Your Gaming Diary 2022

[nekunando]

Also.. if there are any Resident Evil fans on the forum (nobody immediately springs to mind 😅) how do you learn to take the shackles off and stop letting the fear of leaving yourself short of health and ammo later in the game affect how you approach the game?

I always have the problem of trying to ration things so strictly that I make these types of games ridiculously difficult for myself. On the flip side, though, Resident Evil Zero really screwed me over when I played it on Gamecube. I ended up hitting a brick wall!

[Hero-of-Time]

16 minutes ago, nekunando said:

Also.. if there are any Resident Evil fans on the forum (nobody immediately springs to mind 😅) how do you learn to take the shackles off and stop letting the fear of leaving yourself short of health and ammo later in the game affect how you approach the game?

I always have the problem of trying to ration things so strictly that I make these types of games ridiculously difficult for myself. On the flip side, though, Resident Evil Zero really screwed me over when I played it on Gamecube. I ended up hitting a brick wall!

A lot of it is down to knowing your surroundings. For example, if there is a path or corridor you see yourself coming back to numerous times then clear the area. Many zombies can be dodged and don't be afraid to experiment a little. If you can think you can do better in a section then just reload your previous save.

Code Veronica is notorious for it's difficulty and ability to screw players over in the first half of the game. Be conservative with you ammo as when playing as Claire. Once you get past the boss fight on the plane then it's pretty easy from there on out. 

[Hero-of-Time]

With it now being October, I decided to fire up a spooky game.

I bought this many moons ago during a PSN sale but never got around to playing it on my Vita. Seeing as it's now available on the PS4, it felt like a good a time as any to play it.

The game may feel clunky to many but I have never had an issue with the tank controls. I felt quite at home playing with such controls and got quite nostalgic when using them. Despite it being a very old game at this point, there is something special about the original Resident Evil. The atmosphere of the mansion, eerie music, puzzles and jump scares still make for a great experience all these years later. It's been YEARS since I played the original RE and I was surprised how much I was able to remember. Saying that, It was a game I would play over and over again (just like I did with the sequels) so a lot of it has been burned into my brain.

As you can see, I went with Jill as my main character and managed to finish it under a couple of hours. No saves was easy thanks to the save states on the PS4.  This time meant I've unlocked the rocket launcher and extra outfits should I choose to play the game again.

I managed to capture a hilarious shot of the Tyrant just as the final rocket hit him. The way he was looking at the camera/player cracked me up. It's as if he knew his plan had gone horribly, horribly wrong. 

I also managed to rescue the whole team.

Spoiler

Yeah, I really enjoyed playing through this again. I wish Sony would get their finger out and release more of these PS1 gems on the PS4/5. I'm gutted Dino Crisis hasn't shown up on the service yet as I would have liked to have played through that this month as well.  It also would have been nice playing through the original Resident Evil 2 and 3 again. 

 

[drahkon]

Lots of people here keep playing Resident Evil games and then there's me...I've only ever played Resident Evil 4 on...I don't really remember. Maybe it was GC, maybe Wii  And it was only for a few hours.

Never actually played any particular games for Spooky Season because I don't care for Spooky Season but maybe this year I will play a game during Spooky Season.

Anyways...

9 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

She's pretty.

Edited October 1, 2022 by drahkon

[Happenstance]

Resident Evil has always been a series I enjoy watching other people play but have never liked playing any of them myself.

[Glen-i]

I don't like Survival Horror as a whole, the only reason I can play Resi 4 is because the Wii motion controls made it so fun. It probably comes as no surprise that the laboratory section on the Island is the one bit I hate.

I legit thought to myself "Bloody hell! He's really good at this" only to carry on reading and see...

2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

No saves was easy thanks to the save states on the PS4.

Well, at least you were honest.

[Hero-of-Time]

I continued my October/spooky type games and finally sat down and played this...

Spoiler

It was okay but nothing special. I'm kinda baffled why the game gets praised and commands such a high resale value.

I found the combat quite clunky and didn't care for the constant switching between the different forms when you obtain the various crests. Boss battles were decent enough and I did enjoy the Metroidvania style gameplay. Going back to previously cleared levels to find health upgrades and other items was fun but that didn't save the game from being a meh experience. Still, it was another game that I've played this year that was on my gaming bucket list. I do think Gargoyles Quest on the Gameboy/3DS is a better game.

[drahkon]

10 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Gargoyles Quest

What a game.
Played this one a lot when I was a kid and played it for a bit while taking a drunken dump at a friend's birthday party a couple of weeks ago. TMI? Who cares, the game's awesome.  

"So drahkon, what did you do on this German holiday today?"
Hey Timmy, long time no see. I did this:

Spent 8 hours playing through two mindless and super easy NG+ runs to acquire this.
"That's so stupid. Why would you do that?"
I don't have to explain myself to you, Timmy. You piece of shit.

Trials of Mana is a solid JRPG. It does, however, show its age given it's a remake of a SNES game. Lots of backtracking, lots of reused enemies (just with other colours), lots of nonsense.
It was fun, though. And exactly what I needed after a rough week: A weekend spent with watching lots of sports and playing a game three times just to get a useless trophy  

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by drahkon

[Jonnas]

Before I decide to do anything for October, here's a couple of entries:

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Which song are they acapella-ing, I wonder?

I mentioned a few times in the thread proper that I've been playing this game. The music in FF is absolutely gorgeous, so the premise had a head start, really.

But more than that, it's a very chill game. You can just hop into any song and do whatever you want. Or pick whichever party you want. Perfection is entirely optional. I can honestly say it's the most tranquil rhythm game I've ever played.

I do like the Quest Medleys as well. Do you want the game to just surprise you a handful of random songs? Pick one of the quests and enjoy. Shout-out to the first Long Quest throwing FFIV's Final Boss theme at me on the highest difficulty right in the middle, that threw me for a loop, and summoned the drummer inside of me I didn't know existed.

Sure, the Quest Medleys have failure states, but even those are pretty forgiving. A ton of items and skills you get in this game are all about recovering HP or minimizing damage (or compensating for failure in some other way), which means the game is essentially telling you "it's cool to miss about half of the song" most of the time. It's rare to see a rhythm game being so cool with player's imperfections.

Now, I'm a perfectionist, and I always want to do the best I can. Myself, I can focus entirely on inflicting more damage and maximise loot (that is, the unlockables). I love that Theatrhythm panders to various skill levels (and each song having three difficulty levels? Lovely). As a result, my girlfriend actually plays this game during lazy evenings, no pressure whatsoever.

So yeah, after completing one of each Quest, plus unlocking Chaos, I feel like I "beat" the game... but I'm certain to play this casually for a long time to come.

And speaking of stuff I'll be playing...

Puzzle Bobble

You can practically hear the music

This was on sale on Switch! Man, I have so many memories of seeing this Arcade cabinet everywhere, and I always tried my best shot at the game. This game is pure gold, so simple and addicting.

It's interesting to revisit this with a more conscious mind for game design, seeing as each board has a fixed layout, but the balls you get are random/procedurally generated. A bit frustrating, but it allows strategies to form, and for the player to manage whatever hand they get.

I haven't beaten it yet, because it's quite difficult to do so. I'll keep trying, and I don't know when I'll succeed. I'm just adding it to the Diary now because... I've already seen what the game has to offer, honestly! I always knew what I was getting, and now it's just a matter of defeating this very simple roguelike-like.

  My 2022 log (Hide contents)

Played/Beat/Completed:

-Steamworld Dig 2 (2017) Completed (January 6th)

-Bit.Trip Saga (2009-2011) No Goal (January 15th)

-Ever Oasis (2017) Beat (February 25th)

-Guilty Gear (1998) No Goal (March 19th)

-Flashback (1992) Completed (March 19th)

-Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R (2002-2012) Beat (March 30th)

-Defenders of Oasis (1992) Completed (April 20th)

-Katamari Damacy (2004) Completed (April 27th)

-Donkey Kong Land (1995) Beat (April 29th)

-Donkey Kong Land 2 (1996) Beat (May 11th)

-Donkey Kong Land III (1997) Completed (May 28th)

-Skullgirls (2012) Beat (May 29th)

-Super Punch Patrol (2020) Beat (August 10th)

-Final Fight (1989) Completed (August 18th)

-Streets of Rage (1991) Completed (September 18th)

-Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (2014) Beat (October 1st)

-Puzzle Bobble (1994) Completed (October 5th)

 

Replays:

-Kirby's Dream Land 2 (1995) (March 20th)

-Wario Land 3 (2000) (April 15th)

-King of Fighters '98 (1998) (June 30th)

-Chiki Chiki Boys (1990) (August 8th)

 

Dropped:

-Dicey Dungeons (2019) (January 3rd)

-The Room (2012) (January 8th)

-This War of Mine (2014) (March 18th)

-Virtua Fighter 2 (Mega Drive) (1996) (April 24th)

-1943: The Battle of Midway (1987) (August 3rd)

-SonSon (1987) (August 8th)

-Strider (1989) (August 9th)

EDIT: Turns out, that was a couple of days later Managed to reach the end of Puzzle Bobble

Edited October 5, 2022 by Jonnas

[Cube]

Tinykin

A beautiful looking game. It’s obvious that the game is heavily inspired by Pikmin, as you control a bunch of tiny creatures and throw them to get them to do your bidding, but also very much its own thing as it's much more of a collectathon platformer.

The game takes place inside a house where insects have gained sapience and worship the owner of the house, who hasn’t been seen for ages. You play as a tiny person trying to find out the origins of humanity and wind up in this strange house. A wise old insect has diagrams of a machine, but needs the parts to build it. It’s up to you - and the Tinykin to find these parts.

Each level of the game is quite open to explore, but you’ll need Tinykin to progress and solve puzzles. There are four different types, including the default “strong” ones which move objects and ones that stack to help you reach higher places. The environment, and all the insect NPCs you talk to, are all incredibly charming. 

It’s a wonderful game. 
 

 

Deathloop

A time loop first person shooter. The combat is really fun, which makes any repeated segments still fun, with different abilities and weapons to try out new approaches. The objective of the game is simple: kill eight targets all in one loop. The problem is that the targets are in different areas, and you can only go to one location at each time of day.

So you need to investigate what each target is doing, and find out how to manipulate them so you can do one final run to eliminate them all. On top of this, there are weapons and abilities you can find to improve your armour, as well as find a resource that lets you “bind” them so you can keep them between runs.

While I massively enjoyed it, I do think it held your hand a bit too much, giving you slightly too much help, especially with the final run.
 

Cooking Simulator

I honestly can’t tell if this is a really poorly made serious simulator or a completely humourless “broken physics” parody game. 

The first thing you’ll notice is how low the turn sensitivity is. It takes close to 30 seconds to do a full turn around and makes the whole game feel like you’re moving through jelly. The object is to cook dishes, which require lots of getting ingredients, cutting them, seasoning them and cooking them. Then placing them on a place. The cutting and plating, however, have virtually no control over them, so none of your meals end up looking nice - they’re just a mess of ingredients on a plate, and part of what makes it look like a “broken physics” game like Surgeon Simulator. 

The whole game is slow, buggy and a complete and utter mess. What makes it even worse is that the first choice on the modes to play is the DLC you need to buy, which the game doesn’t even say is DLC until you select pay and get taken to the payment page.

 

You Suck at Parking

A fun simple game. You have to drive through obstacle courses, then quickly park in the designated locations. The courses and obstacles get crazier and wilder as you progress. It’s a short but fun distraction.

Although for such a simple game, it has an immense amount of cosmetic DLC - something like 12 different packs. On top of that, there’s a kind of “battle pass” as well which gets you rewards as you progress through the game (providing you paid for it). If you didn’t pay, the game tells you what you would have unlocked if you pay, a constant reminder that the player is nothing more than a commodity to the developers. Most of these paid additions are used in all the loading screens and menus as well.
 

[Hero-of-Time]

I was looking for my next spooky game to play and seen on my shelf the Castlevania DS trilogy just sitting there. I picked these up back in 2019, played Dawn of Sorrow in 2020 but never played any of the others. I figured it was time for the next game in the trilogy. "Jonathan!" "Charlotte!"  "Jonathan!" "Charlotte!"  "Jonathan!" "Charlotte!"  "Jonathan!" "Charlotte!"  "Jonathan!" "Charlotte!"

I REALLY enjoyed playing this game. I wasn't too fussed when I first started it but things started to click and I couldn't put it down, especially when I started to grind levels out.

I quite like the way the game is structured. Having the castle as the main hub and then lots of little levels that you can access via paintings meant that exploration wasn't too tiresome. It is essentially Mario 64 but in 2D form.  However, not all the levels are winners though. I wasn't a huge fan of the Nation of Fools stage. With it being circular it meant that there was a lot of verticality to it, which I didn't really care for. Also, the game repeating stages but in a new skin was a bit disappointing. It felt like they were stretching things out a bit but ran out of time and so copied and pasted a couple of stages. I suppose this is understandable given how fast these games were churned out.

I really enjoyed the quests that were handed to you by Wind. These were little side missions that were a nice distraction from the main game. If there was a boss I was stumped on or I wanted a break from the story, I would just tackle some of these. One of them was a right ball ache to complete. You had to level up 3 of Jonathan's sub weapons to their Master rank. The best spot was in the Dark Academy and this meant going back and forth in a room that featured 2 enemies that were easy enough to kill and gave some decent experience points for the characters and the sub weapons. Doing this boosted my characters levels pretty high, which is always nice. 

A few of the quests required me to tackle the Nest of Evil. This is a bonus dungeon that is kind of a gauntlet and features bosses from Dawn of Sorrow at the end of each of the stages. Again, going through these meant my characters were gaining lots of experience points. It also offered a pretty decent challenge. One of the rooms featured two Frankenstein bosses and these were no joke. One of the was hard enough but two at the same time were pretty challenging. Still, it was worth it because at the end of it all I received a dual attack spell called Greatest Five. This summons 5 heroes from past Castlevania games and dishes out a fair chunk of damage. Very nice.

The two character system took some getting used to but I found it stupidly useful in certain situations. For example. I would position Charlotte  (I mainly played as Jonathan) in front of the enemy and then I would go to the back, essentially creating a Castlevania sandwich in which the enemy couldn't escape. This worked very well on a number of boss fights, mainly the human sized ones. I also enjoyed the jumping mechanic that you get early on that has you bounce off another characters head to get some height. It reminded me very much of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. This move would eventually become useless thanks to the Griffon Wing and double jump.

Speaking of boss fights, I defeated the sisters and ended up getting the bad ending for the game. I had to look up how to change this and found that I needed a certain spell. Even when I had the spell it was tricky to pull off. I had to use Charlotte to cast the spell and then switch to Jonathan to protect her while she was casting it. This took a fair few attempts because the spell takes an age to pull off. Also, the fight you get to do after defeating the sisters is very cool. Again, this took a fair few attempts but hilariously I actually beat him by reaching Master rank with the Cream Pie sub weapon and pelting him with that. 

I'm not sure if I'll play OoE  before the month is over but I've certainly enjoyed my time with this Castlevania game. That's another game off the backlog.

[Dcubed]

 

Portrait of Ruin is great!

[Jonnas]

3 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

One of the rooms featured two Frankenstein bosses and these were no joke.

Wait, you actually defeated them? That's amazing, all I could ever do was hold the 2 minutes required for the door to open.

Glad you enjoyed the game, it's definitely an underrated one  It's got some cool level themes that Castlevania doesn't use too often (like Egypt. Astarte is a funny boss battle, too). Plus, excellent music.

I've never done any of the extra modes, though. You know, like Richter Mode or Sisters Mode.

[WackerJr]

On 04/10/2022 at 4:13 PM, Cube said:

Tinykin

A beautiful looking game. It’s obvious that the game is heavily inspired by Pikmin, as you control a bunch of tiny creatures and throw them to get them to do your bidding, but also very much its own thing as it's much more of a collectathon platformer.
 

I heard really good things about this on a Podcast recently and glad to hear you’ve backed up those opinions!  How long would you say it is out of interest?

[Cube]

15 hours ago, WackerJr said:

I heard really good things about this on a Podcast recently and glad to hear you’ve backed up those opinions!  How long would you say it is out of interest?

My playtime says 12 hours, but due to having the game paused a lot (due to baby) I'd guess perhaps 8ish? It's a bit hard for me to judge playtimes at the moment.

[WackerJr]

Five Dates (Switch)



Conceived, developed, released & set during the pandemic lockdown. Five Dates is an interactive rom-com that I enjoyed more than I expected to.

You watch video dates between protagonist Vinny and five female matches. Occasionally you’ll be given a few seconds to select a response from multiple choices, and these can affect how the date plays out, and whether you are able to get any follow-up dates.

Since the actors are all real and this was filmed during lockdown there’s no way for the characters to meet up in person. I liked it as, while I guess it’s classed as a dating sim, the game focuses more on the rapport between the characters instead of just trying to hook up.

Vinny is likeable and sincere, the actors are good and the writing is pleasant. I didn’t find it laugh out loud funny, but I did find it charming and chuckled on quite a few occasions.

I didn’t mind the reminder of being in lockdown, and found it to be a short and simple feel-good experience.

[killthenet]

I played through a few more games in September, starting out revisiting a game I had fond memories of from my childhood, Mr Nutz on the SNES - it's a game I probably would have played through already if it had ever been released on the Virtual Console or Nintendo Switch Online but the rights are probably tied up in limbo now that Ocean are defunct. As a kid I don't remember ever seeing anything beyond the level when you get washed down the plug hole so it was interesting to see how things progressed as the game went on but I can't say I particularly enjoyed playing through it. There are some neat visual effects and sprite work, with plenty of secrets to find if you want to dig deeper but it didn't really click for me, I never felt the urge to explore more than I needed to. As 16-bit platformers go I can see how it would have been impressive to critics at the time, and it was definitely captivating to my 6 or 7 year old self, but going back to it now it is a bit of a slog. 

I finally picked up Unpacking on the Switch so I played through that over a couple of nights. It's a charming and relaxing experience for the most part but it didn't really grab me the way I had expected it to, from the little I'd heard about the game I assumed the story would be more impactful but in the end it was a pretty simple tale. There was one moment, I think during the third level, that hit me quite hard though - it was the act of shifting things around, trying to fit in your new partner's things, that took me back to when I moved in with my ex-girlfriend, stirring up a range of emotions that made me a bit teary eyed for the rest of the night. That was probably the high point of the game for me though, by its nature it isn't very complex so I suppose there isn't much room for the gameplay to evolve, but it would have been more rewarding if there was more of a puzzle element to where you place things - besides a few rules about which room certain items need to go in, it seems like you can put things pretty much wherever you like. Still, I spent an enjoyable few hours with the game so would recommend it to anyone looking for a game to chill out with.

Next up I played through Stray on PS5, another game that didn't quite live up to my expectations. Things started off quite strong, it had a laid back and slow paced feel to it and I was enjoying scurrying about with the other cats in the opening section, but even when the story took an inevitably tragic turn I was still under its spell, taking my time exploring the run down and abandoned parts of the city. I appreciated how unconventional it was, drawn in by the concept of an almost wordless narrative, even if the movement options were more restrictive than I would have liked, exploring the environment at my own pace with the goal of reuniting the main cat with his friends was really appealing to me. Unfortunately things started to tail off once the robots, or Companions as the game calls them, showed up, shattering my hopes and expectations for the game. That's not to say I didn't enjoy those aspects on their own merits, there were still some great moments as I played through the game but it became much more conventional than I had hoped, I can see why some people are tipping it for GOTY, there's plenty of charm in its visuals, world design and gameplay but it just didn't hit the right notes for me personally.

Lastly I played Wave Race 64 on the N64 Switch Online app, the only entry in the Wave Race series that I was yet to get around to playing. Compared to my experiences with the GB entry a few weeks earlier, I instantly felt more at home when I fired this up and did the first courses in the Championship mode, and I made quick work of clearing the Normal difficulty. There was certainly a bit of a steep learning curve with some of the later courses though, and there was more finesse to the controls than I had initially given them credit for so things got steadily more challenging as I worked my way through Hard and onto Expert. Expert mode lived up to its billing, on my first couple of attempts I didn't earn enough points to be able to progress beyond the fourth or fifth races so it took a bit of practice to familiarise myself with the intricacies of each course and eventually I managed to make it all the way through to the final course, somehow managing enough points to finish top of the rankings. Moving onto Reverse mode I expected the challenge to ratchet up another gear or two but in the end it was actually surprisingly easy, I finished in 1st on the first four races which set me up pretty comfortably and I didn't finish any lower than 2nd on any of the final four races, coming top of the rankings by a long way. In terms of ranking alongside the other games in the series its quite easy to slot it into second spot, behind Blue Storm - beating that felt much more rewarding, it was less about chance and more about skill - but 64 was still a tonne of fun to play through, it's a real shame Nintendo has never revisited the franchise, it deserves better!

Lots of big games on the horizon, I definitely haven't played as many games as I'd have liked so far this year so hopefully I can get a few more under my belt before the likes of Bayonetta and God of War arrive on the scene.

[Hero-of-Time]

Me playing Halloween type games continued with this..

When I was doing the whole scary games in October last year, this was a game I was tempted to add to the list but it wasn't on sale at the time. I had a quick check to see if it was on sale at the moment and sure enough it was. Seeing as I had yet to earn a single trophy this month, I figured I best crack on with Pumpkin Jack.  

It was quite a fun little game. It's a 3D platformer/adventure type game that plays similar to games in the N64/Gamecube era. It obviously lacks the quality of some of the big games on those consoles but the idea is the same. You traveller a pretty liner 3D environment, pick up collectibles, fight enemies and then take on the boss at the end. There are 6 worlds to tackle and these start at around 30 minutes long but by the end a level can take up to an hour, especially when trying to find everything. A big issue I had with the levels is that they all seem the same. When playing some of the classic 3D platforming games levels tend to have a theme but here everything is quite dark and moody, which I suppose makes sense given that it's a game about Halloween/scary things. They do try to mix it up a bit, with one of the stages featuring a Christmas theme but it was still a dark level. It kinda reminded me of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

In each of the levels the game tries to add a bit variety by changing up the gameplay for a short time. These sections involve Jack removing his pumpkin head and you then play as the pumpkin separate from the body in a variety of minigames. There are also a few on rails sections where you are riding on a minecart or flying through the stage on a gargoyle. Both the minigame and on rail sections were very reminiscent of Donkey Kong 64 where you would get these types of things to do to break up the standard traversal of the main levels.

Trophy wise, the game is pretty straight forward. Nothing is missable due to there being level select and most of the trophies are gained just by playing the game. The only ones that require a little bit of effort are the 21 collectibles to find in each of the levels but as long as you have a guide handy then these don't cause much of an issue.

It's not a bad game but it's also nothing to write home about. I wouldn't buy it at full price (£25) and instead would wait for a sale. I paid £10 which was a fair enough deal for the time I spent on it and the enjoyment I got. It's certainly worth a look if you are craving a classic style 3D platformer but just go in with your expectations in check.

6 hours ago, killthenet said:

Next up I played through Stray on PS5, another game that didn't quite live up to my expectations. 

It's interesting to see so many people have this take, myself included. It seems to have been one of those games that people loved the look of but in practice it didn't really deliver. @RedShell did you play this? Figured with you being a big cat person you'd be all over it.

[drahkon]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I paid £10 which was a fair enough deal for the time I spent on it and the enjoyment I got.

Your post made me want to get it, but thankfully I missed the sale. I would've bought it and not played it during spooky season  

Great to hear you got some enjoyment out of it  

[Hero-of-Time]

Another spooky game has been finished.

I wasn't going to play this so soon after finishing Portrait of Ruin but I wasn't feeling that burnt out after playing that and figured I would crack on with this. It's another game that has sat on my shelf for the past few years that I had yet to play. It was time to finally finish off the DS Castlevania trilogy.

Yeah, this game feels very different to the previous two DS entries. It's as if the game is a cross between the older style platforming Castlevania games and the IGAvania style ones and sadly this mix just doesn't seem to work. The first half of the game has you going through pretty linear stages, with the odd side path here and there, and then the final dungeon of the game introduces Dracula's castle, which is much more like the previous DS entries. I'm guessing this was done due to the time restraints on the team to create the game. I imagine making linear stages is a lot easier than coming up with a large, interconnected world. It's funny, you can see the development team either running out of time or ideas when you look at all 3 DS games. DoS had a very large map, PoR had a medium sized map but lots of smaller sized Metroidvania style stages and OoE has loads of small linear stages and a smallish Metroidvania final level.

The difficulty of the game is all over the place. In the previous games you could do a spot of grinding and level up to overcome certain areas or bosses but that really isn't the case here.  I did do a spot of AFK grinding for around 10 hours total but the levels I gained didn't really help that much. So many of the enemies hit you harder than they should and some of the bosses require very specific strategies or glyph types to be able to defeat them. Ah, the glyphs! This is another thing that didn't work for me. Having to constantly to chop and change weapons/glyphs in order to exploit weaknesses became very old very quickly. Don't get me wrong, once you find the right setup you can make short work of a lot of things but this requires you to either faff on with experimenting with different combos or searching on the internet for the best strategies.

I did enjoy the two bonus dungeons that the game had to offer. One was a gauntlet type stage that required platforming skills and precise use of the magnet style glyph. The other was 9 stages that pitted you against a lot of enemies and an optional boss at the end. The boss was pretty simple, especially when compared to most of the rooms that came before it. The gauntlet style room was certainly a nice change of pace.

The side quest system makes a return but like a lot of other things, this is also a weaker version of what came before it. When you rescue the villagers in the main stages they will return to the village and eventually offer you a quest. There were far too many side quests here that relied on luck with either drop rates or treasure chests spawning. The ones requiring the treasure chests spawns were very annoying because you had to get a rare chest to spawn but then also hope the correct item was inside. It was a case of going through a stage, finding the chest, seeing if it was a rare chest and then opening it and hoping what you needed was inside. If it wasn't the item I required, I would then soft reset the game and try again. Very tedious.

It was good to finally play the game but ultimately it was easily the weakest entry in the series. The ideas on offer here just didn't work for me and it's a shame the DS trilogy had to end on such a low note. My order of enjoyment goes in the order of their release. Dawn of Sorrow is still my favourite out of all of them by a large margin. 

 

[Dcubed]

3 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, this game feels very different to the previous two DS entries. It's as if the game is a cross between the older style platforming Castlevania games and the IGAvania style ones and sadly this mix just doesn't seem to work. The first half of the game has you going through pretty linear stages, with the odd side path here and there, and then the final dungeon of the game introduces Dracula's castle, which is much more like the previous DS entries. I'm guessing this was done due to the time restraints on the team to create the game. I imagine making linear stages is a lot easier than coming up with a large, interconnected world. It's funny, you can see the development team either running out of time or ideas when you look at all 3 DS games. DoS had a very large map, PoR had a medium sized map but lots of smaller sized Metroidvania style stages and OoE has loads of small linear stages and a smallish Metroidvania final level.

Nope.  OOE actually had the longest dev cycle of any of the Igavania games.  I suspect that the main reason for this choice was that Iga's team were probably getting a bit burnt out on the Metroidvania format (can't blame them after doing 6 of them beforehand!) and that they wanted to do something different with a more traditional Stage Clear style Castlevania game.  Makes sense when you consider that they also did the Rondo of Blood remake the year prior and ended up following up OOE with Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth (A brand new, traditional Stage Clear Castlevania title... and the very last of its kind!).

But you're right overall.  I don't think that the mixture of the two styles works very well in OOE.  The individual stages all have very simplistic level design (with a LOT of copy/pasted elements), and the core gameplay just doesn't offer the depth needed to make it all work; meanwhile, the Metroidvania portion suffers from having a reletively simplistic and small castle layout.

OOE is still good mind you (and the bosses in particular are great!), but it's definitely my least favourite DS Castlevania title (though I'd still rate it above Harmony of Dissonance personally).

Edited October 15, 2022 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

2 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Nope.  OOE actually had the longest dev cycle of any of the Igavania games.

Then there's no excuse for how rough it is compared to the other two.  

 

[RedShell]

On 14/10/2022 at 7:27 AM, Hero-of-Time said:

It's interesting to see so many people have this take, myself included. It seems to have been one of those games that people loved the look of but in practice it didn't really deliver. @RedShell did you play this? Figured with you being a big cat person you'd be all over it.

Not yet, no. It’s still on the wish list.  

While I have no doubt whatsoever that I’ll really enjoy all the cat stuff, based on what I’ve seen of the game and read about it online, I’m also pretty sure it won’t be as good as I was hoping it’d be. So yeah, I’m happy to wait for it to drop further in price (more than the current 20% off on Steam ) before picking it up.

At the moment it’s all about the Resident Evil series for me.

I picked up that Humble Bundle earlier in the year and have been having something of a Resi marathon!

Was planning to replay the series in order, but the urge to check out the games that I’d never played before was too much to resist, so I pretty much jumped straight into RE 2, 3 & 6.

Of that lot, it’s definitely 3 which I’ve enjoyed/played the most. Looks like that game gets quite a bit of flak from fans, but I absolutely love it. It’s just so damn replayable! Have got S Ranks on Assisted, Standard and Hardcore difficulties so far, and am now attempting Nightmare. Such a fun game to speed run too!

I think another thing that has made me enjoy this game so much, is that after my initial playthrough, I started messing around with some mods. Not something I usually do, but it turns out that modding the RE games on PC is super easy!

Only been using outfit/character swap mods, rather than anything which messes with actual gameplay, but there’s some hilarious stuff available. My favourites are the ones which change Carlos. Have played through with him as both Rambo and Kiryu!  It looks so weird, yet at the same time it’s very well done. Definitely makes multiple playthroughs more entertaining that’s for sure.

Anyway, just a couple more RE games for me to play before I’m all caught up with the series, Revelations 2 and Village. But for the time being… *launches Resi 3 again* 

[Hero-of-Time]

Happy to see you enjoying Resident Evil 3, @RedShell. Like you, I don't see what the issue is with the game. I loved the original and loved the remake. I think Capcom done a fantastic job with it. This also gives me an excuse to post the amazing ending theme that they remixed from the original game.

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Hero-of-Time

[nekunando]