Topic: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

[Drizzt]

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: A true gentleman won't find this game objectionable

   Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright is how crossovers should be done. The game takes two successful franchises, and blends them together in a way that not only respects and highlights the source material, but also creates an entirely new franchise.

        The game’s strength lies in its characters, Both the Ace Attorney and Layton games feature a cast of interesting, and extremely likeable, individuals. This game takes it one step further by not only introducing unique new faces, but also bringing together ones long time players of either series remember, and showcasing how they interact. The game’s plot centers around the enigmatic town of Labyrinthia and the bizarre events that have been plaguing it. The core gameplay is split up into two parts, As Layton you explore various locales, collecting evidence, solving puzzles, and learning as much as possible about the secretive community. As Phoenix you partake in the town’s macabre witch trials, using the previously gathered information to save your client from a gruesome fate.

        The soundtrack is superb including beautiful new compositions as well as remixes of staple songs from either series, the first time you start the game and hear the title theme you know you are in for a treat. Players of the original games will appreciate the copious amounts of fan service casually referenced as the narrative proceeds, the respect and admiration given to the franchises is apparent, and a welcome sigh of relief to those skeptical about how this pairing would work. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz0-xcOY_8c&index=1&list=PLz5gUls4mkX_GyguKZnENYfhGjJSgqB9D

        This game is great for anyone, if you are a fan of both games you probably already have it, if you have only played one series and are curious about the other give it a try you might like it, and for newcomers the game is still extraordinary but a lot of the references will fly over your head.

[ejamer]

Finally finished off The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (GC).


My early impressions haven't changed much - still a huge fan of this game. The steady progression of new and more powerful moves keeps you feeling Hulk-like while the movement through environments is mostly fluid and enjoyable. Side-missions are often entertaining while the main story can be pushed forward quickly if that's your preference.


But those loading times... ouch. If that could have been avoided the game would be much more enjoyable.
Highly recommended despite a couple of flaws/limitations.

[azeke]

Donkey Kong Country 2 (GBA version):
24:43, 91%, 38/68 DK coins, 6 pages of Scrapbook filled.

It says i only have 13 feathers, but that can't be right, i probably spent some of them on that ostrich mini-game.

Obviously i had to collect all kremkoins to unlock all lost world levels and then -- final final boss. So basically i went through game twice -- first time and then going for kremkoins as i watch 100% let's play. I was also watching GameCenter CX episode on the game but that is not meant to be a comprehensive walkthrough.

But both videos taught me moves i had no idea you could do until i have "beaten" the game: where one monkey climbs another's back and you can throw it, and then i had another revelation when i saw that you can also throw a partner up. You will need to use both these moves to find all bonus tokens and unlock real ending.

I also had no idea about exclamation mark after level's name after you collect all bonus tokens.

In Lost World, Fiery Furnace and Klobber Karnage were the hardest. Both had gimmicks with barrels where you had to be nearly perfect with timing. Lost world's secret boss was kinda disappointing, it was basically the same as "final" boss only with harder patterns and just one phase.

From "let's play" i discovered that there is yet another level that unlocks if i will collect all DK coins, but at this point i can't be bothered and calling this an end (i suspect GBA version has even more unlockable stuff to reward you for collecting additional collectables that weren't in SNES version).

Overall: hard game with some cool bosses. Lots of bullshit with collectables -- usually secret passages through the walls are marked by trail of bananas, but in many cases there is nothing. You just have to know it. Or look it up as i did.

Same goes for level design. There is a LOT of stuff especially in later levels that you just have to know and remember.

Game also has some weird controls for a platformer. When i press B to prepare to run, monkey does a roll and slightly moves forward. This messed me up on a narrow platforms countless times. Busy graphical design that makes it hard to distunguish where is what doesn't help.

But the biggest techical problem is wonky hitboxes, especially with animal buddies. Sometimes you get hit, sometimes you don't. In flying levels your hitbox doubles making them even harder.

[ClexYoshi]

I just finished Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (both a normal mode and a pirate mode platyorugh) and... it's amazing. it blows Risky's Revenge out of the water, and is such a well designed game on the overall, and... I finally feel like I have a better sense of Sequin Land as a world then the other two games ever gave me. It's very tight as a metroidvania and has much better pacing than Risky's Revenge or... even the original on the GBC. I'm not sure if this is going to replace the original as one of my favorite games of all time. I only try to keep one game per a series on the list for diversity's sake, so... yeah. not sure.

[Triforce Hermit]

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare: The story is generic, but the game does an extremely good job of story telling which surprised me. Better then Halo 3. The multiplayer is okay, but nothing to write home about unless you meet hackers which make it more entertaining.

Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay: Everything but the shotgun and tranquilizer gun suck. Some parts of the game have very bad design which makes sneaking around damn near impossible. The guards eat away your damn health which makes any form of not sneaking very difficult. The ideas surrounding the game are great, the story is okay, and the gameplay for the most part is excellent.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf:  Great game for pacing yourself. Unfortunately its not my cup of tea, but I do play it sometimes just to see whats new. My brother loves it though.

[broodwars]

I have finally...at long last...finished The Wolf Among Us on my PS4. I would have beaten this game months ago, but some HDD issues on my PS3 caused me to lose my save data. Now that I've finally beaten the thing on PS4, I'm quite satisfied with the end result. It doesn't hit as many highs as some previous Telltale games and you can see more than a bit of influence from Telltale's previous Jurassic Park release towards the end of the game, but overall it's probably the most consistently-good "season" Telltale's had. The game just flows well, and it has easily the fewest technical issues I've ever seen in a Telltale game, pretty much limited to some framerate hitches here and there.  The downside of that flow is that the game really didn't have much in the way of any interesting moral choices. You're pretty much just playing out a 4-5 hour movie where occasionally you can flavor the experience a bit. Sure, that's what The Walking Dead was as well, but that game hid that better.

The other downside of this game is that it makes me want to jump into the Fables comics now, and that ****'s just way too expensive and takes up way too much physical storage for me.

[ejamer]

Shantae (GBA, via 3DS VC)
Despite a few odd bugs that kicked in at the very end, this game was a delight. It blew away my expectations for a GBC action game and convinced me to buy in for the rest of the series. I can understand how some people wouldn't like the way multi-hit enemies slow exploration down, or the inconvenience of a large sprites/small screen combination... but I consider both of those to be common problems with the platform rather than limited to this game.


This game is a perfect use of Virtual Console - making high quality, hard to access otherwise games available to the masses. Highly recommended.

[broodwars]

I have beaten Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal on 3DS. It is...incredibly forgettable, which is a notable step-up for the Sonic franchise. The platforming is ultimately competent and there's nothing overtly wrong with the game (which is typical of Sanzaru), just that it's not a game you'll ever come back to and you'll probably forget you even played it a few days later.

[NWR_insanolord]

Forgettable is definitely a step in the right direction. I wish I could forget the werehog, or Sonic kissing a human girl.

[Shaymin]

Or Knuckles roiding up.

[broodwars]

For all the 3DS version's issues, at least it isn't the Wii U version. I watched the Giant Bomb Quick Look for that the other day. Eesh.  Still, I'll probably get decent mileage out of "BOUNCE PAD!" and "RINGS ARE COOL!" (29 minutes in on the QL if you're curious) on the next NFR.

[ShyGuy]

That was a pretty good quick look. Sonic Boom is a TV show and the game looks like a cheap TV-tie in game made by a C-teir developer. This game could have been Phineas and Pherb or something and it would be about the same.

[Shaymin]

Finished The Wolf Among Us on 360 today.

Telltale, you write a decent story but you can't code worth a damn. If it wasn't the load times or jerky framerates, it's the text switching to Spanish and then German in the middle of the climactic scene.

[NWR_insanolord]

Switching the lanage at random would be a great insanity effect if they ever actually get to make a new Eternal Darkness.

[Ceric]

Switching the lanage at random would be a great insanity effect if they ever actually get to make a new Eternal Darkness.

That would make for a really trippy Brawl Level as well.

[ejamer]

...
Telltale, you write a decent story but you can't code worth a damn. ...

So true!  I own a bunch of Telltale games and usually enjoy them well enough because of the writing/stories, yet it feels like every release on every platform is plagued with technical issues. The worst part? There really is no excuse for that to happen. Budgets are clearly limited, but these games aren't exactly technical showpieces to begin with.

[azeke]

Telltale, you write a decent story but you can't code worth a damn.

From what i can tell playing TWD and from impressions of "second season" their writing is pretty terrible too.

Not as bad as their technical skills though. Nothing is worse than that. They are reigning champions of unapologetically shipping broken games year after year after year.

[broodwars]

Telltale, you write a decent story but you can't code worth a damn.

From what i can tell playing TWD and from impressions of "second season" their writing is pretty terrible too.

I wouldn't go that far. In fact, I've found their writing in general tends to be excellent, if extremely on the soap opera/noir side. Frankly, given the low quality of everything else that is The Walking Dead, it's kind of amazing how well Telltale managed to pull off good products in that franchise.

Not as bad as their technical skills though. Nothing is worse than that. They are reigning champions of unapologetically shipping broken games year after year after year.

Now that's just being unfair. Yeah, I've had MORE than my fair share of technical issues with Telltale over the years (most notably Telltale's games repeatedly REFUSING to backup to my cloud storage, leading to me losing my entire Season 1 & 2 TWD progress and having to start over with season 1 so I can get back into season 2), their bugs tend to fall on either the hilarious ...



...or mildly obnoxious (the framerate: a continual Telltale issue). Their games are perfectly playable, which is more than can be said for most developers these days.

[MagicCow64]

I might be one of the few people who appreciated Telltale a lot more when they were making actual adventure games. I thought the second two Sam and Max seasons were pretty good, as was the Back to the Future game. And, somewhat perversely, I actually really enjoyed the Jurassic Park game as a sort of digital rollercoaster (I find it funny now how that game got lambasted for doing a lot of what their new stuff is praised for; what a difference a few years makes in this increasingly non-interactive medium!). I quite like the first Walking Dead season, and also agree that it's the best piece of anything in the franchise, but at that point they were still keeping up the pretense that it was a game.


They threw all that out the window with The Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead Season 2. Both games might as well not have controls outside of dialogue wheels. And the illusion of choice has become laughably transparent. This would be more forgivable, but I'm with Azeke, the writing of the most reason games has gotten terrible. I've read all of Fables, and they butchered the property from where I'm standing on top of a providing a narrative that was slopped together and incoherent on its own terms.


Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Wii U):



So I finally got around to playing the back half of this game so I could make room on my harddrive for Smash Bros. I liked the game well enough for what it is at first, but it really gets worse the more you play it. The level design gets crappier as it goes along (and tosses in more and more aggravating tank-dudes), it shoe-horns in utterly atrocious drone control and FPS segments, and the fact that you can't upgrade things at a satisfying pace without doing all the mindless Ubi-brand side activities and Uplay challenge shenanigans made me give on trying to play the game in an interesting or varied way. I regret the $20 I dropped on this.

[Soren]

Bayonetta (Wii U) - 7.5/10

Originally I only wanted to play a few chapters just to get a feel for the gameplay, but I ended up sticking through till the end to experience the story. I'm glad I did because things really didn't make much sense until the very last chapters.  Overall the game is good, not great, with the rewarding combat system making up for the shitty QTEs and janky camera. I had my fair share of stupid deaths but there was never really a moment where I felt like quitting out. Eventually I'll go and try and get better awards for some chapters.

Fire Emblem Awakening (3DS) - 10/10
Finished the main story, almost all the spot pass stages and one of the DLC packs. I love this game. I'm glad I got to experience it. I loved the character relationships, even though I haven't really unlocked most of the child characters. I'm also glad for all the side battles that allow me to play with some of the characters I would normally ignore on the main story.

Mario Kart DLC Pack 1 (Wii U) - 8/10

Finished both cups with 3 stars on 150 and Mirror. The tracks overall are very good, and the DLC pack accomplishes the goal of getting me back online with this game, which is good. Now if they'd only fix the matchmaking...

Super Smash Bros for 3DS (3DS) - 7/10
I won't be playing the game much after this week, so I'm basically done with it. It's a great game on 3DS, but it only made me want the Wii U version more. I couldn't really get over the awkwardness of the controls and I was always afraid I was going to break my circle pad during intense game sessions. What little I played of the online was surprisingly good. I hope for something at least close enough for the Wii U version. Let's hope indeed.

[ShyGuy]

Steam World Dig Wii U

Very satisifying game, just short enough to leave you wanting more. I would call it a mix of Dig Dug and a Metroidvania. It really blends exploration, getting loot for upgrades and tunnel building strategies together in a really well balanced experience. Shows a ton of polish for an indie game.

[broodwars]

I have beaten LittleBigPlanet 3's campaign stages, though I'm by no means done with the game. There's still a ton of side levels to take on and collectibles hidden in previous stages I'll never use, but I've finished the story missions. Overall, I'm quite happy with the game, even if the "final boss" is a perfect case study for why this series needs to ditch even having lives and the story content is definitely on the short side. I also feel like there are way too few levels featuring the new characters, considering how radically each changes the way you play the game. I ran into a few bugs as well, but they were relatively minor and basically resulted in a handful of unintended deaths over the course of the game.

What really sold me on this game were the improvements in the jumping physics; the increased effort towards presentation; the dramatically "deeper" levels (it boggles my mind that this game doesn't support 3D televisions); and the just obvious amount of passion and creativity on display in the level design. If you haven't been able to get into past entries in the series, I'm not sure it will convert you, but it's definitely the first console LBP game where the story content felt like more than just a brief tutorial on using the level tools.

[Triforce Hermit]

L.A. Noire- Ending took too long to get too and the story dragged on a lot, but it was satisfying. Overall, I'm really happy with it and how it gave out the happy ending to the only hero in the game who was from the marines.

[Soren]

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (Wii U) - 7/10
Fun indie platformer. The combat is pretty good, but the constant amount of kill rooms make the combat a tedious chore. There constant barrage of memes and puns can get a bit old. There's a rewarding experience in here though, it's just something you wouldn't want to play again once you're finished. The new boss battle in this game is actually one of the better boss battle in the game.


SteamWorld Dig (Wii U) - 8.5/10
First hour of this game was definitely giving me "is this it?" vibes. But once you clear the first area the game really opens up and it starts getting really challenging. I had a couple of silly deaths, but it's nothing you really have to worry about. The upgrade system is well implemented and the game's finale is actually pretty fun. The final areas really force you to think three moves ahead, otherwise you will not get the all the loot for your upgrades. I would say this is one of the better games in the eShop right now. Must play if you haven't already.


A Bird Story (Steam/Mac OS) - 8/10
I cried like a baby. Minimal game interaction (it can be argued the interaction broke the flow of the story more than once) and a pretty predictable story. But it's still better than most stories simply because it knows how to show, not tell. It's not perfect but it's one of the better hours I've spent playing games this year.

[azeke]

Bastion (Steam):


"This game is trying to be X but does this in such a broad strokes it might as well not..." That would be the sentence that i would apply to most of Bastion.

It's trying to tell some kind of deep story, but it makes zero sense -- even if for a videogame story it's filled with blank places that are never filled and just outright plotholes.

It's trying to build backstories for the characters, but they all ultimately feel samey and tell basically the same thing.

It's trying to grab with it's narrative, but most of often than not you are wondering what is going on and why.

The combat system is kinda sorta interesting but not really?.. Countering with a shield feels satisfying when you do it with good timing but other than that it's all mindless Diablo-style mashfest. That's why later levels turn into a slog.

Controls are weird. Despite that the game was released in 2011 when dual stick controllers were a thing for a few decades, Bastion uses NES Ikari Warriors/Commando style controls. Sure it's probably because controller support was patched in later and the game was designed with mouse-keyboard in mind, but still it's just weird.

The good parts are great visuals and music.

The game is very colourful with great hand-drawn art:


Caelondia's themed music is western/country style tunes, while Ura music has a middle-eastern feel. Music is accompanied by superb narration from Ron Perlman-voicealike.

Overall game plays okay-ish and it eventually gets boring, but visuals and music and narration kept me coming back for more.

While i finished the story (steam says it took 13 hours), there are lot more to do, New Game Plus, leveling up more weapons, weapons' challenges, replaying backstory mission with more idols and checking out how story changes when you make other choices...

If only the combat felt a bit better i would be motivated to come back and do all that, but alas...