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

[ShyGuy]

Blok Drop U Short and simple, things get complicated towards the end. Still, enjoyed it for $2.00

[MagicCow64]

Watch Dogs (PC)

This game started out sort of okay, and the hacking puzzles were initially engaging, but my god, every additional hour with this thing just got worse and worse. It's incredibly thin and soulless while still having an overwhelming amount of "stuff" to do. I gave up on any side activities early on and stuck to the campaign, but ended up having to quit out of several missions and grind for experience points so I could unlock upgrades that made mission chokepoints doable without failing 20 times. I think I'm done with Ubisoft "AAA" games for a good long while.

[ejamer]

Pikmin 3 (Wii U) - Really enjoyed the game. Not quite enough to 100% the fruit or go back for missions right now though.

[azeke]

Batman: Arkham Origins:
Arkham games are guilty pleasures of mine. I know these games are subpar, but i keep coming back. Combat system is very western, as in completely half baked and not very well thought out at all.

Collectathon aspect is rather tedious, though not on Assasin's Creed levels.

Setting and story are made to appeal a very low common denominator, but thankfully i am not (yet) snob enough to deny myself of simple, even dumb entertainment.

Spent 38 hours to finish story and collect all Enigma doohikeys. The reward for doing it is this:

^ a reminder of an even bigger collectathon of the last Arkham game (Origins has 200 thingies to collect, City had 400 or so).

Progression system is kinda interesting because it's a set of basically achievements that only activate one after another. Previously you could do Riddler's challenges in any order, but now they're ordered and you can't do next challenge until you did previous one.

This screwed me up with Predator challenges because i simply ran out of stealth missions in the story before i could do all of them. The one way to replay stealth missions is to play new game plus but after 15 minutes i gave up.

10 minutes after my save got corrupted for some reason and i even felt some kind relief because now i don't have to do anything.

I really liked story (Joker/Red Hood/Harley Quinn sequence was amazing) and cutscenes were sick.

[azeke]

Metroid:
Finally:


13 something hours. Started in january of 2013. Finished yesterday.

The biggest problem is copy-pasted environments, even the escape sequence has repeating elements. You can't figure where you are exactly just by looking at the screen and layout of the platform -- they are re-used all over it could be any of the dozen rooms that have the same platforms.

Rather floaty jump which only gets worse when boss starts spamming his attacks and then you move like you're surrounded by oil.

For final sequence i preferred to freeze metroids and running past them rather than spending precious hardly earned rockets to finish them off. Strategy "screen border is your best weapon" still works.

The font in "The End" text is hilariously off for the game it's in:


It also is very similar to Super Mario 2 ending font.

[NotMario]

I finished Kirby: Triple Deluxe yesterday and I think it's probably my favourite standard style Kirby game. I'm not a huge fan of Kirby's standard style games usually (being games like Kirby's Adventure, Return to Dreamland etc.) but I really enjoyed this one.

I thought it had some cool uses of 3D, especially with the background and foreground layers of the levels. The segments of levels with the laser Kirby holds to kill enemies and blocks in the background while avoiding obstacles in the foreground was a cool idea, as were other items like the canon.

The bonus games were cool too. Kirby fighters was a fun little Super Smash Bros-esque mode that I'd imagine would be more fun if you had someone else to play with locally. The real gem, though, is Dedede's Drums. I really loved these levels and it's a shame there's only four. I would totally buy a full eShop game because it has a lot of potential to be fleshed out.

My only real complaint is that - like most Kirby games, the game is very, very easy.
I did unlock the mode at the end where you play through the game as King Dedede but I think I'll go back to that later. Good game though!

Also, hi everyone! This is my first post!

[ejamer]

...
Also, hi everyone! This is my first post!

Yay! Welcome to the forums, and thanks for sharing some great impressions about Kirby. 

[azeke]

La Mulana: Hell Temple:
70 hours on my Steam account. 30 of these i spent to beat the game second time (first time was on Wii) and the rest was to beat Hell Temple. Probably last 15 hours i've spent in this room:


Unbelievably hard sequence (remember THAT room from VVVVVV? Yes, THAT one. Now, make it around ten times harder and you're getting close) that is followed by this room:


which is nowhere as hard, but you really need to memorize all the right jumps because one slip -- and you're back in Hell and have to redo previous ultra hard room again.

After spending way too many hours trying to do this myself, i gave up and used this speedrun as a primer on the right jumps for second room. I could have eventually done it myself but i simply didn't get enough opportunities to train in second room because of how hard it is to get there in the first place.

Took me another 4 hours to get the sequence right and i finally was able to progress further. I even wrote the right inputs on the same piece of paper that i used more than a year ago to decrypt puzzles of La Mulana.

Bosses that come after that were a joke compared to what you already been through. I used Lamp of Time but they all could have been easily beaten without it.

The last room is one final joke game pulls on you because more than half of it is made of fake floors and walls and of course if you fall you'll be back in Hell and will be sent back to redo most of the level.

Which isn't THAT bad, because by now i've memorized all the right inputs to beat these two rooms.

The reward you get for completing this crazy challenge is highly inadequate but hilarious all the same.

[Ceric]

I beat Shovel Knight

I did all the content you could in the first go and still somehow only managed 81% completion rate...  Over 200 deaths... Over 66000 Gold Lost... Over 112000 Gold Gained...  and I forget my time.  I just squeaked it in right before talking about it on NFR.

The last boss is satisfying enough but in it's own way a little disappointing.

Overall I don't think this game is a 10.  I give a good solid 8 at minimum.  I don't think it has that universal appeal to break out to the 9 range.  A lot of reasons I liked this game was the same reasons I liked Zelda 2.

If you liked Zelda 2, Castlevania 3, and Megaman in general your going to love Shovel Knight.  Though I have a hard time thinking this game being more than neat if you grew up after SNES.

[Eiksirf]

I just wrapped up Gears of War 3 last week. Played on co-op. I like couch co-op, and Gears does it better than most, so I got what I expected here. The storyline was tired and the game didn't do anything new, so I'm not surprised Cliff got out at this point. Final boss fight was ridiculous. Still, fun enough for what it is.

[azeke]

I need to finish my Gears 2 playthrough. Gears series is extremely dumb and enjoyable because of it. I usually never play it by myself.

I am rubbish with dual analog FPS, but this one dumbs the gameplay down enough so that even i and my PC centric friends can manage.

[NWR_insanolord]

The Gears of War games have always been to me a great non-traditional example of "gameplay over graphics." The presentation is technically impressive but stylistically awful, but if you can get past that it's a really well put-together shooter.

[ShyGuy]

Stick it to the Man With the glut of eshop titles over the last month, I'm afraid this game will get overlooked. Great style and humor, very polished for an indie title. The gameplay breaks down into a simple adventure mode and action platforming while being chased by evil agents.

The platforming is a little annoying but most of the somewhat hard sections can be bypassed once you have gotten past them once. There are glimpses of bionic commando style arm swinging that could be developed more.

The adventure game is very well written but pretty easy. The difficulty never ramps up.

The story is a lot of fun and they leave it open for a sequel, so I hope to play that some day.

[Eiksirf]

I just finished up Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds for 3DS. This has been my favorite Zelda game in a while, though I skipped Skyward Sword. The world is pretty open with lots of actions and sidequests available, and a lot of the weapons are doled out early with some surprises later on that made this one unique compared to other Zelda games.



It borrowed a lot of its layout from Link to the Past, but I wasn't so familiar with that game that it bothered me. The dungeons were clever and the new wall-flattening technique is much more interesting than things like trains in the recent DS games.

The storyline was more thought out than usual, falling maybe third below Ocarina of Time and Link's Awakening for me.

Loved the combat, enemies and bosses. Bosses tended to be a bit on the easy side and Link probably gets too overpowered once you start really collecting hearts and health items.

Gives me hope for Zelda on Wii U.

[ThomasO]

I just finished Virtue's Last Reward. The final Beginning or end ending left me unsatisfied to be honest, and I saw some of the twists from miles away, such as the setting was on the moon, Sigma had the appearance of an old man, and Akane was the old woman.

[azeke]

Viewtiful Joe (GC):
This goes into SMB3 category for me. I appreciate amazing game design and it's historical value but personally couldn't enjoy this game much at all.

Some similar complaints too:

• puzzles that leave me completely stumped and annoyed
• screen that feels too cramped for how high the character jumps (even without double jump) and you have less control over where you're going and sometimes can't see what enemies and hazards are coming your way

I fully realize it's all personal and the game IS great. I just don't like playing it.

Finale was amazing, epic, great adrenaline pumping music. You can definitely see the seed of W101 orgasm of a finale in there.

My biggest problem apart from obtuse puzzles are enemies with attack patterns that you're forced to google to find how to counter them. There is absolutely ZERO possibility to figure it out by yourself, because you have no time for calm observations.

For this reason Cromarties for me were harder than any boss in this game. Even harder than infamous Fire Leo boss. I spent almost three hours just in one area of the final level because i simply couldn't get through a group of three cromarties in the end. The way they swarm me, do attacks that you can't interrupt at all and i wasn't able to crowd-control them to save my life. And it becomes ten times worse when one of them has bazooka -- then he will fire at you from afar, way offscreen. And it beomes ten times worse again when there are two bazooka guys.

After doing boss rush and Fire Leo one after another, i am sure i can deal with all of them. Because i did. By now i read up on all their patterns and know more or less ideal way how to kill them. But cromarties are pure chaos that i can't control at all.

And it's not even all, environmental hazards don't go away while you're struggling with enemies in this game. I'm pretty sure i lost more lives to lasers, fire and lava in this game than to actual enemies. The elevator level that i spent hours in, didn't only had cromarties -- it was also extremely narrow and on the left had laser beam and on the right had fire.

The game has a GREAT combat system that despite it's complexity is based on a very few concepts. Too bad that i didn't understand even the basis of it for the first 20 hours. I realized (by myself, because game isn't going to explain anything) that:

• Slow is defense
• Zoom is offense
• and Mach Speed is... I had no idea how exactly i should be using it in battle and actually never did until Fire Leo who is all about this feature.

Great! 20 hours of not using Mach Speed at all and of course i will fail at boss that requires you to use it. Thanks for explaining this feature to me, game!

I am eternally grateful for this game for existing and for paving the way for other, bigger and better games (W101).

Games industry was extremely quick to copy the formula of 3d hack'n'slash in DMC1 and that created such landmark titles such as Ninja Gaiden Black and that cross-pollination of ideas between many different developers pushed the genre immensely until they produced the perfection of Bayonetta.

But i am very grateful that not many other 2d hack'n'slash games, if any, copied VJ's combat system because of how i personally disliked it.

Thank you and curse you, Joe the Viewtiful.

[azeke]

Super Hexagon (Steam):
Done. Again. Got the last Steam achievement for doing 60 seconds on Hyper Hexagonest.

I actually did that a long time ago. But for some reason Super Hexagon is very picky about hardware. It is amazing to see this game chug and lag on rigs that handle stuff like Watch Dogs on ultra. And on top of that there is a small difference between no-DRM version and steam version that adds it's own little lag.

These milliseconds amount for almost unplayable state on harder difficulties, that is why i can't play it on my home computer due to combination of my video card, monitor and even keyboard all adding up their own lags.

On my work computer i am over 100 seconds in most of the modes but i can't access Steam from there.

I had to use my colleague computer, login to my steam account from there and beat 60 seconds like that for the last achievement.

Took me a few hours and a bit of adjustment for the new keyboard, but i did it.

Hopefully now i can move on from Super Hexagon. Even now as i type, i want to play it again for more time. Must resist. And there is also Open Hexagon. Thankfully Open Hexagon doesn't have achievements so i don't have any preset targets to aim for. If it did i might have spent as much time with it, trying to get them.

[ShyGuy]

I just finished Master Reboot. I say finished because there is bug in the final fight (or maybe it was meant to be that way?) anyway, until a patch I am calling it a stalemate ending.

Anyway, it was fun, Tron meets Inception meets the original PS1 version of Silent Hill. I recommend to the Wii U eshop frequenters, although I believe it is on PC and PS3 as well.

[Soren]

Shovel Knight. (Wii U)

I don't think I need to say anything more than what's been spoken on this site and on podcasts. This game is truly awesome. Believe the hype and play the crap out of Shovel Knight.
9.5/10


NES Remix. (Wii U)

I liked it more than I thought I would. Still don't think it's worth $15 but you can't beat free. Main challenges were fun and the remix stages kept things fresh for the most part, though I was hoping for more variety from them. Even some of the crappier games had okish challenges. Pinball was a total crapshoot. Clu Clu Land, Mario Bros. and Ice Climbers challenges were god-awful. But Zelda and Super Mario Bros. were enough to keep me entertained, and that was good enough.
7.5/10

Earthbound. (Wii U)

Went back to this game after I left it last fall. I'm glad I stuck through some of the more hellish parts because the endgame really did it for me. I'm not going to spoil it but I felt like that final battle and the ending more than made up for some of the more questionable gameplay issues that made the game a tedious labor during the middle parts.
8.0/10

[azeke]

Devil May Cry 1 (HD Collection, Xbox360):
After beating the game on normal, i started Hard campaign and S-ranked all levels. So now i am the king of hell. That's what bonus picture says. It's very similar to ending screens of Viewtiful Joe, Bayonetta and Wonderful 101 -- every single character from the game poses for you.

I used speedrun for reference as to how cut the time and still collect everything and beat every single secret mission.

Last boss fight with Griffon was probably the hardest to S-rank, took me most of the Saturday. Final boss fight was tough too, but surprisingly i even got a "special bonus" on it.

"S" is the highest rank you can get on the level, but special bonus is given for nearly perfect playthrough -- with little to no damage and exceptionally short time. I only got special bonuses on three levels (took too much damage on others).

Overall i found that S-ranking on Hard with a fully upgraded character (all unlocked moves, double healthbar and long Devil Trigger) was easier for me than simply beating the game on Normal. I can't even imagine how people do it starting from scratch with a blank character. Speedrun guys do it taking no damage at all. Very impressive.

After beating it on Normal and Hard, the time on my save file is around 8 hours. Estimating that in average each level took me about 5 tries on both runs, that makes 40 hours.

Okay, the game itself.

This game is grand-daddy of all modern hack'n'slash games. It created completely new genre and created entire series that followed it's path: modern Ninja Gaiden, modern Shinobi, Bayonetta and W101, even God of War, the retarded sibling of the hack'n'slash family tried (and failed).

It is still halfway in the 90s and some of the UI and especially fixed camera feel very Playstation 1. Electronic cacophony they used for a music also sounds dated. Story is eh, but who cares about stories. Voice acting is decent, except for that one scene.

The gameplay tho. Combat system is great and enemies are designed and fine-tuned to work against it, forcing you to learn and get better.

Obviously DMC1 isn't as crazy deep and fluid as later games that followed it's path, but there are still lots of things to learn in this game: counters, roll cancels, enemy step, re DT.

Overall tone and atmosphere of the game is closer to horror than outright "cuhrayzee"-ness of later games. DMC1 feels a bit more meditative, restrained, even melodramatic by the end. It still has a few flashes of WTF (Dante's son?.. okaaaaay).

Landmark title. Required reading for all interested in action game genre.

Devil May Cry 2 (HD Collection, Xbox360):
Oh boy.

They botched combat system -- the cornerstone and the main attraction of the series.

Combos are busted, dodging is extremely slow. You have to finish the combo and only then you are allowed to roll away, how am i supposed to react to attacks and dodge if can't do it instantly?

Instead of unlocking new moves as you go, you "upgrade" your weapons by simply boosting their stats which is stupid, because it leads to other bad design decisions, like instead of making genuinely hard and tricky enemy -- they simply increase it's health and call it a day.

Story is bad, and voice acting by the end becomes outright cartoonish (and not in a good way). Two playable characters allowed them to rehash most of the levels and bosses twice to pad the length. Some of the bosses were kinda cool though. If only the combat system actually worked...

Watch Accounting Nightmare's retrospective for a bit more detail.

I finished it on Normal a week ago and hoped i will find it in me to continue past, to grab more achievements but i couldn't and just played DMC1 and 3 instead.

The game has a few good things, like allowing you to replay previous missions once you beat the game (in the first game you had to mess around with save files and could only play missions in linear order). Italian/european setting is kinda sorta cool, but aside from garbled names it doesn't amount to much.

But overall it's a bad, bad game. You know it's bad when you see lots of developers hiding under nicknames (INOYAN, KISABON) in the credits, like they were ashamed of it (just like in Famicom days). For reference, there were no nicknames in the credits of DMC1.

[harvjones]

The Walking Dead season 2 and The Wolf amongst us was one of the best game i played like story wise and love how choices got story turned out and that's really brilliant, telltale games really developing something better than other crap games

[ejamer]

Recently finished Legend of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN).

Solid game, and I can see why people fell in love with the game. The art style is fantastic and still looks great today. Combat is very solid for a Zelda game, and although dungeons are few they are well-designed as always.

Many people complain about the Triforce hunt close to the end of the game... but I didn't find it a chore at all. That's a personal thing though. I play I like to take breaks between events in the main quest and do some exploring, so by the time I was tasked with finding the Triforce there were only a few pieces left.

Probably the best game I've played this year.


Other games I've finished lately:
* Contra 4 (DS) - Ok, I haven't finished on Hard mode and probably never will, but I'm ok with that. I'm a huge fan of this game; it was one of the last "must own" DS games I was watching for and I'm thrilled to own a copy.
* 3D Classics: Kid Icarus (3DS) - Liked the original on NES, so also like this prettier remake. The dungeons can be frustrating though. Twice I got to the dungeon boss while in eggplant form, which seems like it shouldn't be so easy to have happen.

[lolmonade]

This past weekend I completed Fire Emblem: Awakening.  Overall I really, REALLY enjoyed the game, but have a few thoughts to share:
- I found myself so afraid of losing some characters that I'd end up repeating a level several times if I made mistakes that caused me to lose a character I liked.  I think I'm going to have a 2nd playthrough of the game and see if I can apply what I learned playing the first go-around in a "accept all deaths" playthrough, but I can see myself getting stuck if the wrong characters get wiped-out.  Anyone have input on this?
- Frederick is like a battering ram.  The only times he ever seems remotely in danger is against magic users, but for weaponed enemies?  I could literally have him run stupidly into the middle of the map just to have a bulk of the enemies target him and get stomped, and use the rest of the support characters to pick-off the remains and keep them leveled-up. 
- I like the "support" system at face value, but it sort of discourages mixing & matching support.  Once Chrom & Robin met support level "A", their support attacks & more consistent Crits together made them a juggernaut, but I had to force myself to split them once I got into later levels where the game sort of necessitates you leverage the mounted characters to cover a much larger distance.
- I pretty much used an "attack strategy" through most of the game, especially in ones where support enemies regenerate, has anyone here tried use a defensive strategy, or try to pull enemies on a more individual basis?
 

[Ceric]

Frederick is the Trap character in the FE.  You have to force yourself not to lean on him at the beginning for the betterment of the team.

[lolmonade]

Frederick is the Trap character in the FE.  You have to force yourself not to lean on him at the beginning for the betterment of the team.

I get that, but it didn't detract me at all from progressing my characters, I just used him as a meat shield.