Aperson

Currently fighting Amalthus. This boss fight is pretty challenging although I had a three level disadvantage and ended up losing after reviving a teammate while my lead was on low health with only one full party gauge. Was doing well too, but I may level up a bit more to help with this boss and anything that Chapter 10 might throw my way. On another note, anyone toppled a flying enemy before? Takes ages for them to fly up again to allow you to attack them....

Must admit the main reason I kept Tora in my party was because I liked him as a character. Yes, his catchphrase can get annoying but he's SO much better than Tatsu was in X. If you're willing to grind Ether Crystals for hours playing Tiger! Tiger! then Poppi has the potential to be one of the best Blades in the game. I haven't even maxed out the full potential yet but this is what I'm rocking currently.

Strugged on trying to beat certain levelled monsters in my current location in Chapter 8, so decided to try and do sidequests and fill out the affinity chart. In the process I had unlocked Poppi QT's fourth affinity chart link and continued to fill that in. I did consult Xenoblade Wiki for help on trying to find the location I was supposed to go to and discovered about a special sidequest... It's one of the funniest sidequests in the game imo, if you have been using Tora on your team then it's definitely worth doing to put him level with the other party members in terms of versatility. The addition of this Blade and levelling up to Level 64 has made a big difference to the party as a whole, Tora at Level 64 has over 8000 HP now and tanks hits incredibly well, not to mention that he now has an ability where he heals from a fraction of the damage taken. Only problem is that I have no idea after getting past the thing that was blocking me where the object I am supposed to attain is...

On Chapter 8 so far.

8 Chapters into Xenoblade Chronicles 2 so far. The story is good overall but if I had to nitpick, most of the plot twists so far are all the reveals that certain characters are Blades. Given that this isn't my game in terms of ownership, there are times when I don't have Switch access. So I went back to Burnout 2: Point of Impact. Such a good feeling racer after so long and easy to get pack into and pick up and play... and crash... a lot. I managed to clear the second Pursuit mode but really struggling on the 6 track Grand Prix at the end.

In regards to party structure, it does seem to be mostly 2 attackers, 2 tanks and one healer with the party members that you get, but with different elemental specials. So if you haven't been collecting Rare Blades then your Blade Combos are going to be somewhat limited. I'm currently on Chapter 7 and have been effectively trying to maximise specialities. Since there's no alternate classes in the same way as Xenoblade 1 (no Melia alternative sadly) then I've chosen my party based on my three favourite characters in the game. And yes, I dropped Rex... Current Party is (coloured in for spoilers, highlight if you want to see: Zeke Lv.50 (Pandoria, Percival, Wulfric) Nia Lv.50 (Dromarch, Dahlia, Ursula) Tora Lv.50 (Poppi A, Poppi QT)

Objectives for this year: 1. Finish Dark Souls, then buy Dark Souls 2 and 3 and complete them 2. Finish Burnout 2. Been ages since I played it and need some time to warm up to it again. 3. Continue career mode on FIFA 18 and F1 2017 and try to finish Season 1 on both games. 4. Buy A Hat in Time and play that. 5. Finish Golden Sun 6. Possibly finish Donkey Kong 64 Having to re-evaluate much because I thought Xenoblade 2 might take me a whole year to finish, however the story is getting interesting and I may actually finish it by February which is a bit of a surprise. Games I am looking forward to that might come out this year. Kingdom Hearts III Pokemon Switch (though I'm thinking that one will more likely be 2019) Marvel's Spider-Man Soul Calibur VI Metroid Prime 4 For the time being though Xenoblade 2 will be the game I will focus on trying to complete. I may also do more of the Prince of Persia games I own as I started both but never finished either.

Well, those two worked out well, I haven't touched them since I posted that. Of these four games the one in bold was the only one I actually managed to finish. The permanent introduction of a PS3 and PS4 into the household (both of them are my brother's) expanded the possibilities of a gaming library and combined with the Switch took my gaming in some interesting directions. One of the first games I got was the PS3's download version of Crash Team Racing. I played this game years ago on a friend's and reacquired Crash Bandicoot games after getting a PS2, except for this one. So the PS3 version was a good opportunity to correct that. This is still a very solid racer, although I was able to find some rather unintended shortcuts especially on Oxide Station. I picked up Soul Calibur IV' on the cheap. Enjoyed messing around in the character creation feature and getting back into playing Soul Calibur, in the midst of a big fighting game obsession. Still looking forward to Soul Calibur VI but I'm glad I picked IV up. July arrived as did Splatoon 2. Played through the single player, which was a big step up... and then never touched it after that despite many Splatfests going on. Mainly because other games were coming out that I was interested in. One of those was Sonic Mania. This is really good, I got repurposed Sonic fan game Freedom Planet a couple of years before this and really enjoyed it. It's sequel was on my games list to watch but Sonic Mania changes the circumstances a lot and having the real thing be good again is nice, I have not bought Sonic games with regularity like I used to despite liking the series and that's down to the rather mixed reception the series has had, but getting this was worth my time. I dived into Codemaster's F1 games for the first time when I bought F1 2017. I've not tried online on account of not paying for a PS Plus subscription that I'm probably not going to use a whole lot but I like this, it's a very solid racing game, the classic car content is a nice bonus and it has some of the best designed F1 cars of the modern era. I'll be playing this from time to time after F1 2018 is out I reckon. I ranted earlier in the thread over Prime Federation Force's ending. Thankfully ]Metroid: Samus Returns is a return to form and has restored my faith in this franchise's future. MercurySteam did a great job with this game, taking Metroid 2 and updating it with new moves and powers, even if I wasn't too fond of the scan Aeon feature the others were really useful and it was great to play a game which reminded me why I used to play this series so much. Also I really liked how the final battle played out. FIFA 18 Switch is FIFA, nothing more, nothing less. It's more complete than FIFA 13 on the Wii U and having modern teams as opposed to five years out of date is a bonus. I have fallen behind on my career mode though, I reached December and stopped playing, it had been my intention to keep up with real life on that front. Now for my game of last year, Super Mario Odyssey. It wasn't a game I was immensely hyped for but I wound up really enjoying it. Best Mario game in years, I loved nearly everything about this game with a few exceptions, namely that the moon requirements were perhaps a bit TOO easy at times. But the whole scope of the levels, the inventiveness of some sections, the soundtrack and the post game rewards were all really cool and I wasn't even too bothered by how easy the final boss was because that whole ending sequence was great. I intend to go back to it later down the line to do post game rewards. Rounding off the year with a few games. I finally got round to playing Dark Souls. I haven't got too far but I've made a decent amount of progress, reached the Undead Parish last time I played which hasn't been since November last year as... ...I finally acquired a game I've been wanting to play for years. Chrono Trigger. A game I have seen compared with my personal favourite game of all time, Final Fantasy VI. As you can imagine, I really wanted to play this game... but having finished it some parts of the game did not make as much impact on me as other games as I have since seen them in other RPGs whereas when I played FFVI it was my first exposure to the genre outside of Pokemon and the Game Boy Colour Harry Potter and the Philiosopher's Stone (yes, there were Harry Potter RPGs on the GBC). Still, I won't deny this is a very solid game, I think the gameplay and party structure overall is better than FFVI but I still like FFVI's story more. That's not to say that Chrono Trigger doesn't have a good story because it does. I like how it all connects together and the big twist after the Undersea Palace really surprised me. How they resolved it made sense in the context of the game too. It's rare though that an RPG could be praised moreso for it's gameplay over the story but I feel CT is one of those games. Oh and the soundtrack is a classic without a doubt. With The Last Jedi coming out I also found the motivation to start playing LEGO Star Wars II and finally beat the game after 8 years of owning it. Going into 2018 then I also had started playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2... to be continued in 2018...

OK, Xenoblade 2's soundtrack is ridiculously good and deserves to be in this thread in some way. I haven't even heard the whole soundtrack yet but from what I can tell this has to be up there as one of the strongest OSTs in gaming from last year. Also, since I haven't really been on these boards since February last year I might add some new favourites from games I've played last year that haven't already been posted.

As someone who is on Chapter 6 I do agree, especially with Chapter 4 where they go the whole hog in some instances (there's even a bath scene...). But when they actually start paying more attention to the plot itself then it gets more interesting. Chapter 5 was a heavily plot focused chapter and easily one of the strongest chapters in the game so far, what gets revealed about many characters is rather interesting. Chapter 6 seems to be heading in the same way. Also, THERE'S CHOIR MUSIC IN THIS GAME WT?

Just finished Chapter 5. The plot is getting really interesting now especially now it's delved more into Jin's backstory. This is only being furthered by the opening moments of Chapter 6.

Anyone know how to grow the level of your Blades? Roc is stuck on 10 growth and I cannot seem to increase that no matter what I do, therefore I only have the Level 1 abilities...

It's just going to esculate rather quickly until all Premier League players cost over £100 million each. Even with Financial Fair Play the amount of income coming in for Premier League teams is just pushing the gap between themselves and the Championship even further and is just going to further damage the English national football team even more than it already has as all the established Premier League players get knocked down a division because every club can pay over £50 million to sign any foreign star that looks good in some way. How is any of this in any way sustainable?

Might be all of those cutscenes towards the backend of Chapter 3, they do go on quite a bit.

Got this game last year. Really good game especially in multiplayer, something you can put on the Switch and anyone can join in. Shame I'm still rather average at it. Still yet to get Samus' Gunship but I did buy the Batmobile.

] I'll be honest though, I'm not too fond of some of the cutscenes in this chapter. Mainly the ones in which the party is staying at an inn... you should know the two if you've played it.

Haven't been on here in a while, thought I'd pop back in for a bit. Started this game last month, but due to other games I only got round to continuing from Chapter 2 onwards in recent weeks. As of right now I have just reached Chapter 4. Really enjoying it so far, Monolith appears to have gone back to what made the original Xenoblade such a great game with a likeable cast of characters (though it did take me a while to warm to them), text on screen that is actually readable and a glorious soundtrack. Getting the original composers back was such a good move and although some tracks sound really similar to ones in the original game, there are plenty of tunes to like here. I haven't really had any performance issues so far either. I like some of the after battle quotes, especially from Poppi when she casually mentions to another character (I never hear what the question was) "Poppi would tell you, but then Poppi would have to kill you." Reminds me of an abridged version of a certain other Poppi... I have a theory on who the final boss is but this is without seeing any spoilers or any proof, just thinking along the lines of this game's similarities to the original.

Trailer and some of the music that was recently released. Soundtracks I've heard so far are pretty great so far, great to have ACE back on board.

Sold, this is definitely going to be a purchase for me. The most recent dated version of FIFA I have is FIFA 13 on Wii U which is now 5 years out of date in terms of team rosters (Reading are in the Premier League in this game, Monaco are in the second division of French football, RB Leipzig aren't even in the game and some big name players of today aren't even in the game or have really average ratings) and having a proper FIFA game on the console with key features shows that EA are doing a bit better a job this time around. The lack of the Journey is fine with me, it's not a mode I particularly care for. As patchy as EA are, the Switch needs to have a library of games so following the logic that they gave to not make FIFA anymore for the Wii U after 13 came out, FIFA 18 on the Switch needs to sell enough by EA's standards to convince them to make more. Unless the annoncement was for development reasons entirely and the reason they gave was a cover up and an excuse.

I think I heard something about New 3DS exclusitivty. Hopefully that isn't the case though because I'm not getting a New 3DS for one game. Will definitely keep an eye on this game though, nice to have proper Metroid back and hopefully the developers do a good job.

Somehow Nintendo managed to have a better spotlight in 25 minutes than Microsoft and Sony managed in an hour each (imo). This effectively quells the "Switch has no games" argument, as far as I'm concerned Rocket League, FIFA 18, Xenoblade 2, Mario Odyssey are all games that are going into my Switch game collection with Metroid Prime 4 coming later on. Also going to get the Metroid II remake, I did play the original on 3DS Virtual Console but given how different Zero Mission was from the original Metroid this game looks to be worth the look.

Glad I waited and didn't buy Rocket League on PC. Looks really fun and it's timing effectively killed Metroid Prime: Blast Ball. Would be call if the exclusive Switch items included the Blue Falcon. Imagine using that in Rocket League games?

Cautiously hyped for this. Really great to see that the much hinted at Metroid Prime 4 is actually a thing. The fact that it's being done under a new developer does remind me somewhat of the Halo situation where the main developer changed for Halo 4 but let's not forget, a lot of the core developers behind Metroid Prime left Retro and worked on Recore, so the Retro team of today is not the same team that made the Prime trilogy.

Just beat this game. And oh dear, that final boss...

Recently completed Metroid Prime: Federation Force. I have to say, the final boss in this game doesn't do it any favours from the mass criticism this game receives. I will let my Miiverse posts do the talking.