Posted November 17, 2023 (edited) While looking back through notes to update my gaming log in the 2023 thread, I came across my notes for 2022 and realised I never spoke about these games in this thread...and in the case of many of them, anywhere on N-E. It's been doing my head in ever since I realised to think that there's a massive gap and lack of context that I'd personally like to refer back to, so here we are, necro'ing a thread for games played in 2022 close to the end of 2023. Sorry Oh well. I'll try to keep it succinct, just a couples of paragraphs or so for every game...but no promises Mass Effect | 2007 Playing through 2021's Legendary Edition release of Mass Effect was, for me, a very mixed bag. It was just a rough experience overall: I never really loved the combat and gunplay (despite updates for this edition of the game being widely touted); the sound mixing was absolutely atrocious, for some reason the atmospheric sound effects and gunfire were both tied to the same slider, so wanting to set the tone I turned it up... and it sounded like there were live rounds going off in my apartment; the music needed to be way louder, even at max on the slider it was so easily crowded out by dialogue and sound effects; the map was terrible; and no controller feedback during combat meant it just felt so...lifeless; and poor dialogue options and not successfully characterising what the character will actually say in response. The first half of the game was just so middling for me. Areas felt too big in a way which was overwhelming early on - and this was only made worse by a terrible map - but were relatively empty, making traversal feel like a slog, and the combat not being great just meant even the action stitching these parts together were super forgettable. The story hints at where it's going in its first half but doesn't really go anywhere interesting, and certainly nowhere that'd get me hooked. However, the game turned on its head around the midway mark, and the second half felt like it was genuinely made by a different team. Spaces are designed with more of a focus and purpose, combat zones aren't stupidly wide in scale, and this all manages to help shift the pacing up several notches and catapult you towards the end of the game with much more interesting encounters, dialogue options, and story moments, so much so that I can say that, damn, Mass Effect is a pretty damn good video game. It's just a shame about its first half. Pokémon Legends: Arceus | 2022 I absolutely adored my time with this game. It's absolutely the Monkey Lizard Brain Dopamine Edition of core series Pokémon games with just how much you can chain together between material gathering and tossing out a zillion Poké Balls at a time - perhaps the only way I'd trust Game Freak to handle an open world, because it was an extremely addicting feedback loop that they cooked up here - and by the end it offers a few rewarding battles on the level of Cynthia in Diamond & Pearl (and their remakes). While I'm still gutted that we received such a hollowed out take on the Gen IV remakes compared to the love and care earlier remakes and the series seemingly at the cost of this game getting made, the animated characters, Pokémon, and the beautiful musical callbacks and ancient versions on Sinnoh tracks makes it a game that just tugged at my nostalgic strings a bit harder than Brilliant Diamond managed just a few months prior. Still patiently waiting for the next Legends game, Game Freak. Give me another one of these, please! The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time | 1998 This is the only game I played last year that I have zero notes on. None - and I mean that in the sense that there's so little to discuss without getting into the nitty gritty, because the broader picture is crystal clear: it is a game that is very rightly heralded as a classic, pioneered the industry and has influenced some of my favourite games of all time, and has a majestic soundtrack to boot. I think I ended up overthinking the solution to a puzzle or two by virtue of the game being so old but coming to it after the games it influenced have taken some of its ideas further, and the framerate noticeably dropped in the 2011 3DS version I played during one of the bigger boss fights. I think that's it? It's rare that I have so little to say about a game after beating it, especially one which I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. Unquestionably a masterpiece. Elden Ring | 2022 My GOTY last year, and I still can't believe how great a job this game did at balancing the dungeons and locales of modern From Software titles with the scale and explorability of something like Breath of the Wild - all while giving you clear guidance (very cheekily taking some inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus in the way it did so) on where to go next if that's not your cup of tea. The main bosses, legacy dungeons, and a smattering of the smaller dungeons were the highlights for me. This all being said, it's not flawless, because as you'd expect, a game of this scale breeds a lot of repeated ideas - be it bosses or mini dungeon designs (which are very clearly a 2.0 take on Bloodborne's Chalice Dungeons, in my opinion). Also the soundtrack, while great at moments and for one or two bosses, pales in comparision to the breadth and depth of other From Software soundtracks I've encountered. Still just patiently waiting on an update on the DLC, because I'm very much looking forward to returning to the Lands Between! Spoiler Spec Ops: The Line | 2012 This one's a rough gameplay experience but - if you stick it out - a wondrous and twisting narrative which absolutely wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and I love it for it. I really don't want to say much else, to be honest, because I think it's a really unique narrative take on what was - maybe still is? - an oversatured shooter market: just play it from beginning to end and enjoy the ride, if you haven't already. Gran Turismo 7 | 2022 Staying on with friends until stupid o'clock competing in races and License Tests, diving through the pages of customisability, zoning out while grinding for credits listening to podcasts and soundtracks to chill out....GT7 was one of my favourite gaming experiences of 2022, period. Sony were stupid enough to not be upfront about their microtransactions in a game that launched at £70, but that whole controversy aside, I really, really loved playing through this, and my time with Elden Ring was slashed apart by how hopelessly addicted I ended up getting to this game. That Tokyo Expressway grind I had going in a car capable of 300+ mph was stupid and will forever be burned into my mind. Banger OST, great haptic and adaptive trigger utilisation, absurdly beautiful to just stare at. And it recently got a new sizeable update, too, with new License Tests to boot, so maybe I'll dive back in yet Spoiler Judgment | 2018 Pretty typical RGG affair wrapped in the skin of a detective game and not a Yakuza title...kind of this is all to say that I loved my time with the game, as I have every other RGG game, so if you know my thoughts on those...yeah, this isn't such a leap from 6 outside of minute details and new ideas they played around with for the first time, so I'm sure you already know how I feel about this one. Might be my favourite substory culmination of any of the games, honestly. Those stupid tailing missions can absolutely do one, though. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order | 2019 On this rare replay (heh) I found that this game and its story is paced exponentially better if you don't do any side content and lower the difficulty to carry out some Jedi wish fulfilment Spoiler Star Wars: Republic Commando | 2005 Still probably my favourite campaign of any Star Wars game I've gone through alongside Battlefront II, it was awesome to return to the role of Boss over a decade after I picked this game up for the first time and assume command of Delta Squad once more. Very archaic by today's standards, so, uh, give me a remake or a spiritual successor already please Respawn Spoiler Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | 2005 A third Star Wars-related replay in a row, Revenge of the Sith golds a very special place in my heart as a film, and so does its game. I remember sneaking the instructions manual into school just to look at some of the cool art during breaks and lunch time! The animations have aged superbly (pretty sure Christensen did mo-cap for this), the unlockable content is superb - duels, concept art, bonus missions (including an alternative ending to Revenge of the Sith) - and the game just remains such a joy to play to this day. You're treated to James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan, too, so that was awesome, but Anakin...well, let's just say I can see why Obi-Wan ended up making him a paraplegic oh, the soundtrack for ROTS not being completed by the time this was gearing up for release was hilarious too - it's a bunch of reused music from the older films and nothing from ROTS The Last of Us | 2013 I've talked about TLOU here before, and spoke about how much I loved it. And this playthrough - coupled with a playthrough of both the main game and Left Behind on the hardest difficulty, and a few playthroughs of Factions, which is an incredible and underrated multiplayer experience - really just drove home to me what a well-paced masterpiece of a narrative this game is and clarifies for me some of the decisions Naughty Dog made while designing this game (or how many bricks and bottles there are lying around seeming superfluous in lower difficulties). Remains one of my favourites. Spoiler Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King | 2005 Nothing quite as charming as a Dragon Quest game, and that soundtrack is to die for. Excellent cast, gripping story, awesome mechanics (love the risk/reward of Tension!), a wonderful world and one of the few truly open worlds worth a damn in a JRPG that I've come across, and it's an absolutely brilliant time - improved in a lot of ways with the 2016 3DS version with the portable alchemy pot, ability to speed up battles, and so on. Unfortunately: it's not quite Dragon Quest XI Live A Live | 2022 A beautiful remake both in appearance and in its soundtrack, with a great variety of ideas on show...which the game never once really manages to commit to. What you end up with are a bunch of splintered experiences, which while charming at times in their own right, I think really fails to stick the landing as a cohesive and worthwhile experience. Star Wars: Battlefront II | 2005 Another Star Wars replay, but this time of my favourite Star Wars game that I've played through. This is easily the game I've sunk the most time into across all platforms in my life - we're talking thousands of hours; I was still playing this up to getting a PS4 and EA's Battlefront (bleh) in 2015! - and I still eagerly await the day it comes to more modern consoles (potentially with online? Pretty please?). The campaign is S-tier Legends content for someone like me, all of the maps are terrific, Galactic Conquest is one of the best modes in a Star Wars game ever...man, if I were ever stuck on an island with just one game for the rest of my life, I seriously think this would be the one I'd choose to play until the end of my days. Aperture Desk Job | 2022 Look, it's just a Steam Deck demo in all practicality, but it's such a fun one at that hearty recommend for anyone with a Steam Deck who has an hour free to just chuckle at themselves and the nonsense of it all! God of War | 2005 QTEs and puzzles galore? Maybe, but man is this game just stupid fun. Wonderful animated attacks result in some really wild combos, there are a few standout bosses (that Minotaur fight!), yeah the camera has aged pretty woefully in certain sections of this game, but honestly? It's still absolutely worth checking out the start to the God of War series today. Super Mario Sunshine | 2002 Man, I'm so torn on Sunshine. Isle Delfino? Excellent place to hang out in the summer, loved having a continuous locale in a 3D Mario like this. Some of the levels? Awesome. Soundtrack? It's 3D Mario, of course it's S-tier. It's weirdly handled at times but FLUDD is a novel way to shake up the 3D formula, too. But it feels like such a jumbled mess of a game at times, and there's some weird jank to it that I've not come across in other Mario games...ever? The camera is its own living entity with its own mood swings to go alone with it, you can never quite tell what it's going to do. There is so much repetition with red coin levels and fighting the piranha plants, and I got bored of chasing blue coins pretty quickly after a few hidden levels, because they're just so hit and miss in terms of quality. And why are they taking place in another dimension entirely on toy blocks? It's just bizarre, and feels so separate from the main experience. It's the only Mario game I've played that feels rushed and cobbled together - and it was such a shame, because I had (and still have) such great early memories of spending time in Nottingham with family playing this game on my cousin's GameCube when I was little, which maybe just compounds some of the issues I have with it to an unfair degree. Shadow of the Colossus | 2005 Having first played through Shadow of the Colossus years ago with its 2018 remake by Bluepoint, I decided to boot up their 2011 PS3 remaster of the game to experience the definitive version of the PS2 original...and I'm so happy that I did. The PS4 remake, while absolutely dropdead gorgeous, just feels so at odds with itself: while, yes, it's pulling off crazy technical tricks, it really does feel like a PS2 husk painted with a PS4 skin, and this results in an odd dissonance between how the game feels and how it looks; it feels substantially older than it looks, whether it be the weightlessness of Wander's jumps, some of the jank you'll experience from time to time with the bosses, or just the moment-to-moment framing and feel of wandering around this world. Despite thoroughly enjoying the experience, something just felt off about experiencing the game that way, and at times it just felt frustrating. I also loved their take on Demon's Souls when I played through it shortly after the PS5 launch, but that also suffers from the exact same issues for me. This is all to say that this version of the game just looks and feels right - it's easier to forgive the jank in a HD-ified PS2-looking game, and the game just feels so much more full of life when it comes to Wander in particular because of this. With the rest of the game otherwise being virtually the same - the ethereal and weighty OST, the excellent fights with the Colossi, and the game's atmosphere being captured much more honestly and earnestly with a slight green haze - I came away from this replay having not just enjoyed this version more, but having the experience cement Shadow of the Colossus on my list of favourite games of all time. Maybe I should take the hint and boot up the PS3 version of Demon's Souls, huh? The Last of Us Part I | 2022 This game was over much, much faster than the original. Definitely one of the funniest clips I've ever captured - can you imagine if that was a permadeath run? Anyways, having talked about TLOU to death already, to talk about this remake: it's a totally unnecessary but gorgeous remake of an existing masterpiece which does nothing noteworthy enough to differentiate it from the game that it's a remake of. Worse yet? I'd say that some parts of the game looking different - namely: Joel's hair being more coloured, or the subway having a hole punched into the ceiling to show off Naughty Dog's awesome light effects but sucking out the atmosphere it had in the first game almost completely and thus providing a completely different tone to that conveyed in the original - actually works against it. If it's not a question of money and you've yet to experience the first game, by all means, play it this way. But if money is a factor? Just play Remastered. It's always a pleasure to play through The Last of Us, but honestly, I'd much rather the game had got a Final Fantasy XV-like Pocket Edition than this remake. I suppose it tides Naughty Dog over while Factions goes up in flames, but that we haven't had a single new and original experience from them on the PS5 yet but have had 4 and Lost Legacy PS5-ified and TLOU remade seems like such a waste of immense talent. Spoiler God of War Ragnarök | 2022 There were times during Ragnarök that it very seriously entered the conversation for me as a serious contender to Elden Ring for 2022's GOTY: its soundtrack, its performances, its new and updated mechanics and ideas, it all just comes together in a sweeping and emotional epic of a tale which means you find yourself somewhere else completely at the end than where you were at the start of the game. Now, I could wax lyrical about Ragnarök for pages on end, but we don't have that kind of time, so I want to bring up one what I think is one of its few weaknesses, and that is giving into a growing trend in tighter AAA experiences giving way to bloat (other recent AAA games I can think of like it were The Last of Us Part II and Jedi Survivor). However, whereas in other games I think that this bloat comes from a scale creep in how wide areas have become and the number of available side activities and areas to explore, I think for this game, it really impacted its narrative quite a bit. At some point in this game's development, for whatever reason - almost certainly money and wanting to wrap this story up to have another God of War 2018 moment with the next entry, I'm sure - this story went from seemingly being a trilogy to a duology, which was announced out of the blue in the build-up to the game's release. And I found that as the game darted towards the end, it wrapped things up almost at a faster pace as the end neared, with hinted at story beats and the promise of certain rivalries and ideas never truly feeling like they were fully ripened and explored, thrown aside in favour of an ever-escalating conflict. What I found that this game ended up feeling like the last two parts of a trilogy glued together into one and a half game's worth of content, which just hurts to realise - but then, also, perhaps that is part of the point. For what there is to be critical of, I struggle to want to be critical of this game, and more than ramble on about its shortcomings, I want to take a moment to talk about what this game means to me personally. I found that I played this game at a very personally difficult and sensitive time, and for so many personal reasons, this game came to mean so much to me that I don't know if I'll ever be able to quite capture what that was in written form: it delivered a simultaneous personal recognition of loss, grief, challenges overcome and yet to come, and a lasting glimmer of hope. It is games like this that makes me feel sorry for anyone who hasn't yet come to recognise the greatest gaming narratives for what they are capable of, and that is to guide, challenge, and empower you in overcoming whatever you're going through, or relating to new perspectives, in the safety of assuming the role of another. The beauty of a narrative is never determined by its medium, but its ability to transcend it. And Ragnarök, thankfully, did that for me. Spoiler Spoiler Mass Effect (2007) - completed 27th January Pokémon Legends: Arceus (2022) - completed 13th February The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) - completed 24th February Elden Ring (2022) - completed 26th March Spec Ops: The Line (2012) - completed 1st April Gran Turismo 7 (2022) - completed 24th May Judgment (2018) - completed 5th June Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019) - completed 11th June [REPLAY] Star Wars: Republic Commando (2005) - completed 14th June [REPLAY] Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) - completed 19th June [REPLAY] The Last of Us (2013) - completed 13th July [REPLAY] Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (2005) - completed 18th July Live A Live (2022) - completed 1st August Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005) - completed 9th August [REPLAY] Aperture Desk Job (2022) - completed 11th August God of War (2005) - completed 14th August Super Mario Sunshine (2002) - completed 21st August Shadow of the Colossus (2005) - completed 1st September The Last of Us Part I (2022) - completed 18th September God of War Ragnarök (2022) - completed 25th November Edited November 17, 2023 by Julius 4 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 17, 2023 I appreciate all of that epic post @Julius, but especially your thoughts on SOTC. The original is far superior to the PS4 remake and I’m glad you appreciate it; and how the remake doesn’t respect the original game’s artistic direction. Good man 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
