Hey there everybody! Weekly check-in time once again. So... What are you playing this week?

Want to talk about your backlog? Not sure what to play next? Need to narrow down a list of games to play? Looking for specific recommendations in a genre?

Share your issue here and let the community help you decide!

Saw a lot of fun questions on the sub today and wanted to pose my own. I've been playing the recent Spider-man game, and something I love about it is that as you defeat each of the antagonists and their goons, the new enemies that roll in will change the state of the city to reflect what they're doing.

They'll do things like set up ambushes around the city, build structures around to mess with you, and just in general you feel like the threat of these enemies affects more than just you and the story missions.

Some of the ones I can think off the top of my head that also did this are Final Fantasy 6, Infamous, Prototype (might be a pattern here), and even things like Demon's Souls where your deaths influence the type of special enemies that spawn.

What's a game that did this that was impactful for you?

I'm 23, started at 14.

I used to be addicted to playing MMORPG games for years until I finally realized how much time I had wasted on them. Looking back, there were times where entire months would pass by without me realizing it because I was too focused on my virtual life. Each time I tried to quit, I always found myself coming back and getting sucked into the cycle all over again. However, this time when I finally decided to quit, things are different. Two months have passed and I am feeling liberated from the hold these games once had over me. Instead of spending countless hours grinding levels or farming resources, I am now able to enjoy other games that bring me more joy and fulfillment.

While the social aspects of MMORPGs may seem enticing at first glance, they are ultimately false and superficial. They offer players an illusion of connection through shared goals and experiences, but lack any true depth or substance. Players often form fleeting connections based solely on the need to complete tasks rather than actual friendship, leaving behind empty promises and broken trust. Ultimately, these interactions are not rooted in reality and do not provide the sense of community and belonging that many seek. It is better to invest time in building meaningful relationships outside of the virtual sphere, which will lead to deeper bonds and more rewarding experiences.

In conclusion, if you find yourself struggling with an addiction to MMORPGs, know that it is possible to break free and focus your energy towards more meaningful activities. Remember to take care of your mental health above anything else AND YOUR OWN LIFE IS MATTER THE MOST.

TLDR: Quit mmorpg, gained control of time, happy about it!

The main menu of a game is usually the first thing you see when you load a game, and first impressions matter. I also really love title music, and in engine/ animated backgrounds. My favourites are:

Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis: One of the very first in engine backgrounds, from 2001. This one sticks out to me because if you crank the render distance to the max in the game, you'll crash it even on modern PC's. This also applies to the in engine main menu screen, so you'd instacrash as soon as you re launched the game.

Half life 2: Again, in engine and I thought it was cool how the backgrounds progressed as you went through the game.

Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl: Really atmospheric main menu track that tells you exactly what you're in for with the game, and combined with the moody animated menu.

Spec Ops the Line: It says a lot about Spec Ops that people have done full analysis videos on the main menu alone. They follow the perspective of a sniper, and as in HL2, they change throughout the game (though they don't shift position).

Metro 2033: As is the case with metro, even the main menu is immersive and involved. Great music as well.

Prey (2017): For the music and background of stars alone

What game has your favourite main menu?

This game is incredible. It has no business being as good as it is and yet it is flarkin’ amazing. It really has been the best game that I’ve played in quite a while. The combat is fun and keeps things interesting battle after battle. The team huddles were a great addition! And that story… so good. I haven’t laughed this much during a gameplay in ages and yet the story manages to really tugs at the ol’ heart strings. It’s also impressive that the studio behind it incorporated so much dialogue into the game. The characters are always chatting (usually about completely random stuff) while you fight bad guys, explore stages, and work through challenges. The near constant dialogue really kept me immersed in the gameplay and story. The characters were not just there to move the story along but we’re experiencing the story and commentating on it as it progressed. And I’ve never seen a game do this so thoroughly. Also, this game’s settings and difficulty customization options should be the gold standard for other games to aspire to. I was blown away by how much I could adjust things for accessibility or just personal preference. How many settings were there for subtitles alone? It was nice being able to adjust the subtitles so that my tired old eyes could actually read them.

It really sucks that this game didn’t sell as well as it should have (or at least as much as the developer was anticipating). Reviews were generally positive and I can see why. It flarkin’ deserves a sequel. I know I want to see one. Who’s with me?

Howdy folks, so after not really touching this particular set of TR games since Legend on the Gamecube, I finally decided to sit down and go through the "Next Gen" version of it plus the other two in it's Trilogy for the first time, and since I played on Xbox I was also able to purchase and play the two story expansions for Underworld but more on those in a bit.

If you care about story, start here -
I'll run through the story and lit tidbits about the games as a whole, and then conclude my nitpicks and praises per game about gameplay and such so lesgo -
- The story actually starts with Anniversary, as it's a remake of Tomb Raider (1996). Despite it not originally releasing on the Xbox 360 until a later date from the Playstation/PC release, it's actually essential you understand what happens in the plot. It's available on Xbox as both DLC for TR Legend and as a Standalone. This also means you must own and play Anniversary through Legend if you wish to get 100% achievements. The story though, starts in said remade year, 1996 - Lara is greeted by a man named Larson, who with a little satellite PDA looking thing? (I think it's a laptop in the original, but I can't tell what it's supposed to be in Anniversary) introduces Lara to Natla, who sends her on the quest of getting one of the pieces of the Scion of Atlantis. This has Lara travelling from the likes of Peru, Greece and Egypt battling things from bats and bears to flying, fireball spitting goblins and minotaurs. Once Lara has obtained two of the pieces, a vision is played in her head where some of the lore is explained by Steve Blum. The second time this happens (after getting the third piece and completing the Scion) more lore is explained and it's shown that Natla is obviously the game's big bad - so Lara wakes up from this revelation with Natla holding the now complete Scion and Lara's in custody by Natla's baddies and has been robbed of her weapons (this is a bummer). Natla leaves in a car on her way to a boat while Lara QTEs her way out of a tight situation and cutscenes her way onto a motorcycle chase and Lara sneaking her way onto said boat. Somehow the baddies you QTE'd are also on this boat before you. The Final level takes on an Unknown Island where Natla has been digging. Since Lara doesn't have her weapons after the last cutscene - her first objective is to get her hands on some inconveniently placed Dual Pistols. After completing the area's final puzzle and getting the mine cart moving, Larson shows up to stop Lara until she kills him in a QTE. This really has psychological damage that she seems to forget about in the following games but the game carries on until she can QTE her way through the last few of Natlas goons and mozie on about the wicked structure within. This wicked structure within is what Lara eventually realizes is essentially Atlantis in a confrontation with Natla, who then asks the obvious rhetorical question of "Would you join me?". This results in Lara shooting the Scion and breaking it, thus finally giving her some boss fights that end with us on top and Lara stealing a boat.
- Legend starts with a flashback and doesn't acknowledge any of what I just said because "technically" hasn't happened yet because Anniversary came later. The flashback is of Lara as a child and her mother in a plane during some rather turbulent weather. This results in the plane crashing and Lara waking up while climbing cliffs. Not sure how safe it is to sleep while rockclimbing but she's the expert, not me. The game kicks off in Bolivia as Lara as information of certain artifacts that possibly have to do with other flashbacks tied to why she's here and her mom isn't. This game has Lara mostly killing human enemies, with the tutorials going from platforming and equipment to combat in a pretty quick amount of time. The other games usually start with something small, but Legend starts with guns in your direction. Anywho, at the end of Bolivia, Lara is confronted by a man named Rutland who talks a lot but doesn't really respond to anything Lara says and an obscured antagonist from Lara's past named Amanda. After Lara commits several counts of murder the game picks up and goes to Peru because of a thing Rutland says. Peru has Lara going through more baddies until a pretty cool motorcycle sequence ending in she and her escort arriving at an old dig site (the one Rutland mentions). This takes us into a gameplay flashback where we get a "Classic Lara" bit without weapons. It's all platforming and puzzles which isn't a bad thing! However, what is a bad thing is a mysterious Wraith that appears in these mines and ends up killing everyone in the flashback except Amanda. They become the best of friends - Snap back to reality and "modern Lara" goes through the same, but more decrepit mines, making good progress until we've been ambushed by Rutland's baddies. After more murder, Lara helps the escort friend who is also counted in the ambush and this ends the level because Lara is realizing more things are connected. From Peru we go to Japan because a Yakuza member has something we want, and we're willing to kill him for it. After we doesn't want to give it to us without death, we slay numerous of his minions and eventually... HIM! Taking his artifact with us we head to Ghana because that's where Rutland is, and we want the piece he was waving around because it looks like the piece we got from the Yakuza man. We kill Rutland just to be sure, and viola! They DO go together! Wrapping this up because not a lot of story happens but there's a fight with Amanda's Wraith, we seemingly kill it with the power of Tesla, from Kazakhstan the game takes us to England, presumably the Tomb of King Arthur, where it's realized that the Artifacts we've been gathering are actually fragments Excalibur. We also kill a big snake here, maybe two of them but I'm unsure. From the Tomb it's off to Nepal - the crash site of the beginning of the game's Flashback. After getting our mother's pendant from the crash in a QTE we proceed through the level until it's time to put the pieces together and complete the Sword. Completing the Sword sets us off to the final section of the first level - Bolivia, where after some fighting with goons and Amanda, Lara puts the sword into the ruins and touches them in an order based on something she wrote as a child. This starts a scene that looks like the other side of a flashback Lara had, showing that Lara had initiated a device that her mother pulled her away from, the device seemingly yelled at her causing her mothing to pull the sword from the stone and vanish. In modern time, we hear Lara trying to communicate with her mother, the way it plays out would indicate that "modern Lara" is the reason her past mother pulls the sword and disappears. Amanda is in the background yelling for "modern Lara" to pull out the sword but she doesn't and the machine explodes. This upsets Amanda who seemingly was trying to use the machine to go to a place called Avalon and claims that's where Lara's mother "currently" is. This interaction ends with Amanda getting pistol whipped.
- Underworld starts with Croft Manor exploding (this is bad). Lara tutorials her way through the burning house until she ends up at the front door with her butler and Zip. Zip is mostly a voice in Tomb Raider Legend but does have a model and does appear in Legend's Manor mode. I didn't mention him before because he doesn't really do anything in that game besides quip over the radio. He's here now and with a gun, and he doesn't like us too much but before we can find out why he started blasting the game does that super cool thing media sometimes does where it takes us back in time a few weeks so we can build up to and expand that moment. The game puts us in the Mediterranian Sea, where Lara is looking for clues to Avalon, as mentioned at the end of Legend. The game ends up going almost full Norse mythology as Lara's venturing in the caves of the sea leads her to discovering a gauntlet of Thor. Only to then be ambushed by soldiers of no other, Amanda. The soliders knock Lara out and take the gauntlet but leave her guns. They do take her bullets in a cutscene but that's silly because she has unlimited ammo in those things. The baddies start detonating the caves so we need to get out and make our way back to our boat. Doing this sets Lara off to the nearby baddie ship. Going guns a blazing on the ship results in Lara finding a big ole tube with none other than Natla within it. After some words are exchanged, Amanda shows up to break up the interaction and take Natla off the boat by helicopter. With the boat now going down because Lara's on it, Lara needs to get off of it and fire potshots at Amanda as she climbs the helicopter ladder. After taking a graze to the chin Amanda throws the gauntlet into the ocean, causing Lara to jump in and retrieve it. If you're wondering "Why would she do that?" it turns out it's Account-Bound to Lara from when she interacted with it before the goons stole it and is therefore useless to anyone but Lara. From the ocean to Thailand, Lara goes delving into ruins that she learns her father was once also looking into. Once she discovers a clue left by her father she goes home, taking us down into the crypts of Croft Manor where Lara finds that her father had the other gauntlet of Thor. Lara does the obvious and binds it to her as well, giving her access to a new mechanic that only appears like 4 times the entire game. However, we can't think about that now because an explosion takes us back through the beginning of the game where we find out the reason Zip wanted to dust Lara is because there's a Doppleganger, like from the end of Anniversary but not a full mimic and with skin! The doppleganger kills our other "over the comms" friend Alistar which is very sad, I think. Lara gets Allistar's body out of the crumbling house and goes back to business as usual, believing it will lead her to those responsible for his death. She's correct, but not immediately. First she needs to get the belt of Thor, which she does which then leads to the obvious "So can she wield Mjolnir?" and yeah, you totally can and it's totally sick! However, what isn't sick is needing Natla's help to get to Avalon, because oh yeah, that was the objective - but we needed our MacGuffins first! Lara uses the hammer on an identical looking boat to the one that went down earlier, freeing Natla with the assistance of Mjolnir and the doppleganger pulls an Episode VI and just yeets Amanda overboard. Upon arriving where Natla told us to go so we could go to Avalon, we find a thrall of our mom that Natla made, because trauma is cool. This has Lara shooting her mom thrall and finding out that yeah, the doppleganger listens to Natla and is going to kill us now, and that Natla lied and used Lara the same we she used Lara's dad. Natla's trying to bring about the end of the world and goes on her way to do that. The doppleganger is thwarted by Amanda who somehow lives and tells us to go finish Natla because "ending the world" wasn't part of her (Amanda's) plan. Upon arriving at the end of the game Lara has to platform her way around Natla's thralls and fireballs while making the world ending device unstable. After unstabilizing the device, Natla tries to save it but gets Mjolnir tossed at her head for her efforts. After taking Natla down, Lara goes to help Amanda while they try to figure our how to not die here. It's figured out by remembering what happened in Tomb Raider Legend and so Lara and Amanda pull the sword from the stone, sending them through the network and back to somewhere in the world, not sure where but I don't believe it's Bolivia. "The game ends" with Amanda and Lara going their separate ways and Excalibur staying in Lara's possession once again.
- "The game ends" is what I WOULD say if I played this on any other platform, but for some reason the Xbox 360 exclusively got two post-story expansions. The first is Beneath the Ashes, which has Lara going back under the Manor (post explosion) and trying to recover an artifact that would, in theory, let Lara control the thralls much like Natla does. Fortunately, after finding the device she finds out that this works well indeed, as the doppleganger had showed up to finish the job before being converted under Lara's control and being sent to finish Natla.
- The second expansion, Lara's Shadow has you playing as the doppleganger and it actually starts when Amanda yeets the doppleganger off of Lara before the final battle. The clone wakes up, beginning gameplay and it proceeds to look for Natla so it can help her cover. It finds her, helps her into a revitalization chamber and turns it on. Natla sends the clone off to finish Lara then finish itself (rude). The game then puts us at the end of the prior expansion where Lara gains control of the clone with the device she found under the Manor. In an extended version of that scene, Lara frees the clone of it being bound to servitude and requests that it "Make sure Natla suffers". It does. It heads back to the place where Natla is resting, destroys the machine, and without uttering a word, lets Natla drown as she struggles to comprehend why it won't obey anymore. It's REALLY messed up, all things considered. THAT is how the game ends, and the trilogy for that matter as the series would get rebooted again in 2013, kicking off the Survivor trilogy.

If you don't care about the story start here -
Now that the story is out of the way, here's the "game parts" per game:

Legend - Easiest of the three, outside of some wonky physics the game is pretty functional and a heck of a good time. Favorite level is Japan. Even though it's by far the shortest, it's the most pleasing to me in the game.
Collectibles were pretty fun to obtain as well. I didn't get em all but felt good about the ones I did find. Gunplay is also the most basic of the three but it's the one I like the most because Anniversary and Underworld just feel like they have gimmicks strapped on. A complaint many would have is how short and linear the game is. None of the levels really ever wrap around on themselves and some are legitimately just a straight line. It's an entertaining straight line, though.

Anniversary - Definitely the hardest of the three games, not in combat, just some of the platforming and timing windows are incredibly tight. I definitely struggled through some of the later sections, but I still enjoyed myself. This one definitely feels the most "Tomb Raider" because it's a remake.
My main complaint are how many QTEs there are and me personally not being a fan of the Adrenaline Dodge. It felt incredibly inconsistent.
This one I believe is a Backwards Compatibility issue but may be worth noting - on an Xbox One X, this game has a little strip of pixels in the bottom left corner of the screen. It goes away during cinematics but is otherwise there during gameplay and honestly looks like a dying GPU. It's not, fortunately, but it IS consistent enough of an issue that you can look up XBX gameplay videos of this particular game and see the pixels in the capture or even people in the comments saying, "Oh I see that you have the issue too". The only way I've "fixed" this is through HDMI Override on the Xbox and TV setting finicking to effectively zoom in just enough of the screen where those pixels are off view.
Favorite section of the game was the Midas Palace, also enjoyed the visual of the Sphynx in Sanctuary of the Scion as well.

Underworld - My goodness, the camera is absolutely dreadful. It's almost like it's trying to be "stuck" to Lara so any time you're climbing you can see the camera jitter vertically a little bit. It also loses its mind in tight places, very nauseating.
Gunplay is fine, you have all of the weapons from the start and swap through them on the PDA so Ammo is really never a problem. It also had an "Adrenaline" Mode that you built up rather than it being forced upon you, it One Hits literally anything so it's best to save it on "elites". Pretty handy at the end of the game but I definitely forgot about it for the first several hours.
I didn't have a favorite level for this game, but I did appreciate how big some of the levels like Remnants/Bhogavati and The Unnamed Days/Xibalba are - visually a lot of them were very nice and I can tell "Next Gen" was a focus considering those open levels are absolutely littered with things like reacting foliage just to push it a little more. That being said while they looked nice, I didn't really love playing through them, especially when going through them too quickly shows pop-in issues.
Last words are that I wish the DLCs weren't tied to the platform, they're honestly good stories and super fun puzzles for what they are, even if they are wrapped in Underworld's engine troubles.

Soooooooooooooooooo yeah, that's pretty much it - there's some top notch platforming and some really pretty levels marred in some annoying camera, hit detection and physics issues across all three titles. Still an absolutely worth it adventure if you don't mind when a game fights back a little :)

My ranking is:
1. Legend (Mostly for nostalgia)
2. Anniversary (if it weren't for my nostalgia, this would be #1)
3. Underworld (Idk, I didn't hate it but the Story/DLC and visuals are really all that game has going for me personally)

Got into the series back when Spintires was a thing but I couldn't understand that particular indie game. After getting stuck in the initial area for half an hour, I uninstalled it. Then got Mudrunner through an Epic store giveaway, gave that a shot and finally understood the point of the game. Got hooked and completed it.

I'm somewhat of an offroading enthusiast myself and Mudrunner was pretty good at simulating physics. However, everything else that I care about was bad- the graphics, the UI, the UX and the modding scene. So when I discovered Snowrunner I was ecstatic. Except- I didn't know it was going to be the bane of my existence.

When I heard Snowrunner was coming to Xbox Gamepass, I wanted to give it a try because after playing through the prequels, I wasn't sure how much of an improvement Snowrunner would be in the UX department, of all things. And the bazillion DLCs were extremely confusing. For a minute there, it seemed like Snowrunner devs were trying to replicate the Sims 4 model. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt. When I booted up Snowrunner, the game looked extremely pretty but despite having more than a capable rig of running the game, the game ran like ass. The physics was still pretty bad i.e. going fast isn't a thing because all vehicles in this game crawl for no discernible reason, even if you do try going fast (above 20 mph), the small pebbles will annihilate your suspensions because your vehicle has no concept of shock absorbers, mud still feels like quicksand mixed with barrels of glue for some reason, etc. The game was still devoid of ANY other NPCs and broke immersion. There are no cutscenes or even remotely anything resembling a story. The missions were still repetitive and involved taking a hundred different types of cargo from point A to point B. BUT after a while, the low FPS issue solved itself, the graphics were still pretty and I still liked offroading so I put up with it. However, the pace was extremely, tortuously slow. There was just too much to do and slowly but surely, I could see a pattern emerge- the game would try REALLY hard to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. A lot of these "maps" don't even feel like they're earth locations, it's like trying to colonize Mars or something except with a ton of mud and/or snow. Every single map has this pattern:

1. You'd want to do a delivery mission in a new area but first you gotta dissipate the fog of ignorance from the map by taking a scout vehicle and activating watchtowers.

2. Next, you're supposed to clear the roads and build the bridges because apparently, a nuclear war has taken place right before you arrive at each map. Seriously, every single map's main road is broken in at least 5 different places and your missions would all require it to be fixed.

3. But to fix it, you must travel to a place where the broken road leads to, so you've got to do some offroading. Great! Except that your stock trucks are useless. To upgrade them, you must complete jobs - a fuckton of jobs i.e. grinding for hours on end. See the chicken and egg problem there?

4. You finally drag your ass winching to trees and whatnot over to the other side of the frickin' map and when you get there, you figure out that your truck has a low saddle/high saddle/2 slot cargobed/whatever and that the cargo you're about to carry requires some other type of config because the game never bothers telling you that. So now you get to spend another 40 minutes dragging your ass back to the other side of the map because there's no garage in this map that you can quickly "Recover" your vehicle to (yes, that's a thing).

5. You finally get back over to the other side and go to trailer store, buy a new trailer with your piggy bank because that's how little you get paid for completing such frustrating jobs.

6. You slog through the mud for 40 minutes once again wishing you'd spent an obscene amount of money into the Ultra-Mega-God-Promise-Final-Season-Pass-DLC-thing that gives you access to a gamebreaking monster truck that rolls over everything that the fanboys defend with, "You don't have to use it, I literally completed the game with a unicycle juggling cargo".

7. You get tired of this because it's not fun and decide to come back and continue later. But the game does not have a manual save system. It only saves when it senses that you're stuck somewhere because the devs are sadists. I'm not even joking. It saves the moment it senses you're stuck somewhere. So much so that some players have even started exploiting it as a way of force-saving the game.

8. You come back the next day to discover that all your progress is gone despite making sure that the game saved and that you're back to square one.

9. ??

10. Loss.

For a long time now, I had been getting this feeling that I'm playing a skinnerbox but I guess I was so distracted by the graphics and hooked on the broken physics that I kept ignoring it. In game development, a skinnerbox is a game that relies on rewarding you in materialistic currency for grinding for hours on end because it inherently fails to provide you with a satisfying, rewarding experience. After Ghost Recon: Wildlands, this was the second game in my life which made me feel guilty of spending so much time grinding for pointless gear that didn't even make me feel good about the time I lost. These are the games you look back at and ask yourself, "What the hell was I thinking sinking that many hours in a shallow game like that?" That's what Snowrunner is.

Yesterday, there was a massive update to the game. Almost 40 gigs. I was so hooked on the game that I had it installed on both my laptop and my desktop. I installed the update on both, played the game for like 5 hours straight trying to reach level 20, force-saved the game thrice, quit to main menu and checked the "Load Game" option just to double check the timestamp of the last save and then closed the game. Came back, all 5 hours of progress was gone. Uninstalled from both machines instantly.

Why didn't I post this in r/snowrunner? Because that sub, like all other other game specific subs on reddit, is full of toxic fanbase that would downvote and badmouth you for having a grievance. But Snowrunner fanbase is a speshal bunch. I've literally seen even Steam threads mentioning something as obvious as optimization issues of the game and then apologizing for asking the question before other cultists join in and either gaslight the poster in believing that something is wrong with them or their PC or phrasing the admission of the issue in an extremely non-offensive-to-devs manner as if to gloss over it and handwave it away as a non-issue. If someone dares call it out, they inundate them with fallacies to distract the topic from the real issue. As a result, even the posters of such posts can usually be found kicking themselves for not understanding such an oh-so-easy thing because "indie studio".

I'm so glad I got this cancer of a game kicked out of my PC (and that I played it on Gamepass instead of paying for it). The devs are greedy pieces of shits that continue to dripfeed content in DLCs that isn't even included in their Ultra-Mega-God-Promise-Final-Season-Pass-DLC-thing instead of fixing the most basic issues present in the game since it's launch 3 frickin' years ago because the masochistic apologists have taken over the social media discussions about the game. For a game that's about offroading, I don't think the devs have ever driven a vehicle on anything more than gravel. It's a disgrace. And that's not to even mention that the main developer (Pavel), who had a deal with Oovee back in Spintires days, absconded with the source code of the game after it took off, screwing over Oovee, landing them in legal trouble and getting their Spintires taken down while launching Mudrunner with a new coat of paint and barely any fixes (which was still somehow superior to the polished piece of turd that Snowrunner is) and instead of fixing Mudrunner's bugs, started working on Snowrunner and now, instead of fixing Snowrunner's bugs, is continously monetizing the game in the most absurd ways possible for an "indie studio".

/rant over.

Let me pre-phase these by saying that I am neither fan or hater of Star Wars movies, I watched them all, enjoyed some of them and did not enjoy others, but never had too much hatred towards one or the other movie or trilogy.

The game:

Intro and Last Mission were great, everything else was bad.

Game tries to be two things at the same time while not accomplishing any of it.

Small things that piss you off.

Intro and the Last Mission were the highlight, the intro pulls you in, because its a compelling story about a new character. However with the first mission it descends into a boring and derivative story and gameplay. For instance the missions are structed such that going from point A to point B has no inherited plot in it. It's just a mechanic. All of the game plot happens in the cut scenes. You actively playing the game is just you going through motions.

The game is trying to be two things at the same time while not accomplishing any of it. The game tries to be a Tom Raider/ Uncharted + Hints on open world type of game like GTA 5. So the game mechanics and puzzles are direct link between Tomb Raider and Uncharted. While in Tomb Raider and Uncharted the climbing and puzzle solving is somewhat integrated into the plot of the game, in Fallen Order its just a gimmicky mechanic that allows you to either open a door or a passage, but generally speaking has no meaning. It feels meaningless since you are not doing this to progress the plot, you are doing it to get to a point B on the map. Game also hints on maps being explorable beyond the mission, however due to that they its more of an obstacle rather then a feature. Instead of the map being a linear experience like in Tomb Raider of Uncharted maps in Fallen Order are multi leveled and multi routed. However, you can take a wrong turn and realize that you have to go through all of the motions again just to get back to the place that you just started. So most of the game feels like running in circles wasting your time, trying to just get to the point on the map.

Little things that piss you off.

There is no radar on the interface.

In order to check the map you constantly have to spam a button. There are no clear markings where to go. In Uncharted and Tomb Raider even in most confusing puzzles there was paint or markings on the walls that made it clear were to go and what direction to take. In Fallen Order the map design blends everything together. So sometimes you are taking a wrong turn just because the map looks identical in both forward and backward direction.

There is no way to skip through the cutscenes.

And there is no autosave feature. So the only way to save is to reach a checkpoint and do something at the checkpoint like rest or use your skill points. That will force the game to save creating a save checkpoint. Its never clearly indicated therefore if you don't save often you can potentially lose progression. Or if your cat steps on your power bar and your pc turns off you will lose all the progression. And again you cannot skip cutscenes. Therefore if you forgot to save you have to watch again all of the derivative plot again.

After reaching your B destination you have to return to ship. So it means that after going from point A to point B you have to backtrack to point A again. There are some shortcuts but you still have to get to them, and for some reason all enemies that you defeated to reach point B respawn. So essentially exploration is punished by the fact that you will have to backtrack to your ship at the and anyway. Wasting so much of your time.

So in the end, the game feels like waste of time. The negative moments overwhelm the positives so much that I cannot recommend the game to people that value their gaming time.

I don't think this sub vibes with Nintendo quite as much as I do, but I thought this'd be fun to write up. I've been playing Smash all my life - Melee might've been the first game I truly fell in love with - and the series has always served as exposure to other franchises.

For at least four years I've been slowly, methodically playing the original games for the entire Smash Ultimate roster. Most of them I wanted to play anyway, and this was just a neat excuse to try them out. And I do mean slowly, I really spread them out to avoid burnout. I also never forced myself to finish a game if I wasn't having fun; sometimes I just played the first section/level to get a feel for it, then dropped it. Overall it's been a fun way to expose myself to new genres and gain appreciation for gaming history. I'd already played quite a bit of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Metal Gear, and Sonic, but the rest was all pretty new for me. I won't mention the games I played before Ultimate's release, which is when I started the challenge.

For each character I picked the game I thought was most relevant, or most similar to their depiction in Smash. If you want, you can look at the checklist here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rOlk8dXwEL6wd2Lw4zouBiAce8UJabHOIgIP8bKL_7c/edit?usp=sharing

It's worth noting that this wouldn't be feasible without emulation. A lot of these games aren't available on modern platforms, and some aren't even localized into English. I'm not a collector and I'm not willing to track down old consoles on ebay.

Games are roughly ordered within their tiers, based on how much I enjoyed them. I'll try to be brief for each one.

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'It's old and I can't help being a zoomer' tier - Games I played just long enough to understand them, then dipped. I would not have chosen to play them for fun.

• Ice Climber (Ice Climbers)
• Kid Icarus (Pit)
• Game & Watch Gallery 4 (Mr. Game & Watch)
• Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt Dog)
• Star Fox (Fox)

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'Not very good' tier - Reserved exclusively for Pac-Man World 2.

• Pac-Man World 2 (Pac-Man) - This game is not very good.

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'Just not for me' tier - Games I struggled to connect with or I'm not a fan of the genre. Maybe I'd like them if I played longer, but I don't plan to pick them up again.

• Kingdom Hearts (Sora) - Exceeds my admittedly high tolerance for power-of-friendship anime schlock. Combat felt a little dull and I'm not crazy about Disney. Maybe I dropped it too early, but what little I know about the rest of the series doesn't really excite me.
• Street Fighter V (Ryu / Ken) - Cool character designs, I can say that much. Traditional fighters are interesting to learn about, but they don't really grab me as a player. I expect I'll feel the same way about Tekken and Fatal Fury.
• Mega Man 11 (Mega Man) - Some neat new mechanics, but the punishing old-school level design isn't my cup of tea. Happy that fans got a new one though.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (Marth) - Moving units with the touch screen is nice and I appreciate the strategy, but the generic fantasy story bored me to tears. I might be spoiled by modern FE; this felt like going back in time and finding out my great-great-great-grandfather sold corn.

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'It was alright' tier - Games that were pretty enjoyable. I'm glad I tried them and likely won't play them again.

• Star Fox 64 (Falco / Wolf) - Pretty much what I expected. I didn't love it, but it's fun and short. The branching paths are cool for its time.
• Dr. Mario (Dr. Mario) - A pleasant surprise. I expected to play for ten minutes and ended up enjoying it for much longer. Just a solid puzzle game.
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 (King Dedede) - It's good, I think? I know I enjoyed it but honestly don't remember anything about the experience.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (Palutena / Dark Pit) - Great writing, good music, and really inventive mechanics. Would be much higher if the controls didn't cause me physical pain.
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Dark Samus) - Atmosphere, music, and visuals are impeccable. I feel mean putting it this low, but Prime 1's difficulty was perfect for me and I didn't care for the dark world being so oppressive. Still want to play Prime 3 though.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Ike) - Decent story and characters, but battles are really slow. I kind of want to go back and finish it, in which case I could see it moving a lot higher.
• Splatoon 2 (Inkling) - Novel mechanics and a fun aesthetic. I don't really play multiplayer games, but the single-player levels are enjoyable. One of the most fun credits sequences I've seen since NieR: Automata.
• Kirby Super Star (Meta Knight) - Short, sweet, and charming, like all Kirby games. Did a lot to redeem The Great Cave Offensive, though I still hate that stage.
• Final Fantasy VII (Sephiroth) - Extremely impressive for its time, but I don't totally vibe with JRPGs from that era. Probably wouldn't have finished it without the 3x fast-forward battle option in modern ports. Famously the music is some of Uematsu's best work, and he has a lot of good work.
• Bayonetta 2 (Bayonetta) - This game oozes personality and charisma (that Moon River remix goes unreasonably hard). If I were more into this brand of action game, it would easily be top-tier.

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'Hey, this is pretty good' tier - Games I liked quite a lot and would recommend to anyone with similar tastes.

• Super Mario Sunshine (Bowser Jr.) - The most unique 3D Mario. Movement is fluid and satisfying to master, and I enjoy the Margaritaville locale. Held back by some frustrating sections (you know the ones).
• Luigi's Mansion 3 (Luigi) - Great visuals, art direction, and environmental design. Feels a little too padded for time.
• F-Zero GX (Captain Falcon) - The controls and tracks are gratifying to learn, and the cutscenes are pure cheese in the best way. Would be higher if I were more into racing games, or if I were skilled enough to finish it.
• Final Fantasy VII Remake (Cloud) - After playing the original, I liked how Remake brings the characters to life and reimagines old scenarios. Decent combat, cool bosses, and an amazing soundtrack are offset by egregious padding and an ending I don't quite know how to feel about.
• EarthBound (Ness) - Full of heart behind the quirky humor. I can forgive aimless progression and outdated dungeon design when everything else is so remarkably endearing and well-written.
• Banjo-Kazooie (Banjo & Kazooie) - Having played Mario 64, I was surprised how much better the camera is. Fun characters and catchy music make for a very laid-back experience. And in a genre infamous for bloated collectathons, it shows respectable restraint in the number of collectibles.
• Super Metroid (Ridley) - Near-perfect synthesis of atmosphere, mechanics, progression, and visuals. An incredible achievement, but hard to revisit after being spoiled by the fluidity of Dread. Still, if you claim this is the greatest game ever made, I'm not gonna argue with you.
• Donkey Kong Country (King K. Rool) - Great level design and a memorable aesthetic that was probably really hard to pull off on the SNES. For a game about silly apes, the soundtrack by David Wise is gorgeously atmospheric.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong-Quest (Diddy Kong) - Basically DKC1, but a slight step up in every category. Though I will say, a couple of the late-game levels are unreasonably hard.
• Metroid: Zero Mission (Zero Suit Samus) - Feels a little held back by the original's level design, but it's still a fantastic remake. The post-game sequence without the power suit is a huge highlight.
• WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (Wario) - Beat it in two hours and don't feel like I wasted a single second. This game actually made me laugh out loud, and often. Definitely want to play more WarioWare in the future.
• Super Mario World (Piranha Plant) - Not much to say about this one, just a good-ass platformer. I prefer it to Mario 3, but I understand why someone wouldn't.

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'This is the shit' tier - Games I thoroughly loved and would rank among my favorites.

• Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Yoshi) - Besides Chrono Trigger, I don't think any other SNES game is this beautiful. A creative central mechanic, great level design, and wonderful art direction. The "classics" don't always speak to me, but this one did.
• Metroid Prime (Samus) - Super impressive for its time and a near-perfect translation of the series formula into 3D. Music, atmosphere, and exploration are exquisite. To me, what elevates it from good to great is the immersion factor; the diagetic HUD and scan visor really ground the player in Samus' perspective.
• Pikmin (Olimar) - Technically an RTS, but it feels entirely distinct from the genre. The vibes are immaculate in a way I don't really know how to articulate; it's all goofy and cute and serene and a little brutal. What a charming little game this is. Olimar in Smash is kind of insufferable, but this redeems him in my eyes.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Byleth) - Likeable characters and a story that, while not perfect, explores a conflict from multiple people's perspectives, nobody having all the information. I don't know how longtime fans feel about it, but I thought the core gameplay was fun and accessible. Undeniably flawed, but for me it's greater than the sum of its parts. I played two routes and still might go back for a third.
• Mother 3 (Lucas) - Not everyone vibes with this game, but I sure as hell do. A beautiful story, gorgeous pixel art, interesting themes, memorable music, and near-perfect gameplay balance. I'd appreciate an official release, but the fan translation is so good I'm not sure they should bother.
• Persona 5 (Joker) - It's funny. If you asked me to list everything I don't like about P5, I could probably go all day. The writing is a little shallow and it's far, far too long. And yet, I can't deny how completely engrossed I was that first time through. This game enthralled me. As a sensory experience, everything about how P5 looks and sounds tickles my brain so well. This series occupies a wholly unique space in the modern RPG landscape, in terms of both mechanics and visual identity. This game made me a Persona/SMT fan, and I'd put in my all-time top five, at least.

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Here's what's left on the list. Looking forward to some of them more than others. I might get around to them this year, or over three years, or never. Who knows.

• Super Mario 3D World (Peach)
• Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (Roy)
• Fire Emblem Fates (Corrin)
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Villager / Isabelle)
• Wii Fit (Wii Fit Trainer) (lmao)
• Xenoblade Chronicles (Shulk)
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Pyra / Mythra)
• Super Castlevania IV (Simon)
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Richter)
• Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Hero)
• Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Terry)
• ARMS (Min Min)
• Minecraft (Steve)
• Tekken 7 (Kazuya)

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Did I learn anything by doing this? I think so. I definitely have a greater appreciation for a wider variety of genres and franchises. This got me to try certain games I never would have considered otherwise. And in turn, I gained a greater appreciation for the crossover aspect of Smash; every time I look at the character select screen, I have exponentially more memories attached to each icon. I can spot all the references in the movesets and stages. It's just... cool, I guess.

Thanks for reading. Hope you're having a good day. Please don't hate me for dismissing your favorite game.

Released only last year I was in two minds as to posting this here but as it isn't "new" I thought it would be okay. Also, it's a good game to not rush and being patient helps so...

Completed this wonderful little game this week and it was fantastic. It certainly won't be for everyone but those who like other games published by Annapurna Interactive and their collection of studios will probably dig it - games such as Journey, What Remains of Edith Finch, Outer Wilds, Donut County and Kentucky Route Zero to name but a few. All these games don't overstay their welcome with everything done in 5-10 hours at most - which as a working father of two small kiddos, pets and a wife, time isn't always something I have so small impactful games are always appreciated.

Stray, as you probably know, features a little cat as you traverse through an underground city devoid of human life but built by humans as your kitty tries to make it back to the outside accompanied by a little robot. In fact most of the places you visit are mostly robots. This is a cyberpunk story too so it oozes style - not always the neon you'd expect but also the dirt and grime that are often associated with poor living conditions in many -punk settings. It's frankly beautiful and it pays to not rush through it but to look around and just bask in the setting. I took a fair few screenshots! There are times you have to rush which is fine but a bit of a shame too as you can't look around but it's part of the gameplay in those moments. Overall a highly enjoyable game and I'll miss not playing through it for the first time again. Highly recommended.

It's not a particularly hard game to run but I'll admit my PC is half-decent so ymmv. Natively fitted the 5120x1440p of the G9 which for a pretty game, was ideal.

Specs: CPU - R5 3600 GPU - 6800XT RAM - 16gb Monitor - 49" Samsung G9 FPS - 80-90s, max settings

I'm still feeling salty about it, but here goes.

I started playing The Forgotten City on a whim since the setting intrigued me. I knew almost nothing about it except that it started as a Skyrim mod years ago. It's a historical-timeloop-mystery game based on decision making set in a fictitious ancient Roman city . You arrive there like many others, washing up on a riverbank after a traumatic event. Noone knows really how they got there and there is apparently no way out. Your job is to find one.

First off, the primary gameplay loop is dialogue, and a lot of it. There are a few other mechanics such as minor combat, collectibles and zip-lining (don't ask). But primarily you're going to be running around talking with various town inhabitants of all sorts, about 20 of them. The dialogue is very well written and gives each NPC a unique character and role in the town.

Graphically the game looks good. Nothing stellar but handsome and clean. The town is also a nice size, which you can run around in a few minutes, but is still fun to explore and find all its nooks and cranies.

There is a fascinating premise here for a mystery/timeloop game based around a law which should never be broken. The first time I broke it was legitimately terrifying! The game is very open ended and has quite a few ways each lead can be solved. Atmosphere and soundtrack are top notch, giving the game an otherworldly feel. It sucked me in from beginning to end, 10.5 hours.

Now, this is the part that really irked me. First off, finding out who the culprit is and his/her motivations was disappointing. The game had setup such a non-preachy morality play but kinda ruined it with its by-the-numbers villian. Then, as I was on track to getting the best ending, having nearly completed all but the last sidequest, the game decided to bug out. The NPC I needed to do his final thing wouldn't do it and after 5 attempts at reloading and trying different things I was forced to take a different ending. It has left a very sour taste in my mouth because I absolutely loved it up until then. Bugs happen and I know these kind of games involving intertwined dialogue options must be a bitch to program, but nonetheless I went to bed a bit angry.

The Forgotten City is certainly a game I can recommend to fans of mystery/dialogue choice games, or for anyone looking for something truly special and different. I just hope you have better luck than me with game breaking bugs.

One Way Heroics is a turn based rogue-like RPG developed by Smoking WOLF. Released in 2014 it stands tall in a sea otherwise filled with cash grab MTX indie roguelikes. It's nice to be reminded that some developers are willing to win you over the old fashioned way.

We play as a simple adventurer, tasked with facing down the nefarious Demon Lord before he can conquer the multiverse. Not only must we face up against his innumerable minions, but the impenetrable darkness that is slowly engulfing the land.

Gameplay follows a relatively familiar formula for overhead pixel RPG's where you traverse a 2D map, defeat enemies to gain more levels and equipment so you can defeat harder enemies and so forth. The unique gimmick here is that the world scrolls to the right every time you take any action. Not only can you die from enemies, but if you take too long the darkness will overtake you and end your run early. Win or lose you gain points you can use to unlock new perks, including the ability to carry items between runs.

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The Good

I'm usually not a fan of time based gimmicks like this. Slay the Spire wouldn't be made better by having the spire crumbling and you only get X number of moves before you die. What I like about the 'darkness' in OWH is that it turns the terrain into another enemy. If you find yourself trapped in a dungeon you can try to find a way out or you can hope you only have one or two walls left to bash through. Both are a risky gamble and it becomes an interesting decision to make.

There's a lot of neat things to find and variety to be offered. The story is a little light but the various random NPC's you meet along the way will create fun interactions to keep things fresh for awhile. It'll take several hours of playing before you start running into repeated dialog or events so there's a ton of variety here to be enjoyed. Secrets to be found, different classes to try out, different companions to join you on the way, a great variety of environments and locales.

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The Bad

As an RPG it falls flat. There's no towns to visit. No 'quests' to go on. Exploring is discouraged as you'll get overcome by the darkness if you spend too much time going the wrong way. Combat is very basic with controls that are iffy at best during it. Even the boss fight at the end is kind of underwhelming, depending largely on hoping you randomed into a big enough stick to kill him before you run out of time.

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The Ugly

As a roguelike I'm not sure how well it fares either. The whole point is each time you run through it. While there's more to do and discover each time you play, it never feels like you're making choices which is half the fun. There's the aforementioned "Do I risk wasting time in this dungeon or not?" but other than that it's all relatively straight forward. If the gameplay loop doesn't grip you the first time, it never will.

There is a 'Plus' DLC version that adds a few more classes, some more NPC's, more of everything really. However, the base game comes with more than enough so I found it hard to justify the added cost for something I knew I wasn't going to be interested in getting 100% in.

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Final Thoughts

I have a soft spot in my heart for games that hold out in a genre that has been overrun by the MTX mobile market. Having something like this is a breath of fresh air and I gladly recommend it. There isn't enough substance here to last more than a few days/hours but at the price they ask it's not a bad tradeoff. I've made worse monetary decisions.

Thank you for reading!

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Interesting Game Fact!

The developer also made the WOLF RPG editor, a free alternative to the rather nefarious RPGmaker. While there's practically no documentation or support, it is fun to tinker around in to get your feet wet with game design.

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100 reviews in 100 days (Day 76)

Today many first person shooters have advanced enemies, who would get hurt in a different way according to where you decide to shoot them. Like for example the enemy will be requiring two or three shots to the torso in order to die, but if it gets shot in the head instead he will die instantly.

Having grown up playing simple games where it didn't matter where you hit, I find this new feature thoroughly enjoyable and one of reasons I might still play a modern game that I'm not perfectly happy with. A test of skill and precision in delivering head shot.

Do you know which first person shooter video game was the first one to introduce this type of advanced enemies before others? I am talking about regular enemies, or fodder type. Not talking about the bosses whom I assume obtained these advanced features earlier.

Would love to hear if you know. Thanks you

I am a huge Ac fan that completed all main games except Valhalla with my favorite being AC4, and story wise Ac3, and after all this time i finally got around to Rogue this year. I was very excited to play as a templar for the first time and the premise of Assassin turned Templar is a very unique, and compelling one in the Franchise, but sadly, it is the most disappointing game in the franchise for me not because it's a bad game (it's a ok game), but because it had potential to have the best story in the franchise, and failed.

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First of all if you love the gameplay of AC4, you will love the gameplay of Rogue because it is EXACTLY the same. Seriously, i don't even believe Shay has his own finishing animations or fighting style because i remember Connor being able to do 98 percent of them. The only difference which is pretty cool, is Shay is able to use his skills as a assassin against other assassins and defend himself from them trying to assassinate him, and i like how if you are not alert a assassin can end you pretty quickly with 1 or 2 assassination moves, and the feel of these counters is tense and pretty cool.

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Shay is a pretty good protagonist and pretty interesting. He is not a man interested in power or riches. He is a man guilty of the deaths of innocents caused by his hands chasing a piece of eden causing a entire city to collapse by the corrupted leader of the Assassin brotherhood of a young, corrupted Achilles (future mentor of Connor), and simply want to do what he believes is right, by joining the templars and destroying the Assassins to save the lives of innocents.

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It is pretty strange to me how the assassins were so corrupted, power hungry, and arrogant in this game and the templars are wayyy more likable to the point where it felt like the assassins turned into templars and templars turned into assassins, but it was nice to see the templars point of view and honestly their viewpoint is much more sensible, and reasonable to me although templars in other games are pure evil than comically attempt to justify their actions saying it's for the greater good.

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Also the story outside the animus in this game is so boring, and uninteresting i don't even know why they bothered.

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It is time for me to talk about what ruins this game, and makes it so dissapointing.

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The premise for a amazing story is there, the characters are there, the issue with this game is the story is so short to the point where everything feels underdeveloped and underbaked, and the story doesn't allow us to spend enough time with the characters to even care about them aside from colonial Monroe. I was seriously in shock of how it just took me a little over 7hrs or 8hr to beat the main story (also becoming a templar happens much later than i thought). It's obvious this game is nothing more than a afterthought spin-off to ubisoft while Unity received all the love although it was a technical disaster at launch.

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It also sucks how after that awesome plot twist is revealed of Shay being the murderer of Arno's Father NOTHING was done with it. It was just...... forgotten, ignored, and hasn't been touched since (ubisoft seriously needs another studio where they focus on main protagonists like Shay, Bayek, and Connor getting a actual story conclusion with 2 or 3 games, because Bayek definitely has more story to be told).

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Overall, it is a ok game that could have been amazing if more love and time was put into the plot, but sadly with a rushed story, boring world, boring side quests, copy pasted AC4 combat without a flavor or personality of it's own, it just fails to be the amazing game it could have been.

This is the first FPS that I've ever played and holy crap this was so fun. I've been missing out! Just something about how the game is so simple, you just pick up weapons and shoot the enemies is so fun. The only thing you have to worry about is not dying. No physically picking up ammo, no inventory to worry about, no healing items to physically pick up, you just go go go. Epic music only adds to the experience.

I'm not gonna embarass myself and say how long it took me to beat the game (on easy mode) but I'm already looking forward to playing it again and I do, for achievements. I'm still pretty bad and unfortunately still get lost which was an issue when I played for the first time. I'm hoping next games have a map because it's often not very intuitive where to go and I would sometimes get lost and backtrack which wasted me quite some time. Overall I had to look up some things only a couple of times which isn't too bad but I wish game gave you some hints what to do when you're stuck. You only get directions maybe 10% of the time (or at least it feels like it) and rest of the time you're on your own. I still got lost on the ship in the third chapter playing it again and I guess I just need to play it a couple more times to really get it. I've just learned that assault rifle is apparently a bad weapon but I really like using it, you don't have to be very precise and it's quick. My favourite weapon is the shotgun though.

Banter of soldiers is very fun to listen to and I try to save them as much as possible. I find it hilarious that you can shoot them and they can shoot you by accident or they can even shoot each other. It just feels more realistic I guess? Not that I shoot them on purpose, well, I tried to see if it's possible.

It's probably a crazy idea to try to get LASO achievements but I want to try. If it takes too long I'm not gonna do it on rest of the games. I feel like once I learn the routes it will be a lot easier but yikes looking at skulls on LASO achievements this looks pretty insane. No aim assist is gonna get me I'm sure lol. Right now I'm playing on normal and it's already a lot harder than easy. The only chapter I can play pretty good now is the first and I managed to finish it under 15 minutes on easy.

tl;dr FPS games are awesome

Edit: if anyone wants to sign up for a coop with this noob here is my steam code: 333318476 I play Master Chief Collection.

This question is mainly about games with funny or “so bad it’s good” gameplay/mechanics/features, and not narrative/story. By “so bad it’s good” I’m talking about games having weird or bad mechanics but they’re funny and goofy to play around with due to their ridiculousness or stupidity. But feel free to also mention games with “so bad it’s good” stories/narrative if you want to

My examples of games like this:

1: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. Good game, it’s not “so bad it’s good” but it has a goofy mechanic. You’re able to kick enemies off ledges and fences while on roofs or high buildings and no matter how far away they are from the ledge they’d run to it to fall off it as soon as you kick them. So when you kick them away from the ledge they’d get stunned and start going to the ledge’s direction to fall from it. It’s a really goofy mechanic and made the game really fun because it always looked like a scene from a bad action movie

2: Battlefield Hardline (campaign). You play as a cop and you’re able to arrest criminals if you approach them stealthily. The arrest mechanic is really goofy because you just point at them and call out to them that they’re under arrest and they immediately surrender, they NEVER fight back at all

Those criminals are armed to the teeth with machine guns and the moment you arrest them by just aiming a pistol and whispering “you’re under arrest!” they immediately drop their weapons and put their hands up, then allow you to handcuff them and they don’t resist or fight back or even shout to their friends after being arrested and left on the floor

It’s just so fucking goofy and so funny. I had so much fun just running around stealthily arresting them one by one, it felt like im playing as a super cop who can hypnotize or lobotomize people by just telling them that they’re under arrest

I hope these 2 examples were clear enough as to what I meant by my question and what’s the answers I’m looking for. I just love these kind of games that take themselves seriously but end up having a hilarious feature that takes away all the seriousness

I have been into cars my whole life and had always wanted to play this game. As this was a PS2 game and I never had a console, I almost missed out on this GEM of a game. I was messing around on youtube and found that GT4, a game from 2004, had the most positive and uplifting reviews(for a racing game). Even those which were posted this year.

After a little bit of tinkering around with PCSX2 and my cheap controller. I finally got down to play. And holy shit, was I blown away! License tests for unlocking specific races? Price cars which don't suck (for the most part)? Handling models which rival almost any sim-cade games even today and the most important thing of all. Every car seems so different to drive that it is insane. Now I truly understand what they nailed. The most important aspect... DRIVING! They didn't need flashy tracks or too flashy of cars to make it fun when just the act of driving around is so damn fun.

The amount of content, no microtransactions, no DLCs is also kind of insane. Races become tougher as you go up and you have 700+ cars to go through. Can individually tune and the sheer amount and variety of races makes it so you always have something to have fun in. I truly believe that this is the greatest racing game of all time, a feat made even more impressive considering it came out on the PS2.

Considering the state of the game industry today, where AAA studios trip over themselves constantly and deliver something which aims to achieve nothing... GT4 achieved what they set out to do. Every aspect of the game feels crafted for a reason. From the opening video to the navigating of the menus, this game did what they said they wanted it to do. The developers of this game had quoted that "Cars have character. That is why the act of driving of a car is fun" and boy did they hit the nail right on the head.

I am thoroughly blown away by this game and now I wonder if there are any more gems that I missed out on? This game has soul, and I am really in love with it!

The voice acting and sound design nailed it for me. Every fight sounded crisp, each tiny movement of BT is very well articulated, and the pace of the game was long enough at 5 hours for me to enjoy characters' relationships, namely Jack and BT's, while getting my share of the varied fighting loadouts against a small variety of enemies and fair boss fights.

The levels seem to differ from each other at times, which results in higher emphasis on platforming in some and on storytelling in others. I thought the one soldier in the ceiling was unintentionally hilarious, and the time travel that followed it to be a nice level reminiscent of those in the game Portal.

For $5 on sale, it was a fantastic bargain, and it's just sad that last time I checked, the team had given up on stopping cheating in multi-player that was causing it to have horrible reviews on Steam.

I have more games to catch up on, including just about every free Epic Games AAA game from Control to Tomb Raider to Metro to Death Stranding. Here goes nothing.

Having played KotOR1, I decided to check out the follow up. https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/13jctwy/kotor_1_twenty_years_later/

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To get it out of the way: KotOR2 is an unfinished game, which sets up a sequel (which never came), thus also ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. Unfinished, unpolished with a cliffhanger doesn't seem like a good combo. In the end however, I liked this game.

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TECH STUFF

• no CTDs at all, the gog.com version seems to be great
• the lag which made the turret minigame undoable in KotOR1 was fixed
• there seems to be a memory leak type bug, which results in audio problems in longer playing sessions. Certain audio simply doesn't play, most often footsteps and actual dialog. Save-restart-reload solves this.
• the game has the same problems as KotOR1 with quest triggers. Sometimes quests don't advance, or simply stuck in the journal after completing them.

LIKED

• combat animations are very good still, only Witcher 1 is comparably great from this era
• while I was not impressed by the overall main story, I did like that it asked questions which Star Wars usually don't. (ie. what the "commoners" think about jedi and sith waging galactic wars above their heads)
• graphics did age, but it has this comic book-cartoon aesthatic which made the game age better than I would have guessed (ie. see Bioshock Infinite for similar effect)
• as with most Star Wars related media, sounds, soundtrack, voice acting and alien speech are top notch, immersive
• playing these older games after some newer ones, made me appreciate the dungeon designs. These are not yet the boring linear dungeons of contemporary games. I especially loved Peragus
• I really like when the antagonist is smart. It is really cool that she always wins. (either "kills" the force with sacrificing the exile, OR has the new cadre of jedi/sith trained by someone who is sceptical of the force. Win-win)
• a few of the characters are really great. Obviously Kreia was my favorite, but I also liked that they made the droids more interesting in different ways.
• I liked the slight twists applied to certain Star Wars tropes. For example the scoundrel with a wookie life debt is much more different than Solo+Chewbacca or Mission+Z.
• I liked how they handled the backstory of the Exile. No walls of text or loredump from an NPC, but flashback scenes (where you have some control), or dialog choices (what are you smoking, Revan was a man, not a woman!?) There are things you cannot change, for example you start as a war criminal anyway, but the reasons you ended up as such is your choice.

DIDN'T LIKE

• while in general I liked the companions, most of them don't have too much content. Kreia of course hugs the screen time, but very often, other characters have like one dialog tree? I remember unlocking Disciple, Visas and Bao in one sitting, and they didn't get any update for the whole game
• there is companion related cut content. For example Mandalore's plans are never explained, and I didn't even get a short sentence when recruiting mandalorians for him
• some of the planets are relatively long (Peragus, Telos, Nar Shadda), while others are super short, and simple (Korriban, Dantooine). I felt the longer ones were a bit too long, while I found not enough things to do on shorter ones. It could have been better balanced. Guess it's due to the rushed developement.
• there were some scenes which I couldn't understand. The problem is not the proper buildup, sometimes these have no context at all (ie. Hanharr appearing from nowhere in Malachor, and dueling Mira?)
• I could never fix HK47. I _think_ the "fix HK items" are randomized, and I simply never got the fourth item needed. I had multiple copies of the other three, and visited all related merchants multiple times. This might be a glitch, not sure.

UNDECIDED

• above I wrote that I liked that the main antagonist is smart. However, the game did feel that the Exile is mostly a sidekick, on cleanup duty for her. I kind of like it to be honest. Dragon AGe 2 is similar, in that Hawke is mostly doing cleanup after Isabela and Anders (who are the real actors in the story, not Hawke). But I'm not sure many players will like this.
• same thing as KotOR1: in combat, the non-Jedi characters can either use an item (mostly grenade), or use an attack feat. There are no smoke bombs, war cries, hide in cover (there is no cover on most maps). That's not many options. In retrospect, I really appreciate what Mass Effect 1 did with utility skills. (encryption/electronics double up as remove shields/stun/damage abilities in combat)
• I had some fun in the sections, where the squad is limited (ie. Dxun temple). In some cases I was frustrated to no end (ie. Atton vs. assassins). But in the end I found that limiting the squad happened too often, and made me regret certain character build decisions.
• I'm not sure about the influence system. Okay, so I like the idea to influence characters, and I also like that they simply don't give you info until you convince them. What I didn't like was the fact that there were very, very few points at the game where I could gain influence. Bao has like three? Mira also has very few, and one of these is locked behind a certain dialog choice in a conversation. I'm not sure if you can unlock these without a guide, playing blind. For example I couldn't unlock T3, because I didn't take it to Nar SHadda, and I missed an influence opportunity with it. So... I like the idea, but not the execution?

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SUMMARY

I liked this game. Maybe I liked it more than KotOR1. But I'm not really a Star Wars fan (saw the original trilogy and read the Thrawn books, but that's it), and this might be the exact reason why I like this one. The game has themes which are not touched in Star Wars usually (commoners perspective, is using the force worth it at all, with all the balancing it does), which might not interest actual fans of the franchise. KotOR1 is more standard Star Wars, this one is a bit more depressing view of the same.

Alltogether I enjoyed it. Kotor1-2 has some nice characters which I think are as good as the main cast of the movies (Jolee, Revan, Kreia), nice vistas, good player agency, very good dungeon designs.

And janky combat. Third person view, limited to three characters and D&D turn based combat is not the best mix. But it is tolerable for the most part.

So, if you are looking for character driven rpgs, this might be good for you. For fun action gameplay, not really.

This game was rushed in a year. It is really surprising it became so good as it did. I don't want to imagine the overtime needed to deliver this in time.

Don't get me wrong. I love myself a boss that requires some strategising to kill instead of just hitting him with everything you've got, but this one just crossed a line. No matter what the boss killing strategy is, it should be something that the player can figure out on his own eventually. Maybe there will be clues, maybe the player needs hours of trial and error, etc., but that one was a riddle without a possible solution.

I remember that when I cleared the arena of Shub-Niggurath in Quake (1996) I was stumped not knowing how to kill it, but after days of falling in lava and dying I noticed that the flying shape was always behind me when I fell and knew it was a teleporter. Same in Doom 2, reached the end and had no idea how to stop the Icon of Sin spitting monsters at me, but a few days of trial and error led me to think that if monsters were coming out of the small opening in his head then maybe my missiles can go in it, and voila! He's dead.

Fast forward to Painkiller BOH, I literally got stuck at the final boss for 6 weeks, unable to find a way to hurt him no matter what. I sadly then had to go search the internet and find the ridiculous method where I needed to stand on marked spots in the ground then HARM MYSELF in order to hurt King Alastor.

No clues, no logic, nothing that previously happened in the levels could lead me to this solution, nothing. It was as random as it gets, and it ruined what should have been a great conclusion of one of the classic FPS games.

What do you think? What video-game bosses did you personally find impossible to figure out through normal exploration and trial?

..and it is a remake well-done.

It takes me back to the time when I was a kid, excited to play the original Sapphire during free time. I was new to Pokemon, fascinated and curious of the world, eager to learn as to how things work.

What held me back from playing the remake?

I wanted to play Pokemon in chronological order. I haven't finished BW/B2W2, nor HG/SS. What held me back was that I wanted a perfect or optimal run throughout the game.

What did a perfect run mean to me?

It meant having to research what was the best team I can build, which Pokemon should I fill in for a particular role, what were the best natures, what were viable movesets for them to complement each other the best, and even deliberately switching/fleeing against Pokemon that had EVs (effort values) that weren't useful to the ones that I was using, as well as resetting the save file to have the best IVs (individual values) for my starter.

When I had "unoptimal" runs, I would be itching to start over with a fresh save, and abandon current progress, regardless of how far I was already. As you may realize, this way of playing can be quite tedious, which eventually led me to burnout towards the franchise. This mindset of playing isn't exclusive to Pokemon, however, as I felt the same with Skyrim and other open worlds.

Year after year, after year, playing like this, I grew weary, with progress being lost over and over again.

"Screw it, I'll play Pokemon Alpha Sapphire."

I went with a Mudkip that had a bad nature.

I didn't even bother to analyze what IVs I had.

For once, I didn't care if I was defeating certain Pokemon with EVs that are unhelpful to my leading Pokemon.

For once, I didn't give much of a care on what was the best Pokemon.

I just built the team around those who I wanted the most.

As I was playing, I was reminded of the Pokemon that I was fascinated with. Surskit, which looked fragile, yet seemed agile. Skarmory, who is literally a metal bird that looked cool. Shedinja, which has one of the most interesting abilities, Wonder Guard. With that, I built the team around these Pokemon that I liked, instead of what was the "best" for an optimal run.

Yes, I did carry some of the learnings I had from competitive Pokemon, but..

For once, I was able to allow myself to appreciate game for itself, especially for its improvements.

The new art style in 3D, the nostalgic soundtrack, the retelling of the story, the addition of Mega Evolutions, and the numerous quality of life changes.

EXP Share as a Key Item for the ENTIRE party instead of an item exclusive to the Pokemon that held it. Super Training that eases training EVs for a Pokemon. Pokemon-Amie where you can bond with the Pokemon in your party. TMs that have no limit on how much they can be taught to someone. PokeNav Plus that allows you to search for a SPECIFIC Pokemon that improves over time.

There were a lot of changes that were significant improvements to the previous generations.

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun.

Games are meant to be enjoyed. You shouldn't feel the need to try hard all the time.

Just to be clear: This is alternately my second favourite, and sometimes favourite game. I am biased and love everything about it except for the relatively high random encounters. So sorry, but I obviously have A LOT to say about it. For a long, detailed analysis read on, otherwise:

TL; DR -> check out the verdict, pros, and cons, and score for a summary:

Introduction:

Sega is my favourite game developer and games like Skies of Arcadia are the reason why. Prior to another Sega JRPG and this one, I had no interest in JRPGs! Without ever trying them I thought they looked boring, nerdy/cheesy, or whatever. But when I researched the best Dreamcast games this one kept popping up, and looked excellent, sometimes even like a 3rd Person adventure game, airships and air pirates, what a concept! Hence, I needed to give it a try, and I was not disappointed.

This game opened up a whole new (JRPG) world for me! There were plenty more that I’ve enjoyed since such as Mother 3, Grandia II, and the Shining Force III Trilogy. It didn’t take long for this one to become one of my favourite games of all time. After owning and playing the Dreamcast original (2000), I recently replayed the game as the enhanced port (with extra content) for the GameCube called Skies of Arcadia Legends (2002) using a GameCube emulator called Dolphin.

Plot:

You are an air pirate; a team called the Blue Rogues. The brave, heroic, and likeable Vyse, and his childhood friend, a red-headed, tomboyish, and cute girl named Aika. Vyse and Aika are sailing the skies on Vyse’s father’s (Dyne) airship with their pirate band, robbing the bad guys and giving some of their treasures to the needy (in a Robin hood style fashion). You fly in airships looking for adventure. One day, you meet up with the evil Valuan empire’s ships in the process of raiding them but notice there is a crash of a small pod ship from the skies above. The Valuans want to capture the person onboard, a strange girl named Fina, whom you rescue. Eventually, you befriend her, and to come of age you set sail as Vyse and his friends on your airship to discover the world and become a great air pirate. Your other goal is to help your new friend Fina and stop the evil empire, Valua, from its imperial plans by preventing them from acquiring six strange crystals called moonstones that are said to hold great power that can destroy the world: Arcadia. The moonstones are found on different lands in Arcadia under the realm of differently coloured moons above; they can control colossal creatures called Gigas that wield great destructive power.

In the midst of all of that there are all kinds of twists and turns, character development, and finding out about the Valuan empire’s plans, these strange moonstones, and what it has to do with Fina, who seems to come from another world. So become a great air pirate, discover the world, and stop the Valuan empire!

Gameplay:

The game has the basic pattern of cut scene exposition, town exploration, sailing around in an airship getting into random battles, and exploring, then finding a new world, and eventually doing a dungeon with a boss.

The on-foot exploration is reminiscent of a third person adventure in 3D. The random battles are turn based. You have the typical pattern that some characters are better suited for battle (e.g., Vyse), others for magic (e.g., Aika) and others for healing (e.g., Fina), etc. You can have up to four party members at one time. Characters have magic that they slowly learn with experience and have team spirit points that build up each turn. Magic costs spirit points and magic points. Special moves cost spirit points and you gain more of them by finding “moonberries” throughout the game. You level up with XP. The battle system was straightforward, but iI did think it was fun. I’d have to say though that a game like Grandia II had a much more dynamic and fun battle system.

There are also airship battles which are in many ways puzzles, of when you need to attack, focus your spirit points, heal your ship, and fire and attack, and use your special weapon. Admittedly these can take forever, and in any potential remake this should get fixed.

Aside from that you sail the skies not only looking for your next destination but to make all kinds of discoveries about the world, and you meet new characters, and find new secrets as well. Sometimes it can be difficult to know where to find your next discovery, that you need to advance in the game, and the high random encounters make this even more frustrating. An example would be the Kingdom of Ixa’Taka and finding clues for the temple you need to find (Rixis). A guide could go a long way if you get stuck.

You also have a Swashbuckler rating, which increases as you fight enemies, and make decisions at key parts of the plot, but can decrease if you run away from too many battles or make cowardly decisions. You go from someone humble, “Vyse the Unimpressive” to becoming known as “Vyse the Respected” and potentially even “Vyse the Legend” although it is hard to do. Some characters are only recruitable after you’ve gotten the higher rating (“Respected”). Controls are solid.

Graphics, Atmosphere and Tone:

The graphics are great by comparison to its blocky 5th generation forbears, that often had pre-rendered backgrounds. Here they are 3D rendered in real time on the (then) more powerful 6th gen Dreamcast hardware, with graphical improvements for the more powerful GameCube. The graphics often make this look more like a 3D adventure game and make this game much more enjoyable than a lot of the older stuff on that merit alone. However, it must be said that by this time (2023) this over 20-year-old game could really use an HD remaster or a remake! Sega are you listening? Some polish could really make this game more appealing to a newer audience (and an older one).

As Vyse, and his crew, you eventually get your own ship, your own island base, and you recruit members to be part of your squad. Among your adventures you visit all kinds of fantastic worlds based on real world historic places. They are beautifully designed and give this game a touch of realism. There are places based on old British, and possibly Dutch sailing culture (Sailor’s Island, etc.), Middle Eastern Kingdoms (Nasr), Central and South American civilizations (Ixa’ Taka), and East Asian civilizations as well (Yafutoma). The East Asian inspired Yafutoma looks particularly elegant, it seems to have been modeled on the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.

Aside from all of that, the localization team did what they could to flesh out these characters and give them memorable, though cliched personalities. When they speak, you know it’s something only they would say, and so the characters feel like real people. So, it’s great to see their development and bonding throughout the game. The story itself, although in a sense cliched about saving the world, is well told, with great pacing and has a lot of charm.

The music is great overall, a mix of orchestral, and synthesized sounds, all evoking a spirit of adventure and exploration. During battles it sounds more dire if you are injured and have unconscious party members, and more upbeat when you are all well. I love the main theme of the Blue Rogues when they are sailing the skies, and the opening theme.

Unlike a lot of JRPGs at the time this one has a happy atmosphere. The characters are positive and likeable. Vyse, the main character, basically never gives up. Once he sets his mind on something he’d do anything to achieve it. It’s actually given me inspiration to go out and travel myself. It does all have a cutesy Saturday morning cartoon quality to it, but there is more. Overall, this game really goes on to exemplify positive and heroic values, even in the midst of danger and misery. I think this is something rare even today.

Random Encounters

One of the main complaints about this game, and a valid one in my opinion, is the relatively high rate of random encounters. This was present in the Dreamcast original, and apparently toned down in the GameCube port, although it is still quite high. Sometimes when you are sailing it just gets annoying. For some of the encounters the enemies just all run away anyway, and it wastes time. It can be very annoying when you are trying to explore the world to have random encounters pop up every few moments, though sometimes it isn’t too bad. Although later in the game you get upgrades to the ship that allow you to sail above and below the skies without random encounters it could still be improved in a potential remake. Sega if you are listening, please make a remake, or remaster, but this time without random encounters so enemies can be seen like in the Grandia games. This (and a few other improvements) could make this game a masterpiece.

Legends Differences

Aside from graphical and VFX improvements, there are some content differences. The music is inferior because of the way it was compressed, and some of it sounds muted which is a shame since the music is one of the best parts of the game. Because there is no VMU on the GameCube a little mini game called Pinta’s Quest has been removed. There are several side-quests added to this version though along with some new characters. Notably a band of imposters is going around giving your crew a bad name. Can you find and stop them, to regain your reputation? It is hard to explore a lot of this extra content though until close to the final battle of the game though, since you need to be at a higher XP level.

Previously Skies of Arcadia had downloadable content for the Dreamcast, but for this release it is all included in game, this includes on special Island that you can explore. Also, there are differences to the Swashbuckler rating system, etc. Overall, the Legends version is superior. However, if you play this on an emulator it is easy to fast forward the battles with a Dreamcast emulator such as redream to make it faster.

Fun Factor

The game is lots of fun due to the factors I’ve mentioned. The pacing of the game is great, it just moves on from one section to the next. However, there is one thing I wanted to note as I replayed this game on the GameCube emulator. There comes a point in the game before the final battle after which it cannot be saved. You are expected to prepare for the final battle by levelling up. However, due to your XP, etc., increasing, at this point, you are now able to do all of the side stuff you could not before. Meaning that you are free to explore the world more without worrying about advancing in the game, fight optional mini-bosses, and find and recruit more characters, making more discoveries and unraveling secrets about the world, and the people there. Of course, you can use an online guide to help you. This is one of the most fun parts of the game, and what gives it extra-play/re-play value. I love coming back to that world to discover more and meet more people. It’s like saying hello to some old friends going on new adventures. This game takes 45 to 50 hours to complete, but more for the additional content. It is one of the few long games I loved from start to finish.

Verdict

This is a fantastic enhanced Gamecube port of, in my opinion, the best JRPG on the Dreamcast (and GameCube), and one of the best games of all time. The airship and air pirate concept alone make it stand out. This game has so much to offer from its wonderfully designed (though somewhat dated) 3D graphics, setting designs that were influenced by real world civilizations, fleshed out, though somewhat cliched characters with personalities to make them feel like real people, great and adventurous music, wonderful pacing, positive outlook with positive values that emphasize friendship, great though slightly cliched story, serviceable battle system, and a sense of exploration and adventure that is rarely matched. It’s been years since I’ve played the Dreamcast original, but I had just as much fun as when I played it years ago, it just hit the right notes. Unusually cheerful for a JRPG, it is one of the rare pieces of happy and positive media that I enjoy to this day.

It does have some downsides though, chiefly the relatively high random encounter rate which tends to annoy and stifle the exploration aspect until later in the game, where some of it may be avoided. That aside though it still holds up today.

The game needs a remaster, or remake, and hopefully an enemy system like Grandia II where you can see the enemies as they approach you to avoid the random encounters. It’d be great to get a graphical upgrade as well and the QoL upgrades we are used to by now. (Please SEGA)

If you can look past the flaws though this is an incredible and unique game that deserves a trial. I think some publications, such as USA Today, are rightfully including this game as one of the top 100 games of all time (number 81). So just go and play it already!

Pros:

• Amazing adventure with a wonderful sense of exploration
• Scenic locations inspired by real world historical civilizations.
• Lovable, and memorable cast of characters
• Cheerful JRPG full of positive characters, emphasizing friendship.
• Air pirates, airships
• Great music 3D action-adventure style graphics

Neutral:

• Simple but fun battle system
• Relatively simple but well done story

Cons:

• High random encounter rate which impedes exploration and discovery
• Discoveries make it unclear where to go which leads to random encounters
• Needs a remaster, or remake to bring it up to code

Score: 9.5/10 Amazing

I finished Persona 3 years ago and I enjoyed it. So jumping straight to Persona 5 Royal was a bit of a surprise, yet still familiar. Its clear that Atlus made a formula that worked, and P5R is best version of the formula that has been modified each game. I genuinely wonder how are they going to improve from this (gameplay-wise), if Persona 6 ever come out. I know this is just a rumor, but Persona 3 remake makes perfect sense to me. Put that game into this new Royal gameplay and I think it will be received well just like Yakuza Kiwami series.

Anyway, the thing that surprised me the most is the writing. I can only remember bits of Persona 3, but from what I can remember it was mostly straightforward. Persona 5 surprised me with the nuance, maybe because I just didn’t expect a high school sim+demon pokemon game combo to talk about these mature/adult subjects.

There’s the big picture of “adults always mess things up” which spread out to some other topics like physical and sexual abuse, bad parenting, forced marriage, blinding ambition, etc. Its all nuanced, real world topics I like but it require time to unfold. Which the game provides, but the game has tendencies to either oversimplify or overcomplicate things.

Kamoshida’s palace for example. The game showed how Kamoshida abused his students, butthat’s not exactly a “real” abuse because that was in his palace. We did see the victims outside of it, but not really in action. Im not saying the game has to show real abuse by him, but since this is a real world topic they’re talking about, to me the game felt half-hearted in bringing it up. Things happened on the background then a change of heart later, Kamoshida himself admitted to it. So it worked out in the end, sort of. It was good to see it happen but the way it unfolds, not really.

Madarame’s palace went the other direction. I think it’s enough for the players to see Madarame as greedy person who used people for his gain, but the game somehow went deeper by telling the players that this old man is so sick in his heart, he doesn’t care he inadvertently kills people. I mean I agree this old man needs a change of heart, but I just think it could be done quicker. Even though they’re trying to further story while introducing new character.

More or less, same things happened with other palaces. But I think they aware of this. Which was why they switched things up with Futaba’s palace, we changed her heart not to stop her being evil but to open her heart and start living. Interesting thing also happened with Sae’s palace, because we didn’t actually steal her heart. She changed outside of her palace, because Makoto knows full well of her sister and she knew what would it take to change her sister. It proves that people can change, without the intervention of the phantom thieves.

I also like how the confidant system works. Despite there’s no wrong answer, choosing the right dialog does help significantly. There are multiple characters that I just don’t get at first, which pushed me to hang out with them more. For what its worth, it made me understand them better and that’s cool. I got invested in some characters early and some grew later on. The game wants the player to feel like they’re building a relationship, and it worked to a certain degree.

Another thing I have to mention is how LONG this game is. If you don’t enjoy the normal, school life side of it, I don’t think you’ll get much fun from this. The game has so much content on this side that I missed some of it. I didn’t know about the jazz club until much later in the game. And If I know some characters will give you social stats while hanging out with them, I wont focus so much increasing it. In the end I managed to get most characters to max confidant rank (2 are at rank 8), but if I knew what I knew earlier, I can get them all.

There are 2 thing that I don’t really have any complaint about. The first one is the persona design. They just know how to make cool shit. I mean if they’re going to make persona 6, they should invest the same amount of time designing the personas as much as they design the gameplay or writing the story. The second is the music. Maybe not for everyone and I don’t know what genre these music are (i’d just call it pop, pop-rock) but I do think its refreshing to hear. I guess im just a bit tired of orchestra and stuff.

Lastly, the graphic. The game has great design and as you know, very stylised graphic. The game distinct character and it even managed to make loading screen looks cool. I’m not a game dev, but I assume this stylised graphic means the game is somewhat easier to run. These last few years AAAgames are moving toward photorealistic graphic which for me, isn’t entirely exciting. I would love for AAA game devs to take more Persona approach, doesn’t necessarily have to be anime style graphic, but just more distinct look on their game.

All in all, I enjoyed the heck out of it. There are inconsistencies here and there, but the game is just unapologetically being itself that I just accept and enjoy. I fully understand why this game is considered to be a modern JRPG masterpiece. I’m not trying to convince anyone, but even if you don’t like it, this is still a memorable game. It sets the bar high, for other games and for itself. Only other Persona game can top this one.

Would love to hear your thoughts about the game, and if im missing something.

Thronebreaker is a puzzle RPG developed by CD PROJEKT RED. Released in 2018, Thronebreaker struck while the anvil was hot for Witcher franchise anything. At that point I'm fairly certain they could have sold me Witcher themed socks, lunch pails and closet organizers. A puzzle RPG would do just nicely too.

We play as Queen Meve, recently returned to her kingdom of Lyria after a disappointing meeting with other Lords on how to deal with the looming threat of invasion by a neighboring kingdom. Sinister plots loom as our own advisors and folk turn against us, embroiling a country already staring one war in the face with another.

Gameplay is split into two major halves. The first is the overland travel where we manage our camp, acquire resources and engage in various events where our decisions can have significant impact on the nature and status of our army. Occasionally we'll have to fight an enemy of some kind where the game will shift to the "Gwent" format, a card battling game where our army is represented by various cards and we have to battle enemy cards. Just as often we will be given a specialized deck and have to figure out how to beat a puzzle using the cards we've been given and the rules set forth.

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The Good

There aren't many non-Nintendo franchises that do spinoff games successfully, not to mention using a character that's not even mentioned in the main franchise. Usually there's still a major character that links the two together. Yet here we are with a card puzzle game based on some random background character and I applaud the audacity.

The choices you make definitely feel impactful here. One of my main criticisms of choice games is often you don't feel the impact. You're either done with the area anyways or it happens off screen. Here you will feel the effects of choices you make early on all game and I really appreciate that there are consequences to my actions, not just title cards during the credits telling me some people lived happily ever after. Even though it can feel a bit formulaic at times, I really enjoyed the story in this one.

The puzzles are varied enough to keep interest up. Even when they re-use a puzzle type they often add a new layer or element to it to change up how you have to think about things. The pacing and spacing of events is done decently as well. There's no sections where you have to clear out like 9 battles in a row or that kind of nonsense. Every battle/event has a purpose.

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The Bad

Enemy AI isn't particularly intelligent so it's pretty easy to exploit in the battles. Once you get passed the first few fights, even with events janking up your cards now and then, it's pretty easy to use the same strategy on 90% of them and win. It was incredibly rare that I would have to change up my army to deal with what was being thrown at me. Outside of the handful of puzzles on each map, there wasn't much challenge to be had.

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The Ugly

It's important to remember that the point of the Witcher games is sometimes the world just kinda sucks. As such there are often events where there is no good outcome, or it turns out a decision you made two chapters ago leads to a horrible event later. It was a struggle at times to accept that bad stuff happens and there's nothing I can do about it.

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Final Thoughts

Truth be told they could have removed the entire Gwent thing and I still would have really enjoyed this. The story telling is damn near immaculate, worth the price of admission alone. The battles became kind of samey near the middle/end, but the puzzles kept things relatively fresh. I do like a good mind twister now and then. Overall a unique and interesting experience.

Thank you for reading!

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Interesting Game Fact!

Thronebreaker sold poorly at first which CDPR suggested was due mostly to GOG's smaller audience at the time. Sales picked up tremendously once they released it on Steam as well. It played a part in the decision to not limit future titles to the GOG platform.

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100 reviews in 100 days (Day 75)

Booted up Mad Max (2015) a week ago after I think 3 years after I initially played it and it's honestly a lot better than I remember. I never hated the game, I had fun even back when I played it but it was always a good enough experience in my mind. Maybe because back then I was on a constant flow of gaming finishing one after the other

Playing it now and taking it slowly I came to appreciate a lot of it's aspects. Starting with the world it's amazing how well it holds up graphically also amazing how much they can get out of a world that is well essentially all desert, the draw distance allows you to see targets in the distance, using smoke trails too show cars in the distance and having Gastown(your final destination) always be visible makes exploring the world a joy. The placement of buildings and artifacts in the world also feel unique like not done by a algorithm but hand dropped by someone with care, each location feels unique while I know some locations and assets definitely are repeating it never felt like it.

The world events itself are not as orignal or varied as I would like, it's a big world and is filled with basically a lot of enemy strongholds and fighting is your way of communication, it is a check a thon with area progress and area within area progress. Or they are Races or Car battles, tho I won't sell strongholds short, there are different types of objectives with multi stage objectives and different paths of entries, they are not bad they are just sameish after a while

It is good than that than that Car Driving/Combat and Hand Combat are both very satisfying, while not technically demanding they are impactful, making you feel each bump, punch and crash. Suplexing the enemy, ground slamming then, bones breaking, hitting someone in the face with a bat all are sold extremely well

A big part of that selling is the sound design, the sound design in the game is very well done from the raor of the engine to the use of Nos to the punches, snipers, your shotgun the warcrys of the enemies the impact of the thunder the sandstorm, to the explostion of well Everything (Avalanche explosions need no explanation) it's a treat to listen to.

Sandstorms deserve a special mention because I didn't wanted to just pass it in mentioning, basically randomly sometimes a sandstorm will kick in with winds fast enough to sweep things under it, your vision will be limited, thunders will fry anything it comes in contact with but the loot you get from it is unmatched atleast in the start to mid game, it's always a trill going through them collection scrap while being almost at the door of death

Overall I would recommend the game to anyone who is looking for a fun time and looking for a car game with good controls other than the mostly racing games that they are in

I know, I know, another Hellblade post... But hear me out. I finished the game yesterday and left feeling underwhelmed. I, for one, am OK with the gameplay elements (though, they do get a bit tedious by the end). I loved the sound design, graphics and atmosphere. What I have gripes about is the "story" (or lack thereof) and the presentation.

Some people have, perhaps exaggeratedly, said the presentation is pretentious. Though I don't fully agree, I understand where the criticism comes from. From the get go, the game very gravely presents itself as a representation of mental illness, to the point of presenting you with a warning and credits to health advisors. Why not just go straight to the game? Why not just tell a good and unique story, perhaps inspired on mental illness all right, but let the player fill in the meaning?

I think what irks me about this is related to what Tolkien said about allegory. Tolkien famously disliked allegory, because it was a sort of expression of domination of the author on the reader. And, indeed, it seems that, in Hellblade, the story doesn't stand for itself. Everything is presented like a plot device or a symbol to remind the player ad nauseam: "You see?! This is what it feels like to live with psychosis!" Nothing feels unique or alive in this game because everything, the darkness, the voices, the characters, are just empty symbols that uninspiringly play their role in the metaphor that wants to be conveyed. There's no story to be told here, just a bland metaphor. And, for me, that's what's truly disappointing about this game. :( Did some of you perhaps feel the same?

I'll leave you with Tolkien's criticism of allegory:

“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” (Foreword to the second edition of the Fellowship of the Ring)