Author Topic: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?  (Read 509347 times)

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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #900 on: March 18, 2019, 12:53:24 AM »
Maybe I just need a good coop partner. It's irritating for Capcom to say "Liked Resident Evil 4? Well, number 5 REALLY needs coop, Bro. Want to play it single player? too bad."

Offline Stratos

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #901 on: March 18, 2019, 07:26:57 PM »
Having a good (or at least equally skilled) partner makes or breaks co-op games. though that is part of what makes the potential dynamics so entertaining for me.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #902 on: March 18, 2019, 07:46:32 PM »
I've lost some good coop partners along the way. One stopped playing video games. One went full World of Warcraft. Another quits as soon as he dies once...

Offline oohhboy

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #903 on: March 19, 2019, 02:11:01 PM »
RE5 was broken by forcing a partner on you. She was such a liability even on normal. You would think Capcom would learn from that.
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Offline broodwars

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #904 on: March 19, 2019, 05:46:12 PM »
I've played Revelations 2 every which way you can imagine single-player: on Normal, on Hard, under the 3 minute time limit of THAT mode, Invisible Zombies mode, etc. To me, it's far superior to the 1st Revelations, and it's one of my favorite games in the series. My only real gripe with it is that the game's low budget really shows in the lack of gloss & polish over the character models & environment.

I didn't mind the forced co-op play in Rev 2 since the 2nd player has a specific purpose that's actually really useful to Player 1. Compared to using that stupid scanner in Rev 1, I'll gladly take switching to player 2 for 5 seconds to point/shine light at a spot/enemy, and then swap back. At least the 2nd player isn't constantly wasting your ammo shooting YOU in the back, like some other RE co-op characters I could name.  The co-op character in the 1st Revelations was just for set dressing, since they couldn't kill enemies and enemies ignored them so they were pretty much pointless.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 05:48:00 PM by broodwars »
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #905 on: March 19, 2019, 07:31:58 PM »
Finally polished off Crimson Gem Saga (PSP) and not quite sure how I feel about it.

Overall, I enjoyed my time playing. It was quite old-school most of the way through, and a little bit grindy... but the battle system was enjoyable enough and encouraged you to use items/skills often as your characters would regularly level up and/or find potions to keep the big spells fresh. Voice acting deserves a shout out for being much better than I expected.

However, the story had some pacing and structural issues - even by RPG standards - before ending on a cliff-hanger that wasn't particularly satisfying. If not for the nice sprite work and art, some parts might pass for an advanced (but still amateur) effort from RPG Maker.

Still, not every game is going to end up being a classic within its genre. While Crimson Gem Saga doesn't hold up to some of my favorite RPGs, it kept me playing happily from start to finish... and if a sequel ever did come out that built onto the story further I'd be willing to give that a go too.
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Offline Order.RSS

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #906 on: March 27, 2019, 02:50:43 PM »
In a futile effort to play games before they go offline, I finished Guitar Hero Live (2015, Wii U) today.



I'm pretty sure this one absolutely bombed at retail, because I got it last year for like 5$. It's a bit of a deviation from the last Guitar Hero I played (the third one, Legends of Rock). You no longer play as cartoony characters; the developer instead has staged quite a few different shows with real crowds, so you play from a first-person perspective in this FMV-type game, with real crowds and actors playing bandmates.
Presentation has also really been cleaned up, it's a lot sleeker in menus and even the note ribbon's look is less colourful/garish. The game has 2 modes now, a campaign of around ~45 songs, and a (now defunct) MTV-esque mode which would play a good 400 music videos over streaming that you could drop into at any time.

The Live mode, which was discontinued late last year, was pretty fun. Ideal for casual play, really, but the music selection was pretty lacking in certain genres. Finding hip-hop is pretty rare for example, but also the punk and metal selections have suffered from an influx of more modern pop-rock stuff. The electronic music is all EDM/dubstep stuff too, Modestep, Skrillex, and the like. You'd think Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers would be the obvious choices there, but apparantly not.
Since you play along to music videos this mode had a bit less personality than the campaign, too, but it's a neat idea - bummer that it ended.

The campaign meanwhile is themed around 2 music festivals, where you play as fictional (cover?)bands. It's pretty well done, settings vary from basements and secret VIP shows, to folksy gardens full of bearded hipsters, rock venues, stages with lots of LEDs for rave music, and even a massive mainstage. It's pretty incredible the amount of work that must've went into these video productions; even the flight cases are labeled.
That said, there's a certain inherent FMV-goofiness about the whole thing. Particularly the signs in the crowd are way too generic ("rock stars!", "so excited!"), and there's a bit too many fashionable people backstage instead of grumpy audio techs and production assistants.
Overall though, this style of presentation really works quite well. It's especially effective when you're doing poorly and bandmates scowl at you or demand you get back in the groove, because it feels like you're letting real people down. Crowds throwing toilet paper is maybe a bit excessive for a missed solo, but maybe that's common in Colorado.

I did have some trouble adjusting to the new guitar controller, since they moved from 5 rows of notes to 3, but  there's 6 buttons now since notes can come down in either black or white varieties. It does feel a bit more like playing actual guitar now, because sometimes you need to combine notes from different colours to form chords. But it also leads to a bit more of a learning curve. There's also some calibration difficulties which have to do with input lag - but the game has lots of options to counteract this.
The difficulties don't feel 100% ideal though; the first 2 settings are real pushovers only using half the buttons, but on Normal they're already demanding quite complex combinations. Something in between would've been nice to start out on, to learn the new controller layout.

Songs are no longer played individually now, since you're performing short 3-5 song sets now. It's nice how things are themed around genres now, but that does lead to some wonky pacing. Quite complex stuff like Skrillex (where you have no idea what instrument you're meant to be playing) and Halestorm come quite early in the campaign, whereas in the back half you get a real snoozefest hipster garden event which basically relegates you to rhythm guitar. I also kinda miss a really tough song to end on, perhaps during credits; Queen isn't exactly DragonForce in that regard.

Should you play Guitar Hero Live? With the Live mode gone, you're left with a ~3 hour campaign, and the songs rather vary in quality. Less classics, a bit more pop, electronic and folksy stuff. I like that they moved away from having exclusively metal/punk/rock stuf to vary things, but that also means there's less of every genre. The new controller works pretty well in offering a different challenge than previous outings, but I think this mostly appeals to people who like replaying songs for high scores and leaderboards (those still work) a lot. 4/5 Stars, bummer this direction didn't pan out for the franchise.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #907 on: April 09, 2019, 12:52:52 AM »
So I polished off the final scenario in Catan (DS).

The AI isn't very sharp, but no worse than some people I've played against (oh, how the truth stings). The scenarios included are solid though, and cover everything from basic Catan gameplay up through various Seafarers challenges. Not having download play available as an option does hold the game back though.

Deciding how to rate a game like this is odd... playing the actual board game is better if that's an option for you, but this cartridge does a fine job of simulating the experience while traveling or when friends aren't around. So I'm pretty happy overall about the purchase.
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Offline broodwars

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #908 on: April 12, 2019, 05:50:56 PM »
So...Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I beat it...



...utterly. I've killed every boss & mini-boss at least once, and most of them twice in New Game +. I found every item, and I maxed-out every skill. And despite not being the most skilled player when it comes to Action Games, I did it all without the oh-so-"demanded" "Easy Mode."

Yeah, I have mixed feelings on Sekiro. It has a very specific play style that you will either learn and master, or you just won't move on. In a sense, it's kind of a rhythm game more than it is an action game, as success entirely comes from whether you can memorize patterns & then tap out the correct button sequence to block attacks, dodge, & counter.  Honestly, I prefer a game like Nioh or Bloodbourne that gives you a hefty challenge, but also gives you options for how you can get through challenges. It just gives greater variety to the various situations.

Still an excellent game, but I'm glad to be done with it.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #909 on: April 15, 2019, 12:38:27 PM »
Keltis (DS)

Keltis is one of a handful of card/board game conversions that I recently acquired.

The original game was designed by Reiner Knizia as a remake of sorts for Lost Cities, although Keltis supports more than 2 players and throws in some unique twists around scoring and end-game conditions. It's not terribly strategic - sometimes feeling vaguely like Solitaire - but your decisions matter and a little bit of planning will go a long ways towards your success.

Rather than go into detail about how to play the game here, I'll just drop this link and you can go see videos or rules explanations of how the base game works: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34585/keltis

For this video game conversion, there are some neat additions. Notably, you get a solitaire mode that presents target scores for your to reach during each stage. Special rules are introduced that alter the cards and power-ups available to you from stage-to-stage, and the difficulty slowly ramps up until you reach the end and find out how your overall score compares to others. This isn't an earth shattering addition, but since you won't always have an opponent available it does help give the DS version some extra value.

There are some notable drawbacks, however. First is that you can only play multiplayer using a single DS - there is no other multiplayer option that I can find. Passing the DS back and forth isn't terrible and the game does allow for this without revealing your hand to your opponents (assuming nobody makes a mistake and presses the wrong button while passing) but it's still a disappointment. Second is that the available languages are limited to German - there is no other option. This language issue is unfortunate, because there really isn't any technical reason not to have some translated text available; perhaps it's a licensing thing since the board game itself also hasn't been brought out in English yet.

Do I enjoy the game? Sure. It has a pleasant feel, and is a nice little time-waster.
Do I recommend the game? Eh... if you don't speak German fluently, then it's probably worth passing on this one. Even if you do speak German, there are simply better options to look into first to get your board gaming fix on the go.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2019, 12:40:16 PM by ejamer »
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #910 on: April 20, 2019, 05:09:22 PM »
Dusted Dracula in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) last week and a lot of my earlier impressions still hold true.

The game does end on a strong note though, as the design of Dracula's castle is fun and interesting. Lots of new powers to discover, lots of labyrinthine passages to work through, and a much more cohesive feel than most of the other small stages you play through earlier in the game. Bosses are appropriately challenging, but most have pretty well defined patterns that you can exploit with some patience and effort.

Overall, I liked (but didn't love) the experience. A lot of criticisms I had for Portrait of Ruin apply here too, although for me Ecclesia was more enjoyable.
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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #911 on: April 22, 2019, 10:59:46 PM »
I just beat Super Meat Boy on Switch. I've owned it on a couple platforms before this but never got that far on those. I think it's a really excellent game, but my opinion of it has dimmed slightly after playing Celeste, which does this style even better. This is great, though, even if the last few levels were a real slog.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #912 on: May 06, 2019, 06:22:51 AM »
Finished off Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS) last night with decided mixed impressions.

I'll talk more about my opinion of the game in the RetroActive discussion thread (here: https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=57740) but suffice to say the game started and ended poorly, and never seemed to win me over fully when playing. Probably second to last among the portable Zelda games I've played so far, and thrid to last for Zelda games overall...
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Offline MagicCow64

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #913 on: May 06, 2019, 09:05:59 PM »
I think it's a really excellent game, but my opinion of it has dimmed slightly after playing Celeste, which does this style even better.

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Sekiro: Shadows Always Ring Twice (PC)

Welp, got sent home from work early today due to a server crash, and thought I'd take an opening crack at the final boss with the spare hour. And lo and behold I beat the mofo in about 45 minutes. The first phase of the true dude is really intimidating, but I was able to figure out how to deal with the perilous attacks and other patterns in about a half hour, and then it took me about ten minutes to get his much easier second phase down (mikiris!) and then I beat the third phase the first time I got to it, although largely because I managed to do a lightning reflect for the first time (outside of Dunce Dragon boss). Only spirit emblems I used were on the umbrella to block the wind attacks and do the follow up slash. And that's it! I beat all other available bosses. Now I feel kind of empty and nonplussed, especially after expecting a potentially non-viable climb over the last battle.

Time estimates for major bosses:

-Guardian Ape: 1.5 hour
-Corrupted Monk: 1 hour
-Real Monk: .5 hour
-Genchiro: 1 hour
-First Owl: 2 hours
-Second Owl: .5 hours
-Hate Demon: 1.5 hours
-Bridge Knight: 2 hours

The rest were 15-30 minutes, but mostly on the shorter side. Hard to say what the hardest boss truly was. The Bridge Knight is not actually difficult, but I hadn't really learned the combat at that point. The first owl is legit difficult, but I also stubbornly refused to play defensively for the first hour and a half, but once I did I progressed rapidly, and after I actually killed him I was like "Oh, that wasn't so bad." And the "harder" version I found pretty easy once you figure out the dodge timing on the firecrackers and that you can mikiri his zoom charge. Hate Demon was a legitimate pain in the ass, but it took me like 45 minutes to figure out that the charge attack gets neutralized by any jump, no matter how sloppy. In general, I was bad at jump counters, so I had to actually train myself to respond to a perilous signal with jumping instead of just dodge spamming or tanking the damage. Though the Guardian Ape took me on the longer side, it was again largely because I refused to play defensively, and it's annoyingly time consuming to beat the first phase cautiously. Also, his rolling grab might be the single shittiest boss attack in the game. I also hadn't used the umbrella to that point, and once I figured out you could block the scream in the second phase, that was the ball game. (And the ape spouses were a joke.)

Least favorite thing: The ghost bosses, who don't even give you beads. It was easy cleaning them up near the end, but it really irks me that you basically have to use consumable items to have it not be insanely obnoxious. There at least should have been an unlockable divine confetti type renewable power-up, even if it was weaker than the consumable version. Terror is all around a garbage mechanic, but fortunately it only comes up a handful of times. (Still nowhere near as lame as that Dark Souls status effect that can permanently cut your health bar in half!) Enfeeblement, though a real ball-buster, is also kind of funny and works for that area of the game.

Only other significant issue: The spirit emblem system is fairly lame. This really should have been a rest-renew thing like the gourds. Having to maintain a stock adds nothing to the game and only discourages you from playing around with the arm tools and combat arts. In the last quarter or so of my run, when I started actually using emblems more to speed stuff up, I was shocked at how quickly my ~700 cache depleted. If I actually had to grind to buy more before the end, I would have been displeased.

Potential issue: Most of the combat arts (and many of the prosthetics) seem kinda useless. They take so long to wind up that it really didn't seem worth trying to figure out situational uses for them instead of just doing the meat and potatoes approach to fights, especially as I got better at the fundamentals. I'm sure there are tons of Youtube videos of people "styling" on bosses using this, that, or the other thing, but I didn't think he game really encouraged that. Which is fine, I guess, but I felt like I had unlocked all the skills I had any interest in by the time I was halfway through the game.   

Overall, great game. Hard but doable, actually fun to play*, manageable level of obtuseness for progression and side quests*, looks good and runs well*. I think I might do a new game run for the hell of it (victory lap) and to tackle the other, shorter final boss path.

*Unlike Dark Souls


Offline MagicCow64

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #914 on: May 10, 2019, 08:26:20 AM »
Sekiro: Coda

So I just finished the "evil" fork and beat the only remaining boss. I think the award for toughest fight now goes to Emma/Old Man Isshin. Took me a solid 2.5 hours, over three sessions, because it's extremely tiring. Emma is much harder than the throw-away Genchiro phase of the other final boss fight. You can wipe her out in 30 seconds if you get lucky and hit every deflect perfectly, but she can also rip you apart in a flash. Probably two-thirds of my attempts she either killed me, or I let her kill me because I had already used up too many gourds. Isshin's first phase is pretty brutal, as his deflect counter is almost instant, and he has several perilous attacks I did not know what to do with other than dodge and flail. And depending on which attacks he selects you can have pretty limited opportunities to get hits in. His second phase is the easiest part of the fight, as the fire attacks are trivialized by the umbrella and let you take big chunks off his vitality with the follow-up attack. I did have to resort to gobbling a few disposable health items, but I was close to burning out and could feel my hands shutting down. Still, an excellent fight and a fitting culmination of two playthroughs.

Although I wasn't quite as jazzed with my second run. With the exploration gone and the boss speedbumps removed, you realize how small the game truly is. That's not a major complaint, as I rarely replay games and don't really think it should affect how they're designed, but it nonetheless took a little bit of shine off the experience. This was not helped by the fact that the bosses on New Game seem to scale damage output and defense, so it didn't feel much different than the first run other than that I was much better at the game and could one-shot most of them. Still, I wanted to really egregiously tear through the game as a bonus, and that wasn't the case (outside of mooks, which can still chomp your health). I feel like they should have let you keep collecting beads and get a screen-wide bar going. Was very unhappy to get hung-up on the Guardian Ape for 30 minutes because he's still annoying and did the same massive damage.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #915 on: May 10, 2019, 09:04:57 AM »
Hey wow, so my son polished off Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DS) the other day. Outside of asking me one question, he did everything entirely on his own, saved every slime, got all the collectibles, and basically kicked butt. He loved the humor and silliness in the game, and enjoyed the mix of gameplay it offered.

I know that's an easy game, but this is (I think) the first time he's ever gone through a game entirely by himself - although some of the LEGO Star Wars games might be close. Way to go, kid!
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #916 on: May 18, 2019, 12:05:48 PM »
Finished playing Big Bang Mini (DS).

This game has two main ideas: first that you flick upwards on the touchscreen to shoot projectiles towards enemy targets floating on the upper screen, and second that you interrupt your own shooting whenever necessary to drag your avatar around the bottom screen dodging bullets and debris that are coming down towards you. This combination of motion-based target practice and bullet-hell survival meshes nicely, and the colorful graphics and lively music help tie together the whole frenetic package.

That said, gameplay is kind of thin since you basically do the same thing over and over... but there is more variety than I expected for this type of arcade experience as you gain special powers over time and have many little tweaks applied as you progress through different stages.

The game didn't overstay its welcome and felt like a nice, polished package. I enjoyed playing and wouldn't hesitate recommending it to anyone looking for a quirky action game that can be played in short spurts.


Also finished playing Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure (Wii U VC)

This series of games will always have a soft spot of nostalgia for me, but I feel like Bonk 2 ended up being easily the best of the three. The first game is cute and still fun, but very simple and straight forward. The second game feels like it hit a sweet spot with improved level design and complexity, but keeping the simple charm of the original alive. The third game is still good, but never seemed to hit its stride the same way that 2 did... it feels a bit more like things were just thrown into the levels sometimes.

Still very happy to have played through the game, and there was some nice fan service along the way for gamers who have enjoyed playing through the previous Bonk games.

(Did New Super Mario Bros on DS steal its sprite scaling ideas from this game? There were definitely some similarities - especially when you are large and get the super meat to have an invincible rampage, or have to stay small to get the increased bouncing off walls. However, in a surprise to nobody the level design in Mario's game is better.)
« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 12:50:45 PM by ejamer »
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Offline kaijugamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #917 on: May 29, 2019, 03:47:23 AM »
The World of Light of Super Bros. Ultimate. It felt tedious and unnecessary.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #918 on: June 12, 2019, 08:16:01 PM »
Polished off Dragon's Curse (TG-16) thanks to good old Wii Virtual Console. It's an old game, so has some design niggles that won't appeal to everyone... but it's also a great game! Enjoyed every minute and would fully recommend this (or the recent remake) to anyone who enjoys retro games.
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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #919 on: June 12, 2019, 08:44:27 PM »
I played Final Fantasy VII. :)

Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #920 on: June 15, 2019, 11:45:57 AM »
The Evil Within



Boy, this game is a FLAWED masterpiece. Well, maybe not masterpiece, but the foundation is solid. A spiritual successor to Resident Evil 4 by the original director, it gets some things right and some things wrong.

I read somewhere online someone described the game as full of "boy, I never want to do that again" moments, and it's pretty accurate. Here are some my thoughts in no particular order

- Boy, this game is DARK, literally. Sometimes you can barely see what is going on. It doesn't matter if you crank the brightness up, sometimes there are sections and corners that are just crushed blacks. You have a lantern in the game, but the game cheats a bit. You can have your lantern out and three feet in front of the character is pitch black.

- The level variety is top notch. The game often wallows in Clive Barker style generic grimness, but it breaks it up with daylight sections, and changes in the environment. They must have spent a ton of time modelling everything in this game.

- Speaking of never wanting to do that again, way to much stupid running sections. running away from the camera, running towards the camera, jump into a cut scene so it doesn't really matter, the game is full of it.
- The gameplay is pretty varied as well. There is stealth, there is gun heavy action, there are puzzles, there is survival horror.

- Speaking of survival horror, the first two level are really desperate, you don't have much in the way of resources and it feels like the original Resident Evil games.

- It changes the gameplay style by chapter 3. At chapter 3, you have built yourself up to the point where you start feeling like walking tank Leon S. Kennedy. I preferred this action horror style.

- The game has a lot of trial and error learning sections. You are probably going to die a few times just because you don't know what you're supposed to do. It feels a bit unfair, and the game isn't easy.

- The story is mostly rubbish. the end doesn't resolve or fully explain. and you figure out most of the twists and turns way before the game tells you. The basic premised of the game really takes the weight away and it makes it feel like there are no rules in this world. Rules are important in horror.

- There are way too many story "collectibles" notes, tape recorders, newspaper clippings, missing posters, diary pages.

- The upgrade system is fun, and there are a lot of different ways to handle it.

- I'm probably going to have to check out the sequel, which I hear is notably different.

All in all, low quality story, good gameplay mechanics, way too dark. A "moar extreeeeme" version of Resident Evil 4.

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Offline broodwars

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #921 on: June 15, 2019, 02:06:59 PM »
The Evil Within



Boy, this game is a FLAWED masterpiece. Well, maybe not masterpiece, but the foundation is solid. A spiritual successor to Resident Evil 4 by the original director, it gets some things right and some things wrong.

I read somewhere online someone described the game as full of "boy, I never want to do that again" moments, and it's pretty accurate. Here are some my thoughts in no particular order

- Boy, this game is DARK, literally. Sometimes you can barely see what is going on. It doesn't matter if you crank the brightness up, sometimes there are sections and corners that are just crushed blacks. You have a lantern in the game, but the game cheats a bit. You can have your lantern out and three feet in front of the character is pitch black.

- The level variety is top notch. The game often wallows in Clive Barker style generic grimness, but it breaks it up with daylight sections, and changes in the environment. They must have spent a ton of time modelling everything in this game.

- Speaking of never wanting to do that again, way to much stupid running sections. running away from the camera, running towards the camera, jump into a cut scene so it doesn't really matter, the game is full of it.
- The gameplay is pretty varied as well. There is stealth, there is gun heavy action, there are puzzles, there is survival horror.

- Speaking of survival horror, the first two level are really desperate, you don't have much in the way of resources and it feels like the original Resident Evil games.

- It changes the gameplay style by chapter 3. At chapter 3, you have built yourself up to the point where you start feeling like walking tank Leon S. Kennedy. I preferred this action horror style.

- The game has a lot of trial and error learning sections. You are probably going to die a few times just because you don't know what you're supposed to do. It feels a bit unfair, and the game isn't easy.

- The story is mostly rubbish. the end doesn't resolve or fully explain. and you figure out most of the twists and turns way before the game tells you. The basic premised of the game really takes the weight away and it makes it feel like there are no rules in this world. Rules are important in horror.

- There are way too many story "collectibles" notes, tape recorders, newspaper clippings, missing posters, diary pages.

- The upgrade system is fun, and there are a lot of different ways to handle it.

- I'm probably going to have to check out the sequel, which I hear is notably different.

All in all, low quality story, good gameplay mechanics, way too dark. A "moar extreeeeme" version of Resident Evil 4.

What happened to the nurse?


If you want to know more about Nurse Tatiana, go play the DLC. She pops up there in the real world at the end.

Now go play Evil Within 2. It's a MUUUUUUUUUUUCH better game, and Mikami had very little to do with it.
There was a Signature here. It's gone now.

Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #922 on: June 16, 2019, 10:05:52 PM »
Mega Man 10 (WiiWare) - So this is my second time trying to play through the game.

The first time, I only played a few levels and set it aside thinking that it was quite a step down from Mega Man 9 (which was a joyful return to one of my favorite series). This time the experience was much better and I ended up pushing through the game in a few days.

There is a lot to like about MM10, but as others have said in the forums here, I think the game isn't particularly well balanced. Some level designs and challenges are great, others less so. However, in the end it's still a really well made game with a ton of content. Glad to have picked this back up, and will probably play through a couple more times (using different characters, trying the hardest difficulty, or maybe just fooling around with the challenges) before moving to something else.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #923 on: July 22, 2019, 04:48:48 PM »
Finished off Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes (DS) and mostly enjoyed the experience. The actual battles were pretty great 90% of the time, but my earlier complaint (no way to tell what level an enemy was without starting the battle, and huge power swings as you level up making it extremely difficult to beat an enemy that outranks you by a few levels) still stands. With just slightly better balancing, or just more visibility about the strength of those you might battle, the game would have been much better off.

Still a lot of fun though. Anyone who played and enjoyed other old classic Puzzle-RPGs like Puzzle Quest should definitely check this game out.
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Offline Order.RSS

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Re: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?
« Reply #924 on: August 02, 2019, 07:03:03 PM »
Finished Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, Wii U's premiere holiday 2015 title!



Positives first:
The gameplay is pretty solid here. The tennis action feels mostly responsive and fluid, you have several moves (dropshots, lobs, smashes, topspin, diving saves) at your disposal, all of which counter each other in some way. The characters have some degree of variation amongst themselves too. Some are fast and dive further, others are more powerful, some are slow, there's a few tricky ones like Boo which kinda teleport, etc.
If you like a challenge, the game has you covered too, with 4 difficulty settings and you can adjust these per CPU player too if you like your challenge varied.

Visually it's quite a treat too, the stadium looks really nice, as do the courts and character models. Everyone has individually styled rackets (DK has one made from a tree branch, Bowser brandishes a spiked one, and so on), although weirdly they didn't give everyone tennis outfits - just the princesses, strange. Everyone has at least one smoothly animated victory and loss pose, this stuff's all fine.

Onto the negatives:
Soundwise, the music is extraordinarily generic. Boring electric guitar stuff you already forget while hearing it. Furthermore, the announcer could not sound more bored if he tried. They don't even call out character names, just "Game, Set & Match for receiver/server!", very dull.

Content is the core problem here however. Yes, there are 9 courts, but they're just recoloured versions set in the same stadium with slightly different physics. Yes, there's a minigame. Just one though, and it's about keeping up a rally - something the A.I. doesn't seem interested in. Yes, there's a single player mode too, but it's a really uninspired succession of tie breaks that get progressively more difficult. No tournament theming to contextualise this mode. It ends on what could technically be called a boss encounter, but this match is somehow easier than several preceding ones and gives new meaning to the word lackluster.

Lastly, both of the new mechanics here (Mega Mushrooms to make characters giant, Ultra Smashes are powerful punishing shots) feel a bit underdeveloped. There's a tangible increase in range and shot power from a Mega character, but often you get mushrooms at nearly the same time, somewhat levelling the playing field. (It's also just kinda boring visually.) Ultra Smashes are a better addition, but it does feel like the A.I. gets to do more of them than the player does - but that might be attributable to my (lack of) skill.

Bottom line: There is fun to be had here, the tennis is pretty solid, the characters animate smoothly and there's a few neat character picks like Boo, Dry Bowser and one of those 3D World faeries. I also like how it has modes that are more stripped down tennis: one without mushrooms and even one which also cuts out the more advanced moves. I imagine in multiplayer the more chaotic courts will lead to some laughs too.
That said, Ultra Smash is undoubtedly the most spartan entry in the series. It's honestly baffling how Nintendo tried to sell this for 50 dollars, while the Nintendo Selects line-up contains vastly better games (Wind Waker, Pikmin 3, Tropical Freeze) at half the cost. I know it's not classy to consider pricing in reviews, but it's pretty shameful in this instance. It's still full price on the eShop too btw, while NSMBU is reduced in half and packs a second game in for free.
Two stars. I had fun, but only for about 5 hours and got it used for 10 bucks.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2019, 07:05:55 PM by Steefosaurus »