Author Topic: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?  (Read 509183 times)

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Offline azeke

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #375 on: November 09, 2015, 12:36:24 AM »
Assasin's Creed: Rogue (PC):

100%, full sync, 34 hours.

On the shorter side, considering that 100%-ing II Brotherhood, Revelations, III AND Black Flag took me over from 60-100 of hours each send help.







Rogue doesn't do anything new. It combines american colonial setting (and characters) of III, ship battles of IV, building upgrading from II plus grenades from Freedom Cry.

The only dubious novelty it introduces is playing for "bad guys". As it turns out -- it doesn't make much a difference.

Modern setting plot is kinda disappointing -- IV sci-fi plot was very good, almost as good as mindblowing meta-ending of II. Rogue is picking up from IV and does the same trick as IV introducing a complete blank slate of a player which you know NOTHING about AND keeping that up to the end. IV actually did a very interesting twist with that character and made him/her quite important in the overarching plot, but Rogue doesn't. The game just ends. Good job.







Graphically it looks like slightly boosted III and IV with with some added lens flare effects. Cheap, but hey it works.





I liked it. Nothing new, but a good entertaining collectathon/climbing simulator.

The Room (Steam):


Visual design is just very pleasing on the eye -- all these cogs, buttons, lenses, levers, knobs looks cool. Sound effects add to somewhat creepy-ish hollow atmosphere of an old attic.

Puzzles aren't particularly hard and all solutions just require you to pay attention. Generally if you can't solve it in several minutes -- it's usually better to activate a hint.

Some of the mouse controls are kinda iffy which betrays game's mobile roots.

But otherwise it's a very cool puzzle game.
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Offline Wah

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #376 on: November 09, 2015, 07:23:21 PM »
Beat Skyrim, (joined the Stormcloaks)
I found the last boss to be way to easy, maybe it was my armour but my god ten hits from my greatsword?
srsly?
Other then that a Fantastic game that makes it on my top twenty favourite games.
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Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #377 on: November 28, 2015, 11:09:05 PM »
I beat the main story of Dragon Quest 8. Just an incredible game with tons of humour and personality, 125 hours flew by like it was nothing. Now bring on the post game!

Offline azeke

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #378 on: November 30, 2015, 05:51:42 AM »
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain:


Just by sheer playtime alone this is by far and away should be my game of the year.

And yet, i have a hard time admitting it. I have no right saying that i don't like this game having spent 200+ hours in it, and yet i kinda want to say it.

This is a game that simultaneously shows off all the bests and worsts of what modern videogame developer can do all in one idiosyncratic package.

Graphical and technical tour de force and exploitative free to play practices. Game design mastery and obnoxious late-game grind. Great voice-acting (yes, Kiefer included) and glaringly unfinished and disjointed story. Amazingly directed cutscenes and unsatisfactory ending to 25 year old series.

Phantom Pain picks up amazing Ground Zeroes gameplay and controls and wraps them in open-world skin. This was meant to provide a living evolving ecosystem that you can influence and game somewhat delivers on that, but the biggest impact it makes is this:



Because of how empty the world is, you will be running towards some distant points a LOT. Upgrading Snake so he could run at 4x the speed is basically mandatory. Of course there is a horse and vehicles but both have their downsides of their own.

Breadth of tactical options available to you is astounding. TPP provides easily the most varied gameplay of the series, whether you play lethally or non-lethally, use weapons or helicopter, dispatch soldiers with your bare hands or hold them up -- it's all fair game.

As you get more and more weapons and items you become almost overpowered and that's where the game starts to actively push back. Enemies are setting up landmines, start to wear body armours and shields and are aware that Big Boss is out there kidnapping their comrades.




Buddies make you even more overpowered, especially Quiet and D-Dog. Having a dog around means that you will never ever get caught by an enemy you didn't see because "dog" will automatically marks everyone for you. While Quiet straight up kills dudes and can just kill everyone around if you don't stop her.

As to Quiet, her boss battle is a traditional sniper battle and it's the only good boss battle in the game (out of like two the game has). It's very good though -- you're constantly on your toes hiding and trying to find Quiet constantly changing sniper spots looking all around you with binoculars and listening for her song.

In a good MGS tradition -- there are a TON of ways you approach this, including some absolutely ludicrous ones.




Because the game is divided into missions and is non-linear you're not forced to do entirely non-lethal playthrough. You can retry mission and basically time travel to relive previous adventure in different way and as a bonus open world design enforces permanency on everything.

Taking out outposts, destroying comm equipment, disrupting power generators and anti-air systems -- this status is kept throughout even if you go back to previous mission and find out that radar that you just destroyed is destroyed there too.

Game is leniently balanced so you can S-ranks even if you kill people. I mostly got S-ranks on my first try and had to retry them only to hit additional in-mission challenges.

Out of these missions "listen to all conversations" type is the most tiresome to get. It's dependant on enemies AI and how they interact with each other. There are a conditions: obviously, both soldiers should be present (so taking them out before conversation is out of the question), conversation might happen during specific time of day and in specific place and oh, sometimes if there has been an alert previously (any alert -- even from across the map) -- conversation isn't gonna happen. And sometimes conversation doesn't happen because the game glitched out or something.

Conversation that are not part of mission objectives are actually nice when they happen. It's cool to see soviet soldiers in Afghanistan portrayed as human beings, like one soldier wanting to come back to see his daughter, another advising his comrade to wear warm sweater to not to catch cold in freezing night shifts and so on.

Spoken russian is occasionally wonky (american accents) but translation is very good.

Sometimes climbing over a rock is kinda janky and interestingly they knew it because one mission optional objective places diamond in a place where you can only get by "skyrim-ing" yourself up a rock.

Story:

First fake ending was pretty bad, it gave no resolution whatsoever, more it actually had the gall to tease what will happen next should you just proceed playing the game further. Compare to Peace Walker which had a very definitive first ending and should you want you could have stopped there.

Bad ending is made worse by the last terrible two missions, first you get story heavy mission with the main villain explaining his nefarious and barely motivated plan in a classic Bond fashion while Snake just silently sits there. And that scene is just so bizarre.

And then "final" boss which is a damage sponge which is impossible to beat unless you grind your rocket launchers or helicopter. Boss' design is very shallow as well -- just keep shooting at it. Grind in advance and then just shoot.

And after that first ending you get post game which is even more underwhelming in terms of content.

Good thing that main gameplay is SO GOOD i don't mind playing it more. And even 50-100 hours i was STILL getting new and new weapons and ways to change up the game in new ways.

Story is a disjointed mess. It's disjointed because of episodic format, and a mess in other ways.

Characters are all weird -- Snake is suddenly a mute, Huey is now a shady mad scientist (think Baxter Stockman), Revolver Ocelot is Ocelot only by name. In every other games Ocelot is a very memorable, cartoony character, outrageous, smarmy, dramatic.

Compare




With THIS guy:


And then the second ending which i didn't even understood and had to listen to podcast to realize the significance of it. And even there i was like: "that's it?".

Post- post- game missions are amazingly even more terrible, especially "A Quiet Exit" which is awful. It requires you to grind but doesn't tell you this. And if you entered this mission without knowing it in advance -- "YOU CAN'T EXIT, SUCKER!". The option to abort the mission is disabled in this mission and this mission alone. I was trying to beat it with what i measly equipment i had for three days, all to no success.




Overall, my favorite missions were Subsistence missions where you are thrown in having nothing -- no weapons, no items, no armour -- no NOTHING and have to get everything on-site. It really forces you to tackle these missions creatively. My solution to the mission where i have to destroy communication equipment was just grabbing a landmine nearby set it up in a room and step on it on purpose destroying comm in the process (just one mine won't kill Snake).

Late game stuff was just me grinding while running around with invisible suit.

Collecting all animals took a long time in particular. By the time i was finished with main content i already had all animals that you can actually encounter in the game, but apparently there are "invisible" enemies that you can only catch with cages left in very specific areas.



It is just so lazy -- it's like a collectible that is not shown on the map, you can't see it in game and there is about 60% chance cage will catch an useless gerbil instead of animal you wanted. They didn't even model these animals -- all you see is 2d picture of what the cage caught.

And then there is online stuff where Konami uses all their dark knowledge of mobile gaming to entice you to pay microtransations by using artificial resources with contrived economy. They even use nukes to encourage you into their online mode.

Overall:

Amazing, great game. Variety in situations and in ways you can tackle game challenges is staggering.

But just like with Peace Walker grinding can get obnoxious. Especially when this grinding is not just used to prolong your game time but also to force your hand to pay real money.

Thank you and curse you, Konami former videogame maker.
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Offline azeke

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #379 on: December 30, 2015, 12:41:14 AM »
Stealth Bastard Deluxe (Steam):
52 hours. 3000+ deaths. S-ranked and collected doohickeys in all levels:


There are more levels in DLC but i think i will pass.

I started playing this game because sequel was out on Wii U (then -- exclusively) and Curve Studios made an excellent Fluidity on WiiWare. And finally and most importantly -- it was given away in one of the Humble Bundles.

Overall the game was... tiresome. While there definitely were some flashes of outstanding game design:

But it was quickly buried under tedious repetition trying to S-rank levels.

Repetition has always been a bane for stealth games and it hits SBD especially hard because you are supposed to replay levels for perfect S-rank until you get everything right and because enemies are completely static and predictable in their behavior, S-ranking always just devolves into figuring one final solution and executing it perfectly. On many levels this involves pulling very timing specific jumps, sometimes even consecutively. Imagine spending two minutes of setting switches in a very specific order and screwing it all up because you were quarter of a second late or early to jump on a specific place. And now do it all over again. I spent way too much time on some levels because of timings specific stuff.

Like from from video the beginning of 5-6 doesn't look all that hard, but it's actually one of the most annoying sequences in entire game, because you have to tail a bot in a very specific manner (somewhat rigid controls and invisible low ceiling make jumping between pits in the beginning way harder than it should be) and any deviation will lead to death. And it actually becomes even more annoying with later part where you need to figure out rather complex sequence of block pushing and pulling switches while bots are going round and round. This part makes first segment so much worse because one slip-up -- and you do that annoying bit tailing sequence all over again. 5-7 took me weeks and the solution was bordering on a glitch almost (you're directly in sight of a bot but it's so brief it doesn't notice you).

Overall worlds 5 and 4 were by far the most finicky and tedious to do. Other worlds were almost a breeze to S-rank by comparison, even later worlds. It feels like these worlds were designed by some other guy likes super tight timing too much.

On some levels there are other clones who also want to get out and you cooperate with them. Most likely they're there to help you and get killed at the last moment (sometimes -- by your own hand) but in one memorable level i had to race other clone for survival. These guys add to overall cynicism theme of a game:


Overall: okay, but tedious. Sure you may opt NOT to S-rank levels, but i suspect it will be even less interesting in that case.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #380 on: December 30, 2015, 09:06:31 AM »
Stealth Bastard Deluxe (Steam): ...


So I really enjoyed the sequel on Wii U.  From reading this, it sounds like the sequel was better enough that it's not worth going back for Stealth Bastard Deluxe?
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #381 on: January 01, 2016, 08:14:29 AM »
Siesta Fiesta (3DS eShop) - The game looks gorgeous and has some fun ideas... but it simply wasn't enjoyable for me.


A lot is asked from the player with respect to controls, but often special effects feel random enough that asking for precise positioning was frustrating instead of fun. Having the "ball" land in either far corner was often a problem because the bed wouldn't shift over that far - perhaps because I had adjusted the pen location accidentally during play. And the end of level popper - which seems to spin fast enough to be truly random - gave me 0-point skull heads at least 75% of the time regardless of how I changed my timing. When you do beat the game, the ending only asks you to go back and get all gold medals... I had earned only a single gold medal during the initial play through of levels, so (virtually) shelved the game at that point. Absolutely no interest in going back through again.


Some of those issues are surely my fault, but the game consistently felt like it asked a lot without giving suitable rewards in return. Power-ups all felt like risk/reward mechanisms instead of ever giving you the feeling of more control over what happens. Despite being absolutely charming, I felt like the game design never lived up to the art design. Play AlphaBounce instead.


Would like to play some other games from Mojo Bones. Even though I just didn't enjoy Siesta Fiesta enough to give even a tepid recommendation, the game was well-made and you could tell a lot of love went into the development.


Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale (3DS eShop) - The Rock-Paper-Scissors (with a couple of twists) gameplay was quite simple, but the charming story kept this game moving along nicely and left me wanting more once it was done.


Overall very happy with all three of the Level-5 games that I've played now. Would probably rank Crimson Shroud first, then Attack of the Friday Monsters, then Liberation Maiden... but that's a soft ranking. The first two could easily swap spots. Each game had flaws, but was really interesting and worth trying.
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Offline Triforce Hermit

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #382 on: January 16, 2016, 02:30:10 PM »
Earthbound Beginnings (VC): Nice quirky little game. Short and sweet. My only problem with it is the lack of direction and how few actual boss fights there are. But still very nice....for a NES game.
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Offline JamesGoblin

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #383 on: January 30, 2016, 07:46:55 PM »
If I remember correctly, it was Starcraft II, back in 2004.

After that I played exclusively MMOs (WoW, Warhammer, Age of Conan...) which one can't exactly "beat" - you either play them for years if they are good, or just walk away.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #384 on: February 03, 2016, 07:49:08 AM »
Just finished Dragon Quest VI (DS) and really enjoyed the ride. Story was fun, there were very rarely any notable sticking points, and other than some grinding at the very end to boost my job levels I never felt like the game got too repetitive. There weren't many big surprises along the way - but that's what I expect from a DQ game.


There are still a bunch of secrets left to discover in the main game if I want to go back for them, and post-game content also available. Not sure if I'll keep going right now or not... but will probably futz around a little bit before moving on.


This game was able to nicely whet my appetite for VII and VIII coming out on 3DS later this year, and reminded me why I enjoy the series so much.
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Offline Adrock

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #385 on: February 14, 2016, 10:45:28 PM »
Shovel Knight on Wii U co-op only. I started a single player campaign, but I don't think I'm going back to it. And I tried the Plague of Shadows DLC that unlocks after defeating the final boss. I don't think I'm going back to that either.

The game was fine, nothing spectacular. The art style is great though it's more 8-bit inspired because it looked too good at times. Yacht Club Games definitely nailed the retro-chic graphics. I recommend Shovel Knight, particularly co-op if you can stand the idea that it costs $39 for the privilege. I'm not bemoaning my purchase. I knew what I was getting into, and I decided it was worth the cost. The Shovel Knight Amiibo is very nice. I mention that bit about cost only as a warning for anyone interested. I can see it being too high for some people.

The game gets annoyingly difficult right in the middle of the game without warning. It has a decent difficulty curve then there are parts where it's m-f-ing bananas. The final boss is an asshole. Also, the plot twist is insultingly bad.

I haven't decided what I'm going to play next. I'm definitely going to complete Majora's Mask first before starting another game. My choices are Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and Bayoneta 1 and 2. I'm leaning toward Xenoblade Chronicles because I legitimately considered buying the 3DS port for $20 new, and I think if I restart it on Wii (I got to the first town way back when), it'll be easier to convince myself for good that I really don't need a worse version of a game I already own.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 04:43:59 AM by Adrock »

Offline Evan_B

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #386 on: February 15, 2016, 02:40:23 AM »
Xenoblade, The Last Story, and TTYD are like, the trifecta of some of my favorite "modern Nintendo RPGs". If you're looking for a brief experience, however, I'd go for TTYD or the Last Story. TTYD is more charming, the Last Story has a lot of heart but some technical problems (both have amazing combat systems, though).

Haven't played Bayo 1 and 2. I gotta do that.
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Offline Adrock

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #387 on: February 15, 2016, 05:04:38 AM »
I'm probably not doing myself any favors as far as knocking down my backlog by starting with Xenoblade Chronicles which I heard is like an 80 hour game. I should probably not start with 47473927473 RPGs in a row. Based on your recommendation, I'll probably go with The Last Story. I've had it much longer than Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and it was the one Operation Rainfall game I wanted most. Besides the admittedly silly reason in my previous post, Xenoblade Chronicles appears to be seen as a more transcendent RPG experience. No one really talks about The Last Story.

I should probably also finish Skies of Arcadia Legend though I'd definitely have to restart that one. I was about 40 hours in and I haven't played it in like 12 years.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 05:10:17 AM by Adrock »

Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #388 on: February 15, 2016, 08:53:07 AM »
Shovel Knight on Wii U co-op only. ...

I bought the Amiibo for co-op play, and feel that (for me) it's been worthwhile.

If you like the base game, then co-op play works well and adds a nice bit of depth. There is a nice amount of interaction in general levels - sometimes players get in each others way, other times it's helpful to have an extra shovel around. Bosses get more health so it's not just a cakewalk.

The cost is high to get in, and I really hope the Shovel Knight Amiibo will see more use in future games... but with kids who like to join in (and who are young enough they need the help) and a brother who was crashing at our place for a couple weeks, co-op play has been a fantastic experience.


I agree with recommendations for The Last Story, mostly because it's on my short list too.  ;)
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Offline Soren

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #389 on: February 15, 2016, 10:07:39 AM »
I'm going to go ahead and vouch for The Last Story as well. I put around 44 hours into it, but HLTB tags most people's experiences at around 21 hours. It's a very fun experience, specially once you get into a groove with the combat style.
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Offline Adrock

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #390 on: February 17, 2016, 06:19:58 PM »
Majora's Mask is in the bag. I almost forgot how infuriating the Lunar Children stages are. Well, just Goht's stage and maybe Gyorg's stage. Goht's stage is stupid because at no point in the game are you asked to be that precise with Goron rolling. Gyorg's stage forces you to dolphin jump out of the water, a move I literally never used before that section. Every time you fail, the game forces you to watch a cutscene of a gate opening which you can't see from where you are. Collectively, that's really bad game design.

The prize for completing those sections are heart pieces (though two are optional in that you have to go out of your way for them) and, if you attained every mask, the Fierce Deity Mask. This is one of the few times Nintendo managed to not disappoint with rewarding players for completing optional tasks and quests. The Fierce Deity Mask makes the final boss a total joke, but you earned it so I think the trade-off there is fair.

Majora's Mask's end game is pretty good. The last dungeon is the best in the game (as well among the best in the series) and the Anju/Kafei side-quest is probably the one of the last most people tackle. I did that one right after Stone Tower. Granted, a couple of the masks you get during that quest are used to complete some odds and ends in the Bomber's Notebook so those are likely the absolute last. The Lunar Children stages notwithstanding, it's possibly my favorite final section of any Zelda game. At least the Lunar Children section isn't a fetch quest.

The plot isn't great. It's too vague for its own good. Nintendo has rarely excelled at storytelling in The Legend of Zelda series, and that's no different here. Characters, namely the main villain, lack motivation. There are too many questions and not enough evidence to support any conclusions or theories. What was the relationship between Majora's Mask and the moon? Who the hell even was Majora? Why was there an Elysium-esque field inside the moon? Who are the Lunar Children? I could go on. I kind of hate having to always chalk it up to "Nintendo sucks at writing."

Anyway, I've settled on phase one of my backlog reduction list. I'm almost finish Shantae and The Pirate's Curse so I may start with that just to get it out of the way.

1. The Last Story
2. Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D
3. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
4. Bayonetta 1 and 2 (I intend to play them back-to-back)
5. Xenoblade Chronicles

While it isn't in my backlog, I may insert Twilight Princess HD before Xenoblade Chronicles. Once I get through those, I'll decide where to place The Wonderful 101 (likely first in phase two), Lollipop Chainsaw, Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Skies of Arcadia Legend, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Madworld, Earthbound (I never finished it, got to the Lost Underworld), Chrono Trigger DS, and Ico/Shadow of the Colossus Collection. There are other games in my backlog, but those are what I remember off the top of my head. Those are plenty. My goal is to not buy another game until at least phase one is complete. There are a lot of games here, and I'm not confident I'll beat them all before NX launches. Wish me luck.

Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #391 on: February 17, 2016, 06:32:31 PM »
It probably doesn't count but I completed classic towers in Mortal Kombat X for PS4 last night before bed. The ending was not very interesting at all. The character was Total Khan. I don't know why I chose him I just thought I would try someone different than the normal.

I didn't pay much attention to the story in 9 so I am not sure if this is a direct sequel, a reboot, or if it picks up somewhere else in the timeline or if they are ignoring the timeline but it didn't really seem to make much sense either way. I am still disappointed that the MK team doesn't try better at making quality end game cinemas when they put so much effort into the rest of the game. With the rich story, the background of the franchise and the capabilities of the technology at their disposal it just makes me sad they don't put in more effort where it actually counts. To be fair I didn't finish story mode yet so maybe that is where the effort went, but I am not sure when, or if, I will get around to going back to story mode.
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Offline Evan_B

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #392 on: February 17, 2016, 11:49:42 PM »
Let me just chime in one last time about the Last Story: It's admittedly extremely cliched and predictable, but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the most satisfying RPGs I've ever played. The combat system alone is worth the price of entry- it doesn't become the amazing mob-destroying, pants-shitting monster of a system until around chapter 10 (which is "technically" 1/5 of the way through the game but not really), and then even after that there's EVEN MORE awesome folds that appear. I NEVER EVER EVER thought I'd play a JRPG with a combat system that had its own sniping and stealth systems within it that were really well implemented, but the Last Story sure as hell does. It also has mounted combat, "gimmicky" boss battles where you have to pull off certain combinations of moves and tactics to beat things, and has this absurd progression of events where things escalate to a point where you, a normal mercenary, are fighting these incredibly epic bosses and you just go to town on them. To top it all off, the game takes place in this amazingly charming and quaint town that evolves around you as you continue to play through it, and there's so many cool little side quests and stupid things that you get to do there that make the game so enjoyable.

Just thinking about it makes me want to go replay it. It's just so detailed, so rewarding, and yet, streamlined in an incredibly economic fashion that doesn't sacrifice gameplay for story and allows you to fully immerse yourself in the wacky world. While Xenoblade Chronicles blew me away with scale and scope, The Last Story is so intimate and lovable that I honestly have a hard time comparing them because I loved them so much.

Now, I also really, really, REALLY like Pandora's Tower, so maybe I'm just a JRPG fiend. But I think starting with The Last Story and ending with Xenoblade is a good choice.

I had, but quickly grew bored with, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, but azeke's big post about Rogue made me feel very nostalgic about it, and now I'm considering picking it back up. I also kind of wanted to get Watch_Dogs, too. Since I don't really have a backlog (or one that I am ready to face just yet), I am looking for something to play. With Pokken coming out next month, though, I should leave my schedule open for practice.
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Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #393 on: February 18, 2016, 12:13:04 AM »
Speaking of Nintendo games with good writing; Pandora's Tower.

Offline Evan_B

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #394 on: February 18, 2016, 02:29:10 AM »
I was a bit curious as to whether or not the Wii U VC version of Pandora's Tower does away with the Dusk/Dawn Tower glitch, which almost ruined the end of that game for me (the gimmick in that tower saved it, though). If there's one aspect of owning the physical copy that I can't stand, it's that.

But yes, Pandora's Tower has an amazing backstory that you can miss entirely if you don't go snooping around. Underrated game and likely the most overlooked of the three Rainfall localizations, but in no way a bad title. Just less ambitious.
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Offline Adrock

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #395 on: February 18, 2016, 05:17:51 AM »
You've pretty much sold me on The Last Story already in the earlier post. The hype is real. I hope I share your enthusiasm for the game. I don't expect to hate any of the games I listed, except maybe Lollipop Chainsaw, and even then, it seems like dumb fun.

I still have Pandora's Tower shrink-wrapped. I keep hearing good things. I mostly bought it because I wanted to support the game. I wasn't planning on playing it, but I may now.



Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #396 on: February 18, 2016, 01:05:21 PM »
I was a bit curious as to whether or not the Wii U VC version of Pandora's Tower does away with the Dusk/Dawn Tower glitch, which almost ruined the end of that game for me (the gimmick in that tower saved it, though). If there's one aspect of owning the physical copy that I can't stand, it's that.

Nope, NOA just dumped the exact unaltered North American version on the eShop so the glitch is still their on the Wii U version.  Shows how little they cared about that game that they couldn't be bothered to put the PAL version instead that doesn't have the glitch.

Oh well, anyone that hasn't played Pandora's Tower should still try it.  Outside of the nasty glitch that'll make you reset over a dozen time to clear the last 2 towers, the rest of the game is still really fun.  It's kind of like if Castlevania and Majora's Mask had a baby.  The combat is pretty good and the Bosses are legit awesome, easily the highlight of the game.  Oh yeah and the true final boss theme is amazing.

I’m gonna have you play every inch of this game! - Masahiro Sakurai

Offline Evan_B

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #397 on: February 18, 2016, 03:28:17 PM »
A good description. Yes, the boss battles of Pandora's Tower are awesome and it shows how far you can go with relatively simple mechanics. There's some puzzling stuff, some thrilling combat, and more to be found.

It's a shame they didn't bother to address the glitch, as it's the one thing that would make me buy the game again. It's still an awesome experience, it's just sad that it will forever be marred by that technical aspect.
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Offline MagicCow64

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #398 on: February 18, 2016, 04:42:56 PM »
Yeah, Pandora's Tower is pretty good, as mentioned it's evocative of what Castlevania would be like if it had approached a 3D transition differently (or at least if it had built on that one PS2 game). Unfortunately the final glitch is fucking severe and can be impossible to overcome, as was the case in my run as I had been doing all the scenes with the waifu and thus had nothing to fall back on for the workaround. If you do give it a shot take special care to avoid interacting with her too much.

Offline Evan_B

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #399 on: February 18, 2016, 05:44:34 PM »
Unfortunately the final glitch is fucking severe and can be impossible to overcome, as was the case in my run as I had been doing all the scenes with the waifu and thus had nothing to fall back on for the workaround. If you do give it a shot take special care to avoid interacting with her too much.
All you have to do is save before you leave the observatory and reboot the game before heading to the next tower. Every time you go back, but yeah.
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