid Prime 3 is it that you are trying to finish it on Hyper Mode like I was or is it the normal difficulty?

Hypermode. I've done Normal a few times and did Veteran as well. Just need to finish Hypermode to get a couple of those Gold Medals to unlock a couple songs and I'll have finally completed everything in that game.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 08, 2021, 06:27:05 PM
MKBungle Astrial Chain is so fun and I really need to finish it.
Totally agree. My first playthrough I was mostly digging the story and detective work, but the collectible hunting and combat is my bread and butter now. Now that I am trying to get S+ in each battle I forced myself to really learn how to "chain"  8) the sync attacks.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: BeautifulShy on December 08, 2021, 10:21:52 PM
Khushrenada with Metroid Prime 3 is it that you are trying to finish it on Hyper Mode like I was or is it the normal difficulty?

Hypermode. I've done Normal a few times and did Veteran as well. Just need to finish Hypermode to get a couple of those Gold Medals to unlock a couple songs and I'll have finally completed everything in that game.
Hyper Mode took me forever as you might recall.  I did manage to beat it in the past 2 years.

MKBungle Astrial Chain is so fun and I really need to finish it.
Totally agree. My first playthrough I was mostly digging the story and detective work, but the collectible hunting and combat is my bread and butter now. Now that I am trying to get S+ in each battle I forced myself to really learn how to "chain"  8) the sync attacks.

I just love how the game flows to each new synch attack and how each new chain you get makes the combat more fun.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 08, 2021, 11:02:21 PM
It seems like every time there's a thread like this I post goals and then never actually finish them, so I'll aim pretty low and just say I want to finish Metroid Dread. I'm getting close to the end I think, but recently I've been kind of screwing around going back for collectibles.

EDIT: I'll  be extra ambitious and add one more: I want to finish the bonus missions in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. I've been going back and playing them recently and just finished the first set of them, so I'd like to get the rest of them done.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 09, 2021, 10:37:09 AM
It seems like every time there's a thread like this I post goals and then never actually finish them, so I'll aim pretty low and just say I want to finish Metroid Dread. I'm getting close to the end I think, but recently I've been kind of screwing around going back for collectibles.

EDIT: I'll  be extra ambitious and add one more: I want to finish the bonus missions in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. I've been going back and playing them recently and just finished the first set of them, so I'd like to get the rest of them done.

Yeah! You can do it! Have you gotten the power bombs in Dread? Because that's pretty much the last upgrade and means you are close to the final boss.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 09, 2021, 11:08:28 AM
It seems like every time there's a thread like this I post goals and then never actually finish them, so I'll aim pretty low and just say I want to finish Metroid Dread. I'm getting close to the end I think, but recently I've been kind of screwing around going back for collectibles.

EDIT: I'll  be extra ambitious and add one more: I want to finish the bonus missions in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. I've been going back and playing them recently and just finished the first set of them, so I'd like to get the rest of them done.

Yeah! You can do it! Have you gotten the power bombs in Dread? Because that's pretty much the last upgrade and means you are close to the final boss.

No, I haven’t gotten those yet, which I know makes going back for upgrades at this point a bit premature. The last major update I got is the screw attack.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 09, 2021, 02:39:58 PM
Well, not to give too much spoilers but you're pretty close to getting them. Your call if you want to read the following but I also keep things pretty generic for what's ahead.

Screw Attack opens a path to an area and if you follow the direction the game leads you then it won't take long to get to the power bombs. Once I got them is when I went and started really exploring and collecting everything. Plus, by doing that, then the warp machines are no longer color coded and you can warp from one to any other you'd like allowing for a bit easier travelling and backtracking.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: TOPHATANT123 on December 09, 2021, 04:43:38 PM
TopHatAnt123 with Horizon Zero Dawn what is your fave aspect of the game?
I've only ever heard this term used on the NWR's Talk Nintendo Podcast, but I really like the player package. Movement during fights involves running around dodging, slowing down time, sliding around on the ground. You've got a bunch of weapon types, elemental weaknesses, statuses you can inflict. It's important that you aim for weak points and use a variety of weapons, rather than shooting arrows blindly.

Astrial Chain is so fun and I really need to finish it.
I love Astral Chain. I can understand why some people think the combat has been simplified compared to something like Bayonetta which has fighting game inputs, but I love how the game controls.

Every button on the controller does something, learn what the button does and you've learnt the combat. There are some inputs, but they're easy and are introduced slowly throughout the game. Giving you time to learn and get used to what you have. It must be mesmerising to watch players who are good at this game.

Alright let's throw a question back at ya.
What's your favourite legion so far?
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: BeautifulShy on December 09, 2021, 10:30:29 PM
Quote
Alright let's throw a question back at ya.
What's your favourite legion so far?

I have to say I love the Arrow Legion the best so far.  I like how it plays in conjunction how I play and it can have different timing and I can synch the attacks with your own and it is a nice mix of far away attacks and up close.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Order.RSS on December 10, 2021, 06:07:55 AM
It seems like every time there's a thread like this I post goals and then never actually finish them, so I'll aim pretty low and just say I want to finish Metroid Dread. I'm getting close to the end I think, but recently I've been kind of screwing around going back for collectibles.

Don't think this constitutes a spoiler at all since I won't mention any areas, bosses, upgrades, items etc. but I'll spoilertag it just in case, because a lot of folks went dark on this game for a while. So the structure of the game ensures you clearly know when you're about to hit the last area. This gives you a chance to do one last run through the map and mop up any leftover collectibles if you want. It's not necessary - I beat the game with ~50% of the items for e.g.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 10, 2021, 11:33:14 AM
TopHatAnt123 with Horizon Zero Dawn what is your fave aspect of the game?

I know this has been done in other games but I feel Horizon perfected it, and that is taking over enemies and making them allies. You can reprogram the enemy robots by hacking them and then they will fight with the other enemy robots and you can just stand back and watch. It's quite entertaining.


Astrial Chain is so fun and I really need to finish it.

What's your favourite legion so far?

The beast legion is my favorite. The others are all anthropomorphic so this one being a quadruped and basically a robotic animal companion makes it standout. I had the same afinity for the robot pooches in Recore. Also, using the left shoulder you can ride the beast and go super fast and the super moves you get when maxing out the combos are really cool for Beast.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: ThePerm on December 10, 2021, 06:35:37 PM
I've been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 for the last few weeks. I still got the Uncharted: Lost Legacy, Shenmue 2 and 3, Cyberpunk, Resident Evil 7, and Fallout 4 to beat on Ps4. On Gamecube I never beat Beyond Good and Evil.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 11, 2021, 12:05:31 PM
I did not mention it above but I am playing Fallout 4 on PS4.
and Fallout 4 to beat on Ps4.
How far into the game are you Perm?
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 14, 2021, 11:16:23 AM
Let's consult the big board....

Quote
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Part Time UFO
Mario's Super Picross (Switch)
Donkey Kong Country (Switch)
Shantae (3DS VC)
Hello Kitty Roller Rescue (GC)
Luigi's Mansion (GC)
Pikmin (GC)
Metroid Prime 3
Xenoblade Chronicles X



And we've got one down. Finished the 150cc time trials and unlocked the last kart part. I really thought I could blast through this game quickly and at times it felt like I was getting through it faster than MK7 even with the extra cups and modes. (Nothing like beating a staff ghost on your first try.  8) ) Yet, my playtime is over 40 according to the Switch. Not sure what it was when I started playing the game more seriously as I had some previous time in it but it likely took 30 hours to complete it like this. (And there's still 200cc Time Trials if I wanted to go the extra mile.)

Haven't been able to do much in the way of gaming over the past week as work has kept me busy with some overtime and then just trying to get more sleep and keep on life tasks. However, that last work hurdle of the year is done and things will start slowing down now so should be able to get back to this project. I've advanced things a bit in Part Time UFO. Now have all the medals which means all hard jobs are unlocked but still a lot of tasks to do in that. Getting closer to the end of Super Picross. At level 10 in Wario puzzles and Level 9 in Mario puzzles. Been doing some exploring and a lot of dying in Shantae although I feel I've been making some progress. Was hoping I'd have a couple more titles off my list by the 15th but it just hasn't worked out that way. Hopefully hosting Safe Words won't prove to be one game too many for this month.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: pokepal148 on December 16, 2021, 05:44:20 PM
I'll just put in for Sonic Adventure. I should be able to squeeze in what's left of that.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 17, 2021, 03:57:01 PM
I just remembered this post from Order.RSS:
A cursory Google search says they're planning to make a holiday themed game (https://gonintendo.com/stories/374076-holiday-themed-game-seasonal-assistant-due-out-on-wii-u-early-2) which got pushed from last December to early this year. If that indeed ever releases I'll buy it and report back next holiday lol.
I can't think of a better Deadline December game for Order.RSS than Seasonal Assistant (https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/seasonal-assistant-wii-u/) available now on Wii U.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Luigi Dude on December 19, 2021, 01:18:51 PM
Earlier this week I finished Xenoblade 2 which was the oldest game in my Switch backlog.  I bought it back in March of 2018, but have kept putting it off since the previous Xenoblade game were so long.  Well I finally decided it was time last month and managed to beat it in around 77 hours, which is much quicker then the previous Xenoblades took me.  This time around I decided not to focus on doing every sidequest I could which made things go much quicker.  It also made the main game more enjoyable since I wasn't overleveled as **** and had to actually use real strategy to beat some of the bosses this time.

Of course it's rather annoying that the game didn't do a better job of explaining it's combat system.  The last boss of Chapter 5 kept killing me over and over until I realized my characters were taking damage from touching it and I was like WTF.  Then I go online and read that's called Spike damage and you need to equip to minimize that damage, but the game never once even told me this was a thing before this boss fight.  I guess if I would have done every side quest possible one of them might have told me about it, but come on, that was a rather dick move to do halfway through the game.

The elemental combo system also could have been explained better since the tutorial does a shitty job of explaining it as well.  I found an explanation online that explained it much better then the game did, and it really improved my enjoyment after I realized how it worked properly.

Plus some of the level design is rather questionable.  Some places make it way too easy to aggro a much stronger enemy if you attack some of the normal ones and it gets really annoying after a while.  I found it easier to just run to the boss of area then trying to engage the enemies on the way to the boss since quite a few area's love to cheap shot your ass with either higher leveled assholes suddenly showing up or a dozen regular ones come out of nowhere and attack your characters at once resulting in instant death as well.  I don't remember the first Xenoblade or X being anywhere as bad in this regard, of course that might just be because I was doing way more sidequest and might have just been overleveled in those games and didn't notice it.  :P

Oh well, other then those issues the rest of the game was a blast.  I'll eventually go back to play the Torna prequel DLC and maybe try more of the sidequest, but I'll stop for now to avoid getting burned out.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Order.RSS on December 19, 2021, 04:09:25 PM
I can't think of a better Deadline December game for Order.RSS than Seasonal Assistant (https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/seasonal-assistant-wii-u/) available now on Wii U.

Lol thanks for the reminder!
So, to keep true to my word, I downloaded this a few months ago and played it for maybe 45 minutes. Like other Ultra Dolphin Revolution games, it's a riff on an NES classic, in this case the first Legend of Zelda.

You have these single-screen environments with angry snowmen out to get you, and you gotta repel them by firing candy canes. Basically the same as the beam Link's sword can fire in Zelda 1. This gives the game a twin-stick shooter feeling, but if I'm not mistaken you can't move and aim in separate directions. (A one-stick shooter I guess?).

Environments are ice, igloes, you kinda skate around, and there's a very annoying MIDI cover of Jingle Bells playing. I never got very far, but once you go through a few screens you find a teleport which warps you elsewhere. So I wonder if there's a legit ending to work towards.

There's a very easy glitch you can trigger if there's more than two snowmen on a field: position yourself in a corner and they'll gang up on you. They don't ever stop moving, not even when they collide with you, so this breaks your standstill and moves you along with wherever they're going.
Basically the result is a train of snowmen bouncing around the screen, with you as a passenger. Imagine one of those DVD player screen savers where you hope they'll hit the corner exactly right. This state can go on for quite a while and you won't die if you don't move your guy.

Not my fave game by this indie dev, and something of a bummer after Spellcaster Assistant which was probably their best game I think. But it's amusing to trigger the snowmen train and annoy roommates with the Jingle Bell song.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: broodwars on December 19, 2021, 04:28:40 PM
Earlier this week I finished Xenoblade 2 which was the oldest game in my Switch backlog.  I bought it back in March of 2018, but have kept putting it off since the previous Xenoblade game were so long.  Well I finally decided it was time last month and managed to beat it in around 77 hours, which is much quicker then the previous Xenoblades took me.  This time around I decided not to focus on doing every sidequest I could which made things go much quicker.  It also made the main game more enjoyable since I wasn't overleveled as **** and had to actually use real strategy to beat some of the bosses this time.

Of course it's rather annoying that the game didn't do a better job of explaining it's combat system.  The last boss of Chapter 5 kept killing me over and over until I realized my characters were taking damage from touching it and I was like WTF.  Then I go online and read that's called Spike damage and you need to equip to minimize that damage, but the game never once even told me this was a thing before this boss fight.  I guess if I would have done every side quest possible one of them might have told me about it, but come on, that was a rather dick move to do halfway through the game.

The elemental combo system also could have been explained better since the tutorial does a shitty job of explaining it as well.  I found an explanation online that explained it much better then the game did, and it really improved my enjoyment after I realized how it worked properly.

Plus some of the level design is rather questionable.  Some places make it way too easy to aggro a much stronger enemy if you attack some of the normal ones and it gets really annoying after a while.  I found it easier to just run to the boss of area then trying to engage the enemies on the way to the boss since quite a few area's love to cheap shot your ass with either higher leveled assholes suddenly showing up or a dozen regular ones come out of nowhere and attack your characters at once resulting in instant death as well.  I don't remember the first Xenoblade or X being anywhere as bad in this regard, of course that might just be because I was doing way more sidequest and might have just been overleveled in those games and didn't notice it.  :P

Oh well, other then those issues the rest of the game was a blast.  I'll eventually go back to play the Torna prequel DLC and maybe try more of the sidequest, but I'll stop for now to avoid getting burned out.

I just recently attempted once again to get through this game, and I stopped playing at Chapter 4 because I Just reached a point where I kind of don't care anymore. I think the game's biggest problem is the Gacha nature of the Blade system. You pull so many Blades, and if you don't draw a rare Blade or at least one with rare passive abilities, you might as well trash it and try again. Then you have to level them all up through incredibly arbitrary ways. And you might not even pull a Blade that's suitable for the character that pulled it, so you have to use a limited resource to reassign them. And you're constantly needing to equip and unequip them whenever you run into skill checks in the world. It's just too much, and at this point I just don't care. It's not like the story is going anywhere fast, either.

I'll get back to it at some point, but so far Xenoblade 2 is proving to be somewhat of a disappointment.

As for my games, I started & completed Psychonauts 2 earlier this month, along with Chicory: A Colorful Tale. I also dug into my backlog and finally completed Concrete Genie. I'm currently playing the Annihilation Line DLC for the fantastic (and incredibly underappreciated) Terminator: Resistance. Before the end of the month, I'd like to start and finish Lost in Random as well, but I don't know if I'll get to that.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: pokepal148 on December 19, 2021, 05:26:58 PM
Xenoblade 2 was just really easy to drop and there are enough systems in place with the blades to make it kind of difficult to get back to.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: TOPHATANT123 on December 19, 2021, 08:48:53 PM
Xenoblade 2 has design problems. Overall I still like it quite a lot, but I can't disagree with the criticisms raised.

December is nearing its end and I've not finished any of the games yet.

Horizon Zero Dawn
I'm almost done with the DLC, then onto blasting through the remaining main story quests. The DLC I think is the best part about the game. It's challenging but not annoying, and gives you some new things to play with and unlock. Mixes linear sections with the open world nicely. After the DLC I have started to appreciate the combat even more, it's really fun as far as open world combat goes.

I usually love story and dialogue. But whenever a side quest giving NPC in Horizon starts talking my eyes glaze over and I miss all the details. I'm not sure what it is, I feel like they overuse those sci-fi proper nouns to refer to things that the game hasn't properly established. The way they talk is half modern, half faux wise tribal elder. Plus all of the side quests are some variation on: go here kill this. I find it hard to find any attachment to these side stories. The lore is more interesting than what's going on in the game.

Even though I don't think I love it as much as the general consensus, the game has something that makes me able to play it for 6 hours straight. Nearing 90 hours, should be able to finish this.

Robotics;Notes Elite
Now about 20 hours in. I'm just enjoying being with these characters and the world is well realised. Not as immediately gripping as Stein's Gate, but I'm not going to cast judgement yet. Probably won't finish before January, but I'd like to.

Shin Megami Tensei 5
70 hours in and still loving it. Some boss fights have gone down to the wire and been incredibly close. It's balanced in such a way that you feel powerful and have a range of tools, but so do your enemies. Any regular encounter can be a life or death situation, so you need to learn when to go all in and when to fold. At the rate I'm going plus everything else, very doubtful I'll finish this for Deadline December.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Luigi Dude on December 20, 2021, 02:02:11 PM
I just recently attempted once again to get through this game, and I stopped playing at Chapter 4 because I Just reached a point where I kind of don't care anymore. I think the game's biggest problem is the Gacha nature of the Blade system. You pull so many Blades, and if you don't draw a rare Blade or at least one with rare passive abilities, you might as well trash it and try again. Then you have to level them all up through incredibly arbitrary ways. And you might not even pull a Blade that's suitable for the character that pulled it, so you have to use a limited resource to reassign them. And you're constantly needing to equip and unequip them whenever you run into skill checks in the world. It's just too much, and at this point I just don't care. It's not like the story is going anywhere fast, either.

Oh I agree the Blade system is a mess and the developers really didn't think it through that well.  But focusing on the Blades the game gives you naturally was enough for me to get through the main game.  Plus I don't want to spoil much but toward the last few chapters, the story gives Rex 2 Blades that end up being so overpowered that there's no point in him using anything else after that.  I also found Tora to be the much better tank character since he can have such a large amount of HP, and if you keep putting an item that gives him a 25% damage barrier to max HP in his pouch all the time, it's almost impossible for him to die.  Of course the Tiger Tiger minigame to power up Poppi is dumb.  The later levels in that mini game are so damn cheap that it end up being quicker to just replay the first level over and over again since it's the easiest one to gain crystals to buy better parts for her.

It's kind of weird how the game makes a big deal out of Blades and wants you to have a ton of them, but by the end of it, the best ones end up being a few the game gives you anyway.  Unless someone is trying to go for 100% on all side quest, it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

On the story though, yeah your going to be out of luck on that one.  I personally didn't think the story became interesting until the last few chapters, but then the game suddenly shoves a ton of cutscenes and flashbacks down your throat as well.  It's a very badly paced story where you have things moving at a snails pace for much of the game then suddenly things go from 0 to 100 at the end.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: pokepal148 on December 20, 2021, 02:49:50 PM
I hit Perfect Chaos yesterday in Sonic Adventure. That boss is significantly more difficult than the handful of gameplay videos I've seen years ago make it out to be.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 23, 2021, 01:15:03 AM
I just rolled credits on Metroid Dread, so that's one down. That final boss was a real bastard, to the point I started to worry about the battery on my Switch with how many tries it took me, but I finally took him down.

EDIT: Having finished the credits and gone back to the home screen it turns out my battery was still at 75%, so I wasn't anywhere close to running out, but it felt like a lot at the time.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 26, 2021, 06:22:08 PM
I finally completed my second play through of Astral Chain. In addition to increasing the difficulty to Pt standard (I don't know why I played casual the first time, standard is not that hard) I went for 100% completion. There are a lot of different collectibles and a lot of game here. It ended up taking be about 66 hours but it was very satisfying. This game is easily in my top 5 Switch games and should not be missed.

According to the in-game achievement system I am only 94% complete because I still have the following: Pt Ultimate difficulty, database (taking pictures of every enemy), and File 12 (post game missions). Still I feel like I am at a good enough stopping point to say I finished the main game and Lappy looks impressed  ;)
(https://i.imgur.com/4cvsnqe.jpg)

Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: pokepal148 on December 27, 2021, 03:11:09 PM
I cleared Sonic Adventure now. Perfect Chaos was a real bully but we did it. I have 48 emblems and 20 hours on record.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: broodwars on December 27, 2021, 10:05:39 PM
I did end up clearing the Terminator Resistance DLC, as well as Lost in Random and Carrion.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: pokepal148 on December 27, 2021, 11:35:09 PM
I went and cleared the final boss of Kirby Star Allies. That's two games this month! Let's go.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on December 28, 2021, 11:48:30 AM
I beat the main story in Fallout 4 thus completing both objectives for Deadline December! Total playtime was about 56 hours and I ended up with 32/50 trophies. This was the first Bethesda game I finished and as most people say, it's both a great game and a buggy mess. I am not sure what I said in Shocktober so I will just post my notes again here.
Pros: Story, characters, voice acting. The ability to choose the outcome of the game is the best I have ever seen in a game. The relationship system is awesome (I love you Cait!). The VATS system for "turn based" combat. Cons: The game is too difficult at first, requiring too much manual saving. Too much of an emphasis on killing. The crafting system is not great. When you side with one faction, you have to turn on the other three.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on December 28, 2021, 08:21:24 PM
Alright. Finally some progress I can report on. Things have been jammed up for awhile but maybe stuff will finally start falling into place here.

Completed Part Time UFO late last night. Finally made a high enough tower in the Tower of Infinity section to get the last medal needed which also gave me the last Feat of Glory I needed. Done and dusted.

Then I was finally able to move on and wrap up Shantae for GBC. Collected the last firefly and was able to acquire all dances and items and beat the boss so that is complete and wrapped up.

On a roll, I then looked up what bonus areas I was missing in DKC and then got that game finished on 101% via the Switch SNES app. A couple of those bonus areas are crazy. You basically need a guide to find them.

That moves my progress to 4/10. I really thought I'd be at 6 or 7 at this point but some of this stuff took me longer to finish than expected and time to play has still been a bit of a juggling act. Meanwhile, Mario Super Picross just wants to keep giving me more puzzles but I should be nearing the end in that. Finished all the Wario puzzles and now just have 10 or so left in Mario's Special section. I got batteries charging up for my WiiMote for finishing MP3 but that'll be tomorrow. I guess it is GameCube time now.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: ThePerm on December 28, 2021, 11:25:17 PM
I did not mention it above but I am playing Fallout 4 on PS4.
and Fallout 4 to beat on Ps4.
How far into the game are you Perm?

Not very far.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: NWR_insanolord on December 29, 2021, 04:30:59 AM
It's looking like I probably won't hit my second goal for this, as I just checked and the second set of Pikmin 3 Deluxe side stories is longer than I was expecting.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: TOPHATANT123 on December 30, 2021, 05:54:57 PM
At the very least I managed to finish Horizon Zero Dawn. As they came out a week apart and have similar mechanics, it's hard not to compare this game with Breath of the Wild. I actually think the two games compliment each other well, rather than one being clearly better.

For an open world game Horizon has really great nuanced combat with a wide variety of weapons. In Zelda, combat isn't really a focus (though I will say a huge improvement over previous entries).

Zelda has a greater emphasis on freedom and exploration, with shrines, koroks, photos and resources. In Horizon there's not much of a reason to just head out and walk in a random direction, when I went somewhere it was with purpose.

Horizon has excellent lore to dig into, whereas in BOTW I thought the lore was pretty shallow.

BOTW's crafting system is really fun and silly, as you mash random things together and see what comes out. Horizon is a lot more utilitarian, there are only a very small handful of resources that you will actually need to pick up

Horizon has some amazing DLC that fits perfectly into the main game. As for BOTW's DLC, well I was so underwhelmed I never bought it.

BOTW has a crazy physics system that you can get really creative with. Plus the fact you can go literally anyway. With Horizon it's more of what you see is what you get.

Both the games are a phenomenal first attempt at an open world game, it goes to show what can happen when you get developers working on new genres.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Luigi Dude on December 31, 2021, 09:20:22 PM
Managed to get one more big game in by the end of the year and even had enough time left to do an indie as well.

Astral Chain

Finally bought the game during the eShop Thanksgiving sale last month, since I had always been interested in it from the trailers.  Finished the game earlier this week and really enjoyed it overall.  Played it on the PT Standard mode but didn't go for S+ like AJBungle did.  I originally was going to go back and replay levels to get higher ranks and get all photo's, but by the time I finished the main story I was burned out.

My biggest problem is the game is just too long for what it has to offer.  The combat is fun, but not as deep as Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101.  It's also lacking in enemy variety, despite the database saying it has over 160 enemies, most are just reskins of existing ones.  By the end of the game I was enjoying the detective and exploration aspects more then the actual combat sections.

Still a nice first entry in a new IP, and would like to see what a more polished sequel would be able to do.  Especially when the game introduces a new element to the combat literally at the very end that I think has the potential to really expand the combat in a future installment.


Broforce

Well I still had a few days left so I decided to play something short in my backlog.  Not much to really say about this.  It was a fun action game and I laughed at all the different things the game was parodying.  The level design does start to feel samey after a while but the last few levels get pretty crazy so the game kept me engaged for the 5 hours it took to beat it.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on January 01, 2022, 10:44:06 PM
Well, when I made my last post a couple days ago, it hit me that December ended on Friday. For some reason, I had been thinking it was this Sunday. I guess holiday time had got me all confuzzled. After making the post, I knew I wasn't going to finish everything I had hoped to.

I finally wrote off Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue. There was one outfit I couldn't unlock. I have no idea what the requirement is or how close I might be to getting it. There's just no info on this game out there. It just wasn't covered by any game site and no real FAQ exists. I just see the same sort of stuff for it posted all over and it's clearly not correct since I've done what was said to get S ranks on all levels and still nothing. I've bought all the profiles, videos and music. I've gotten all my helpers to their top level 3 and have finished all levels with S rank. There's only so much I can keep playing this kind of basic game until whatever charm it has is gone so that's it. I'm considering it finished and walking away.

Mario's Super Picross - I finished the Special Mario levels late on Friday and that caused the credits to play on the game. However, it also unlocked some Ultra levels on the Wario side so I beat the game but it's not quite finished yet. A half point.

Pikmin - Popped in Pikmin after washing my hands of the Hello Kitty Sailer B Costume madness and started chipping away through that. Have gotten all parts from the Impact Site, Forest of Hope, Forest Navel and now have to go through the Distant Spring and Final Boss for the remaining 11 ship parts.

I also never got any gaming time on Thursday further cutting into the potential of finishing Pikmin in time or the MP3 final bosses I keep talking about. Maybe tonight. Also never got back to Luigi's Mansion or XCX yet but I'll get to them soon enough I'm sure. Final December Tally: 5.5/10

(Mario's Super Picross is too super! So many large Picross puzzles. With less puzzles, I might have been able to make it to 7/10.)
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on January 19, 2022, 06:26:47 PM

And we've got one down. Finished the 150cc time trials and unlocked the last kart part. I really thought I could blast through this game quickly and at times it felt like I was getting through it faster than MK7 even with the extra cups and modes. (Nothing like beating a staff ghost on your first try.  8) ) Yet, my playtime is over 40 according to the Switch. Not sure what it was when I started playing the game more seriously as I had some previous time in it but it likely took 30 hours to complete it like this. (And there's still 200cc Time Trials if I wanted to go the extra mile.)


What kart/racer combination did you use for 200cc to 3-star the cups. I had great set up for the 50-150 but it doesn't work at 200?
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on January 19, 2022, 08:36:50 PM
Oh yeah, I had to change up my racing rig for 200cc also. I used my time at first with 100cc and 150cc to try different characters and kart pieces before eventually settling on Waluigi + W25 Silver Arrow (what I call the Monopoly Car) + Slick Tires + the standard Super Glider. Although I did later switch to the Gold Standard kart piece after unlocking it and used that for the last few Cups and all the 150cc Time Trials with Waluigi and didn’t notice much difference in control.

For 200cc, I returned to Daisy as my champion driver. It seemed to me that acceleration more than top speed was needed for 200cc. It also took some fiddling to find a build that I liked the traction and cornering with but I pretty much settled on the combo of Daisy + Landship + Blue Standard + Standard Glider. If you don’t have the Landship unlocked then you can also use the Streetle frame. The stats are the same as the Landship and that driver/tire/glider combo. Now I say pretty much settled on because there was one other build I had to use to get through the Egg Cup. That was my hardest 200cc challenge. The worst thing was that I could pretty much get first on the first two tracks 99% of the time. It was Dragon Driftway and Mute City together that kept eluding me. Cornering is very challenging in Dragon Driftway and I also had a problem with a large curve in Mute City though sometimes it also was ruined by bad item luck on the last lap. In any case, I used the same Driver/tire/glider combo but switched the kart frame from Landship to Biddybuggy. It seemed to give me the slight improvement in cornering that I needed for Dragon Driftway and I finally did some better cornering in Mute City as well.

Fortunately for you, I started snapping a bunch of clips at the end of some races and wins that I thought might make for decent tweets of Mario Kart Madness so I could easily see what my builds were and what I used to win some cups. Now a couple caveats. People can drive in different ways and have different preferences for what they may think feels right to them. I’ve never liked the feel of the motorcycle/bike frames. The cornering feels off on those. I’ve stuck with carts because there’s a type of cornering and drift I’m looking for based on what I feel it was like in past games that I succeeded with. So, this combo still may not be right for you.

The other thing you may already know but I’ll mention anyways is that you have to race differently in 200cc. I had to change the angle or spot on the road I might normally take a corner. As I’d do some laps, I’d be figuring out and identifying which corners or parts of the track were tripping me up and focus on how and when I was turning or driving when I got to them until I found a successful approach and started copying that maneuver each time I’d hit that portion. Unlike the early cups, sometimes it was more beneficial to not go over any ramps or do any tricks for extra speed boosts because that could cause you to miss the next corner or lose control of the cart. Sometime it was best not to even bother doing a drift for some corners or just driving/hopping over some land to reach a “shortcut” because 200 keeps you from being slowed down too much when you off-road. The game also says using your brakes is an important part of 200cc and there are times you may have to quickly slam to the B button but generally I found just letting go of the A button for a quick moment or two was enough to bring my speed down and correct myself in some tricky spots without slowing down too much. Sometimes that was the best approach for a tight corner. Start turning, letting go of A for a moment to kill a bad drift and press back down to keep going forward after that quick correction. Better to do that then crash and lose all speed and momentum.

Hope that helps. A good track to try is the Mario Circuit track in Flower Cup. I loaded the game up and tested the Daisy build on it just now. I could still do some long cornering on it getting up to purple sparks and easily won that race on my first try. Still got it! Although most 200cc tracks won’t give you time to do nice cornering.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: M.K.Ultra on January 20, 2022, 05:50:29 PM
Thanks for that Khush, you always go above and beyond. I was last trying out some of the baby drivers and still getting stuck on courses like Mute City. I will give you setup a try. I definitely agree with you on the bikes, I only use them for battle mode.
Title: Re: Deadline December 2021!
Post by: Khushrenada on January 21, 2022, 06:48:32 PM
Thanks for that Khush, you always go above and beyond.

I was just honored that when you thought you could use some advice for a game the name that came to your mind was Khushrenada. If someone is going to think of me as their go-to source for information then I don't want to let them down!