Your Gaming Diary 2022

[WackerJr]

New Pokémon Snap (Switch)

Improved upon every aspect of the original and I really enjoyed it.  While my wife saw it and thought it looked really repetitive, thanks to the updates there are a surprising number of stages, and there’s variation within them by playing them in day or night.

I didn’t always find it clear how I got a Pokémon to behave in a certain way, so a lot of poses were achieved by blind luck, and some of the more secret Pokémon have a very set, but unclear method for finding them, so you have to be patient enough to try things.

I liked that it felt as though you were traversing a world filled with Pokémon and so was thoroughly satisfied with it.

[killthenet]

I started off November by playing one of the years big releases in Bayonetta 3 and, needless to say, I had a great time playing through it. I hadn't seen many of the pre-release trailers so I wasn't aware that the premise was a riff on the multiverse concept that everyone seems to be doing at the moment, finding that out definitely dampened my excitement a bit but thankfully Platinum put their unique spin on things so it all feels like quite a natural next step for the series. I did struggle to reacquaint myself with the controls at first, feeling pretty clumsy in the first chapter or so, but in the early goings my biggest gripe was with the mounted sections and the summons in general - they just felt clunky and slow and on the first mounted section with the spider the game didn't do the best job at explaining the mechanics so I kept falling off, halting my progress in the chapter for longer than I would have liked. Once I was used to the controls and started to put together combos though my progress through the game went pretty smoothly, Platinum's games are generally pretty forgiving with checkpoints and items so besides failing the glorified QTE's at times I didn't really run into any significant challenges until the very end of the game (and even then I was able to beat the final boss with relative comfort). There are certainly issues with performance and presentation, some of the environments can feel a bit lifeless, the textures of low detail and resolution that is especially noticeable in the larger areas, certainly issues that would be ironed out on more modern hardware, but for the most part Bayonetta 3 is an absolute joy to play through so I found it easy to overlook the blemishes. Not sure what the general consensus is but I loved Viola, it was a surprise to me that she was a bonafide playable character and, despite it being difficult for me to pull off witch time with her I loved using her sword - it's kind of reminiscent of the Leviathan Axe in God of War in the way you can throw it at enemies and switch to hand to hand combat - and Cheshire is an absolutely incredible summon, just a great character all round. The story didn't quite hit the heights of the first game, it's more a way to link the increasingly outlandish chapters together than a genuinely engrossing narrative, but its serviceable and leads to some utterly glorious gameplay moments. There is so much variety in the gameplay, the way it can jump from normal combat to something completely off the wall and unexpected is really impressive, it's unashamedly dumb fun at its best - the most videogamey videogame I've ever played and an absolute must-play for any fan of Platinum's previous output. 

Next up, much slower paced and smaller in scope, I played Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol on the Nintendo DS. It's a game I've been meaning to get around to playing for ages, I remember being intrigued by it during the height of the DS' popularity but for whatever reason I never bought it - I played the GC original a few years ago and was charmed by it so when I repaired my 3DS in October I decided to finally dig into the series handheld entries. In terms of premise its relatively similar to the first game except, instead of cleaning up a house Chibi is tasked with rejuvenating a barren park by planting flowers to attract more visitors. At first Chibi has such a low capacity battery that you can only spend a couple of minutes watering the buds before retreating to the Chibi House to recharge, it means the opening hour or so is frustratingly stop/start and slow, but it's definitely worth persevering. As the game opens up you can acquire larger batteries and more tools, eventually unlocking a variety of vehicles that make it easier to get around the park, making the basic gameplay loop more and more enjoyable as you progress through the game. I was worried that the game would be hampered by the less powerful hardware of the DS but besides being restricted to using the D-pad for movement it actually holds up pretty well compared to the GC original, mechanically its very similar and, although there are definitely some concessions visually (the draw distance is shorter and things can look a bit low res and blocky at times) it manages to retain a lot of the charm. As you expand the park and explore the adjacent high street you discover a number of other toys that have run out of energy and, after recharging them, they show their gratitude by offering to assist you in redeveloping the park, allowing you to undertake more extensive projects to attract more visitors. As the narrative unfolds an antagonist, another toy called Sergeant Smugglor, shows up and releases flower corrupting minions called Smoglings that Chibi needs to chase down and squash to avoid them undoing all of his hard work. The unwelcome visitors help to keep you on your toes, mixing up the gameplay loop and threatening to scupper your plans, so things manage to feel quite fresh all the way through to the end. In the end I think I enjoyed Park Patrol more than the original GC entry, it feels more at home on a handheld, being more conducive to short spurts of gameplay, and the developers seem to have ironed some of the problems that made it’s older console sibling quite frustrating at times. I probably won’t get around to it for a little while but I’m keen to see how they expanded on the concept in the Japan only follow up, and to a lesser extent the 3DS platforming spin off, it’s just a shame that the series seems to be dead in the water - it would be great to see it make a comeback, even if it was just in the form of a remaster.

I followed up Chibi Robo with one of the years big hitters, God of War Ragnarok on PS5. Of the few big releases I played in 2018 the reboot of GoW was probably my favourite, it was an interesting change of pace for the series in terms of tone, offering up a decent story, but it was the combat that was the real star - just the act of throwing and recalling the axe was enjoyable by itself - so I was keen to see where the series went next. Unfortunately, my first few hours with Ragnarok were a bit of a slog, coming so soon off the back of Bayonetta, GoW seemed to take itself so seriously that I struggled to connect with it  at first - and the constant chatter from the companion characters didn’t help matters much at all. It’s a problem that was highlighted by GMTK but the way the NPC’s don’t give you any time to even assess your surroundings before pointing out how to solve a puzzle is incredibly frustrating, making the game seem every bit as dumb as Bayonetta, just by insulting the players intelligence rather than being completely daft and over the top. Those problems didn’t completely go away as the game wore on, even during the climax Mimir and Atreus were telling Kratos he was on fire, but they definitely became easier to overlook them as areas got less linear and I became more engrossed in the narrative. There is a lot to like about Ragnarok, the combat is engaging and evolves in interesting ways from the 2018 entry, but the impactful character moments aren’t as frequent as I had hoped and the game felt like it outstayed its welcome a little too much (howlongtobeat pegs it at 24 hours for the main story and my play through clocked in at over 35, I did some favours and side quests but not 11 hours worth). It’s still an impressive achievement in many ways, Bear McCreary’s score is great, the ensemble cast is fantastic, with some truly stunning performances, and I enjoyed the way different companions weaved in and out of the story - helping to switch up combat encounters (and even playable characters) and keep things feeling fresh right through to the end so despite the rocky start I’m still glad I got to experience Kratos’ latest adventure, even though it’s very much an evolution of the 2017 reboot the team at Santa Monica Studio have still managed to deliver some genuinely awe-inspiring moments that push the boundaries of the medium. One thing I’ve noticed when playing through some big games recently is how little I engage with some of their systems, with Bayonetta and Ragnarok I hardly bothered with the skill trees and with Ragnarok specifically I didn’t touch the crafting system or really care much about loot or amour at all - it seems like developers shoehorn in all these extra mechanics because other games are doing it, or in a bid to make the game seem more substantial, but a lot of the time they end up feeling completely inconsequential.

I almost never play games on mobile but with Downwell creator Ojiro Fumoto’s new game Poinpy being an Android & iOS exclusive I fired up my Netflix app and downloaded it onto my phone. For those who aren’t aware, Poinpy is another vertically oriented rogue-like but instead of going down you’re moving up, collecting fruits as you go to feed the hungry cat that’s snapping at your heels - recipes appear on screen while a timer ticks down and, if you fail to collect the required fruits, the cat unleashes a fireball that takes out one of Poinpy’s hearts. It gets more complicated as you progress, the recipes growing from a single fruit to half a dozen of different kinds as you feed the cat and the ‘gourmet level’ rises, you only start off with two jump orbs, being able to jump twice before having to land to refill, but you can bounce off enemies and obstacles to recharge mid-combo, but you steadily unlock more jump orbs as you progress through the game, as well as being able to swap in a variety of abilities (like Hades boons) that help you build up bigger and bigger combos. It’s incredibly addictive so it’s no surprise that I became hooked, the goal is to make it all the way to gourmet level 20 but if you die, as with other rogue-likes, its right back to the start again so it’s all about maximising your time in the lower levels, building up a massive combo without losing any health in order to catapult Poinpy to the latter stages as quickly and painlessly as possible. It’s a bit more forgiving than Fumoto’s first game, with a friendlier and more colourful visual style, but it’s as mechanically deep as Downwell, offering up hours of challenging fun (and a less stressful puzzle mode to boot)  - I can’t recommend it highly enough, anyone with a phone and a Netflix subscription should definitely give it a go, it’s right up there amongst the best games of 2022.

The last game I played in November has a bit of a lengthy title - Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk and Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk, which I played on Switch. It’s actually two games in one, Milk inside… came out a few years ago and is only 20 mins or so in length while Milk outside… is more recent and a bit more fleshed out than its predecessor - essentially they are visual novels telling the story of a depressed girl’s trip to the shop to buy a bag of milk. Social interactions are a scary prospect, she lives an isolated life holed up in her bedroom and her overactive imagination (couple with the myriad of medication she takes for her mental health issues) warp and distort her perceptions of reality. There’s an awful lot about the games that I can relate to, I suffer with severe depression and anxiety and am quite introverted, with a tendency to overthink things, it almost feels like the kind of thing I could have made when I was a teenager or in my early 20’s (if I’d had more drive and programming knowledge), so despite the crude presentation (particularly of the first game) I found my hour or so with the game to be incredibly impactful. Besides relating to the main character’s thoughts and feelings I was also won over by the music, for such a short game there is a great deal of variety to the soundtrack, ranging from unsettling drones and noise to catchy, atmospheric ambient pieces - the developers were even kind enough to offer a juke box to check out the tracks in isolation. I’ll definitely try to keep an eye out for the developers next work, whether that be a direct follow up or something completely different, they seem to be on the same wavelength as me so chances are I’ll get a lot out of it.

As we approach the end of the year I noticed that I’ve played through quite a few 2022 releases so I thought I would spend December seeing if I could get through a few more before the GOTY discussions begin.

[nekunando]

I would say so far that I'm probably not enjoying is as much as Yoshi's Crafted World but then that game didn't really click completely for me until just recently!

I kind of expect a similar trajectory here but slightly worried at how my lack of skill with some of the abilities might prevent me from beating target times in later challenges 😳

[nekunando]

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Yesterday, I finished the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series on the PS5.

This collection features both the original and sequel, each of which have been given a lick of paint to the visuals. I don't have much experience with the franchise at all. I've only played a demo of the original game on the PSOne and dabbled a bit with the remake on the Wii. I was going into this collection relatively fresh.

Having now finished them both, I do think that the original game is the better of the two of them. It's quirky, simple and has a nice pace to it. The sequel suffers a lot from what a fair few platformers had during that era (PS2/Xbox/Cube) and that is they try to force a narrative into it. This means there are lots of cutscenes explaining a story that isn't worth explaining. There were very few platformers that were able to pull it off well during that generation, Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank being two that I can think off of the top of my head.

Another thing that the sequel does is make the levels longer. I don't think there was anything wrong with the length of the original game but here some of the levels drag on for a good 20-30 minutes. There's just no need for it, especially when the platforming itself is pretty simple. There was one instance where a level is revisited and you just play through it backwards. It was clearly put in just to pad the game out a little. 

Decent collection of games but they are clearly products of their time, despite the upgraded visuals. I still think they are worth playing, especially if you enjoy a colourful platforming game, but just be aware that the second game can be a bit of a slog.

[drahkon]

Was looking forward to your impressions on the collection  
I've never played the Klonoa games but i think I may have to. But i probably never will, because there are way too many games to play already...

Edited December 14, 2022 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

Got the platinum on Gotham Knights.

This is easily one of the biggest gaming surprises of the year and a very underrated game. When it was released a couple of months back it got very harsh reviews and many gamers kicked off about it only running at 30FPS. I'm quite baffled by the criticisms that the game got by gamers and reviewers alike. It ran flawlessly, had a great comic book story and the combat was fast and fluid. 

The game is open world but it's very small in comparison to what is in other games these days and for me that's a good thing. Getting around the place is so much fun and reminded me a little of Spider-Man on the PS4. I only played through the game as Nightwing (Dick Grayson) but I assume all the other characters move around Gotham City the same way. You have a grappling hook that you can attach to pretty much any building and that allows you to zip towards your target. Very early on you unlock a glider that lets you fly around the city and finally you have the Batcycle to use on the ground. You can summon this at any point with the press of a button and it handles perfectly. To be honest, I hardly used it due to how much fun and how fast it is to zip across the rooftops or glide through the sky.

The story involves trying to solve Batman's last case. With him gone, it's left to Nightwing, Red Hood, Batgirl and Robin to figure it out. There are plenty of fan favourite Batman villains that make an appearance. Harley Quinn, Penguin, Clayface and Mr Freeze all have a role to play, as well as a few others that I won't mention. It's not going to win any a narrative awards but it was a fun story that you can expect from a comic book game. 

The game has the option to be played with 3 other people but I only played it on my own. This didn't hamper my enjoyment in the slightest. Some games like this are built around the multiplayer experience and when played in single player it can feel very unbalanced. That wasn't the case here, with enemies and missions offering the right amount of challenge. If you were to struggle on a mission you could just go farm better gear or level up a bit more. This is something I never had to do because both the levels and gear upgrades all came naturally as I played through the story.

The only criticism I have is that the street crimes can get repetitive. It's optional whether you do them or not but for the platinum you needed to complete 250 of them. After doing so many of them they do start to repeat, with them being in the exact same part of the map and being the exact same crime. Spider-Man had a similar thing and those were also quite tedious. 

Yeah, I think this game got done dirty by a lot of people and I'm very happy to have picked it up and gave it a chance. 

 

[Glen-i]

On 06/12/2022 at 7:06 PM, Glen-i said:

OK, you two have sold me on it. Gonna wish list it and next time it goes on sale, I'll bite.

Welp! Better put my money where my mouth is, huh?

[Glen-i]

I really have been falling behind on my write ups here, huh?

Boy, this game. Where do I even begin? Well, I suppose the same way I normally do.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is an RPG developed by Monolith Soft which released for the Switch back in July. Much like the previous games in the series, it mixes MMORPG style combat with big massive places to explore, as well as plenty of UK regional accents.

The game begins with a young kid called Noah, who lives in Colony 9 from the first game. There's a festival going on, and everyone's having fun. That is, until time freezes for everything except Noah and he suddenly finds himself in the land of Aionios, where he seems to have aged about 10 years, and has no memory of ever being in Colony 9.
In Aionios, everyone is born at about the age of six, and only lives for 10 years. That already sucks, but it gets worse, those 10 years are purely spent in a big massive war. Noah finds himself fighting for the army of Kevus, alongside his fellow soldiers, Lanz, and Eunie. During yet another skirmish, they encounter Mio, Sena, and Taion, soldiers from the opposing Agnus army. Stuff happens which forces these six characters to reluctantly journey across all of Aionios together in order to find out what the bloody hell is actually going on.

I won't go into much detail, but this plot, it goes places, and it is one hell of a ride! Probably one of the most engaging RPG plots I've experienced. The cutscene direction is spectacular and the voice acting is spot on. It's hard for me to find fault with it, and I won't go into spoilers, so I'll just move on after I show you this.

Eunie reminds me a lot of Syrenne from The Last Story, that sort of foul mouthed, no nonsense, woman always makes me smile. Easily my favourite character in the game.

If you've played any of the Xenoblade games, you'll know what to expect. Big massive areas to explore broken up by fighting all sorts of things. It sounds like an open world game, which would make it the worst thing ever for me, but it's not open world, it's surprisingly linear, which makes infinitely better then every open world game you've ever played. Something about the three Xenoblade games (X is open world, and therefore doesn't count) really nails the balance between exploration and linearity, if I ever got bored of exploring, I always had the option of carrying on with the main plot. Not that I ever did, thanks to the excellent side quests.

Xenoblade is kind of notorious for having bundles of side quests, most of which aren't very interesting, just stuff to do while you run around big massive fields. Xenoblade 3 bucks that trend with the "Hero Quests". Fully voiced scenarios that focus on various NPC's you encounter with their own problems for you to help out with. Finishing them is well worth it, because you effectively recruit the "Hero" to occupy the seventh slot in your party. Not only that, but you also get that Hero's class to use on the main six.

Yes, because if there's one thing I never knew I wanted in Xenoblade, it was Bravely Default job shenanigans! Classes are catagorised as either Attacker (Focusing on dealing big damage), Defender (Draws enemy attention, and tanks hits), or Healer (I don't have to explain that one, do I?) and have a plethora of abilities for you to mess around with. Winning fights levels your classes up, which unlock "Master Arts", allowing you to put certain abilities from one class on to other classes. Man, I love me some mix and matching in RPG's, especially when you can come up with some completely broken setups. Suffice to say, by the time I finished, I may not have actually had any Defenders on my team.

That would be one thing, but the game keeps developing its mechanics as you progress, and hell, it throws in loads of new ones as well. I'd be here all day if I explained them all. But it can be a bit overwhelming to newcomers, having to juggle all this stuff in your head.

The visuals aren't gonna be the best the Switch has to offer, but they are a hell of a lot better then Xenoblade 2's. The resolution isn't completely terrible, even in handheld mode. I don't know what Monolith did different here, but it helped. So kudos all around there.
The music, on the other hand, is astonishingly good! The fact this game didn't win the "Best Soundtrack" in this year's Game Awards should be proof enough that the Game Awards is a sham. Flutes play a big part here, and the game just keeps belting out bangers throughout! Then again, Xenoblade has always had great soundtracks, so it shouldn't be that surprising.

I can't believe it's not open-world tripe!

It's mad to think that in just 4 entries, Xenoblade has gone from a game that needed a petition to get released in America, to the staple RPG franchise in Nintendo's vault of IP's. OK, Shulk getting into Smash Bros definitely helped, but you know it's made it when people complain that it got a second character. I love this series, and long may it continue! Espeically with the heavy British accents that some Americans can't understand!

Spoiler

I am Setsuna
Metroid Dread, minus the Dread
Banjo-Kazooie (One hundred and Tooie %)
Banjo-Kazooie (100%, but faster)
Final Fantasy XIII-2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
EarthBound Beginnings
EarthBound
Hades
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Ys Origin
Triangle Strategy (All Endings)
Grandia HD
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
NEO: The World Ends With You (100%)
Death's Door (100%)
Pokémon Shining Pearl (100%)
Donkey Kong Country 2
Super Mario World
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
Live A Live
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (Credits seen)
Xenoblade Chronicles 3

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Glen-i

[Glen-i]

Just popping in here to declare that I've seen the credits roll in Cuphead last night. Will save a proper post about it for when I get through the DLC.
But I do want to thank @Dufniall and @Hero-of-Time for convincing me to take the plunge. It's a truly wonderful game, and I didn't resort to Ms. Chalice in the base game in the end (Although if I go chasing Expert mode, I probably will, need all the help I can get there).
It also easily stands among the likes of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap and PMD: Rescue Team DX as one of the most beautiful looking games on Switch.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Glen-i

[Cube]

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Unfortunately, this game is a bit of a mess. The quality of the main campaign is all over the place, with some levels being extremely short, important moments skimmed over and some odd focus on stuff that barely matters (or even happens off screen). 

The space part of the battle of Endor is completely missing. The game makes fun of the “It’s a trap” line yet misses the actual moment it happened. Then you have a mission where Jar Jar looks for the Gungans after returning to Naboo. The worst part about this mission is that you just walk around empty corridors and then return. 

This is one of the many moments that take place in the “open world” component of the game. However, as you can’t access all parts until you unlock free play and can use abilities you can’t access during the story, so it’s better to just move on. This means long sections just walking around these open hubs. It really breaks up the gameplay and it feels like you spend more time slowly walking places rather than doing anything.

Ultimately, this makes the main story feel like a disjointed mess. The puzzles are quite rare and the gameplay itself just feels slow and plodding.

The freeplay section of the game, however, is filled with stuff. There are a lot of planets, each with at least one open world level of objects to collect. There are a ton of easter eggs, missions to complete and puzzles to solve. Unfortunately, this is hampered by how the stuff you unlock doesn’t unlock characters or ships, but instead just unlocks the ability to buy them with studs (the in-game currency). Having to grind to unlock the stuff you’ve earned sours the experience, especially with so much stuff.

If the gameplay was fun, this section would be great, but ultimately, it’s a very boring experience and didn’t hold my attention for long once I’d beaten the main story.

I also think that the game could have used a lot more LEGO in its world design.
 

High On Life

A first person shooter with a ton of crude humour and some genuinely funny moments. The gameplay is a ton of fun. While there aren’t many weapons in the game (each one is also a character with a ton of dialogue), it makes up for it with multiple abilities and uses for each one. On top of this, your movement abilities improve so much as you unlock some fun abilities throughout the game.

Some of the humour is extremely dark, with you killing innocents and the like. However, these moments are pretty much done by the player - most of the time there’s not even a reward for your actions, so it works better than expected. There’s no grand moral, just a “what did we just do?”

The length is quite short, but that’s a bonus for a game like this as it doesn’t outstay its welcome. I really enjoyed this
 

Banjo-Kazooie

My yearly playthrough of this. I love this game so much.

[Hero-of-Time]

Finished a couple more of my PS5 purchases.

Not much to say about Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. I played and enjoyed them both back on the PS4 and that remains the same here. I think the Lost Legacy is the better game of the two, with it having better pacing and just being more fun in general. Uncharted 4 seemed to have lost some of the goofiness that the original trilogy had but I suppose that's what happens when Druckmann is involved.

Sonic Frontiers...what a messy, boring game this was. There was no need to make this open world at all other than to appeal to the modern day market. It's a very bland affair running around the empty world and some of the traversal is just a pain in the backside. There were times when I was exploring and I would hit a speed booster or ramp and end up getting caught up in a 2D section that I was unable to get out of until I reached the end. Also, the lack of fast travel until you've completed all of the challenges is just stupid. Once you find a landmark or stage then you should be able to zip there straight away. Instead, you have to find and complete 25 challenges and only then can you fast travel to a handful of places.

As for those challenges, man are they rough. A lot of them are just not worth doing at all. There's one where you have to catch a ball of light (takes 2 seconds), another that has you skip on the spot for 10 seconds and another that has you move Sonic left and right for a small set period of time. Absolutely pointless. These were clearly supposed to be the shrine challenges from BOTW but where they were unique and could be solved in numerous ways, whereas the ones in Sonic are easy, boring and VERY repetitive. 

The game likes to throw a few mini games at you now and then. Again, these are a waste of time and feel completely shoe horned in. There's one that plays like a vertical shooter in the same way as Ikaruga, while another has you play a pinball game. You have to achieve a high score in order to progress the main game but the problem is there is a a lot of luck involved because it's pinball you don't have complete control over where the ball actually goes. I was stuck here for a while due to the ball constantly falling down one of the side gutters and I couldn't do a thing about it.

The game has other issues as well which I won't go into. Yeah, I didn't care for this one at all. Awful game and I much preferred games such as Sonic Forces, Sonic Colours and Sonic Generations.

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Hero-of-Time

[drahkon]

Pinball Heroes

Quick and easy Platinum.
The game is okay. Has 8 pinball tables based on PS3 games. Quite a nostalgia trip to be honest  
Other than that, it's nothing worthwhile.

[Hero-of-Time]

5 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Pinball Heroes

Quick and easy Platinum.
The game is okay. Has 8 pinball tables based on PS3 games. Quite a nostalgia trip to be honest  
Other than that, it's nothing worthwhile.

Some of the tables are really weird. On the Wipeout one you can rack up your score instantly but the Mod Nation Racers and Fat Princess tables took me a while before I hit the high score.

 

[drahkon]

5 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Some of the tables are really weird. On the Wipeout one you can rack up your score instantly but the Mod Nation Racers and Fat Princess tables took me a while before I hit the high score.

Yeah, that confused me.  
Thankfully the ball bonuses helped a bit. 

Did you have some slight issues with the "Take the Plunge" trophy? Getting it done was a bit iffy for me. The ball kept wiggling around and a lot of times the plunge wasn't good enough  

Edited December 21, 2022 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

Just now, drahkon said:

Did you have some slight issues with the "Take the Plunge" trophy? Getting it done was a bit iffy for me. The ball kept wiggling around and a lot of times the plunge wasn't good enough  

Yeah, it was a bit weird. Some people had better luck using the triggers but I found it easier to just pill back on the stick.

I'm playing through the PS4 version now. Figured I may as well nab another platinum.

[drahkon]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm playing through the PS4 version now. Figured I may as well nab another platinum. 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

5 minutes ago, drahkon said:

 

 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Finished a few more games today.

Knocked out Pinball Heroes, Avenging Spirit and Gris (PS5 version)

Pinball Heroes was fun. Avenging Spirit was stupidly short and very disappointing. Gris was amazing as ever.

It was nice playing through Pinball Heroes, mainly because it really reminded me of the PS3 era of Sony franchises. I had a chuckle at Fat Princess. I doubt they would be able to make a game today that was named in such a way. Some of the tables in the game were a bit of a pain though. A few of them took an age to rack up the high score and there didn't seem a good way to get points quickly on these tables. Then you had the Wipeout table which was the other end of the spectrum and you could get the score within a minute or so. The Uncharted table was my fav and the Motorstorm table was probably the worst. It was the first PSP game to have trophies. Given how shoddy the support is for PS+ Premium, it will probably be the last.  

Avenging Spirit was a game I had on my wishlist since it got released and it went on sale today. It's a game I always wanted to give a go on the Gameboy but never got around to it and with this version being based on the arcade, I figured I would give it a go for a few quid. I wasn't prepared for how short the game was. It's only 6 levels long and these are pretty short stages. The concept of the game is quite fun though. You play as a spirit and you posses enemies in each of the levels. When the body you inhabit gets defeated, you have a certain amount of time/health to get another one. It's pretty cool and you have to adapt to each of the enemies that are available to you. It's as if Contra was crossed with Poltergeist.  I'm still kinda tempted to pick up the GB version on the 3DS just to see how it compares.

Nothing much more to say about Gris that I haven't said before. It's another game that got a free PS5 update with a new set of trophies and so I played through it again. Beautiful game that was a fantastic soundtrack. Well worth another play through.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Hero-of-Time

[Hero-of-Time]

Completed Ghostwire: Tokyo.

No platinum on this one. There are nearly 600 collectables to find in the open world map and honestly I just can't be bothered to look for them. Ridiculous amount. The main story is about 10 hours long but it takes another 20-30 hours just to collect everything. Plus, the game is pretty average to begin with. It starts off pretty decent and the fast paced and smooth combat is quite fun but after a few hours things start to get VERY repetitive. The developers clearly had an idea and narrative but failed to wrap it all up in a game. There's about 4-5 hours worth of decent gameplay and then it all kinda falls apart. I think that's why they put so many collectibles in the game, just so the player had something to do. Really they should have focused on making a more linear experience but instead, like many other developers today, decided to make it open world and fill it up with busy work.

I'm feeling burnt out playing on the PS4/5 and trophy hunting, hence me shelving Ghostwire. I may switch back to the Switch and play something a little more colourful and no trophies to hunt. I need to detox.  . I still have the Mario & Rabbids sequel to play and have yet to delve into Triangle Strategy. I also picked up Skyward Sword the other day as Tesco were selling it for £25. Finally, I fancy playing my final route (Black Eagle) on Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Decisions, decisions...

[drahkon]

13 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm feeling burnt out playing on the PS4/5 and trophy hunting

While playing Death Stranding and Hades I've also been dabbling with Faeria.

What is Faeria, you ask? Well take a wild fucking guess...
It's a deck-building game  More specifically a digital collectible card game. You play 1v1 (or 2v1 in certain co-op modes, but I haven't played those, yet) against a human player or an AI. You play your cards on a board and eventually it'll look something like this:

I started with some of the single-player modes (e.g. "Mission Packs" that have you take on AI or complete puzzles where you have to win within one turn; kinda like chess puzzles) and eventually I played some online games. There's a trophy to reach rank 15 (you start at 25) in ranked mode and I always hate those  Wasn't too bad, though, as I created a pretty strong deck wish let me rush my opponents to death. Didn't win every single match, but I reached the required rank pretty quickly.

I completed all the puzzles, lots of mission packs and got the online trophies so for now I consider this game "finished" (for my stat purposes) but will continue to play it for a while. Maybe even get the Platinum, but that will take quite some time, I guess.

Fun game and I'm glad I finally dished out the 5€ when it was on sale recently  

[Glen-i]

A couple of games I finished way back, but spaced on writing about here.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes released on the Nintendo Switch in June. Developed by Koei Tecmo, it's a sequel to, well, Fire Emblem Warriors. Unlike the first game, however, this one focuses on one specific Fire Emblem game, Three Houses. It's a hack and slash game that mixes the standard Warriors gameplay with elements from Fire Emblem to provide a more tactical experience.

The game focuses on Shez, some random mercenary with a stupid name whose group ends up getting in a fight with another mercenary, the Three Houses protagonist, Byleth.
It doesn't go well, and Shez only survives because of a mysterious person called Arval granting him super powers. Shez vows to get stronger so they can give Byleth a much deserved punch in the face. While doing this, they stumble upon Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, three royals of nearby nations who currently study at Garreg Mach Monastery. Shez helps them to fight off a conveniently timed bandit attack, which leads to them being offered a scholarship at the monastery. They're given the choice of which house they wish to join, which may or may not determine their future path.

Three Hopes can be best described as an alternate universe story to Three Houses. The key difference being that Shez is the one who meets up with the three royals of who the story revolves around instead of Byleth. This, naturally, means that some things play out a little differently then you'd expect. Spefically, you, because I never played Three Houses, and I don't plan on doing so anytime soon.

It's not that bad, Bernadetta, geez!

The game makes no apologies for newcomers, if you don't know what happens in Three Houses, you're going to find yourself getting quite lost at times. But I didn't really mind, because I'm not playing this for the plot.

The object of the game is to tackle all sorts of war scenarios where your army is always woefully ill equipped for what the enemies throw at you, but you'll be fine, you have up to 8 harbingers of death and destruction to control and command. A teenage girl can easily steamroll through a thousand soldiers, and that's completely normal. It sounds like it's just a button mashing fest, and you'd be sorta right. But like with most Warriors games, it's not how good you are at button mashing, it's where you button mash, and how efficiently you can do it. Your selected characters may be able to crater the surrounding area, but they can't be everywhere at once, and you need to use tactics and good positioning to ensure you can quickly react to any developments the battlefield may throw at you.

Much like the first game, a few staples of the Fire Emblem series show up here, such as the option to have permadeath, support conversations, and the weapon triangle (Funnily enough, that last one isn't actually in Three Houses). Instead of having movesets tied to a character, this game takes cues from Three Houses, and allows any character to be pretty much any class. The moveset they have is determined by the class they are, allowing for a lot of customisation. Each character does have their own specific quirks and abilities to help stop them from blending into each other too much. And some more important characters like Shez have their own class that only they can use.

With the structure of the game and well over 30 characters, there's no way you can make every single one unique, but there's a healthy amount of classes to choose from and is a vast improvement from the first FE Warriors in that regard. The choice of three story paths also helps keep me going. Each path has it's own distinct missions, which means I ended up playing through it 6 times! I'd play it more, but I'm sure DLC will happen down the line.

Shez, you hypocrite! You literally want to kill Byleth!

The game unfortuantely, doesn't have the option to lower the resolution to improve the framerate, like the first game did. It runs smoother then Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, at least. Music is great too, hard rock versions of various Three Houses songs abound.

A definite improvement on the first game all around, I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Also Constance is hilarious.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: HD Remaster is a HD remaster of the PS2 game, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. Where would you be without my insight, huh? It's a Turn Based Monster Collecting RPG, and the third in the long running, but nowhere near as popular as it's spin-off, Shin Megami Tensei series. The original game was a Japan exclusive, with a "Director's Cut" version making it's way to Europe in 2005, that one was titled "Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call". The HD remaster was released on PS4, Switch, and Steam in 2021.

BTW, this is the game that had this hilarious brand plastered on it.

Hey, at the time, RPG's still had very little confidence in the west. If you weren't Pokémon or Final Fantasy, you needed all the help you could get. It's still funny though.

You play as some random student in Tokyo. He and his two friends go into an abandoned hospital. And then the world ends. That sounds like a massive spoiler, but it really isn't. It's kind of a running theme with the series. The apocalypse consists of all sorts of demons overrunning the place and trying to convince any remaining humans to recreate the world in accordance with their "Reason". Basically, their set of ideals. Two of your friends, and two other people caught up in these events are the possibile candidates for recreating the world. Not you, though. You don't count, because some jerk forced a weird bug down your throat, and now you're half demon. Which disqualifies you from being the person who gets to recreate the world. But hey, nothing's stopping you from nudging stuff along for the person you agree with the most, so get out there and be a manipulative bugger!

Much like every SMT game, the choices you make throughout the game determine the ultimate fate of the world. Dialogue options absolutely matter, even if it's not apparent at first, and with this game, there's no perfect solution. Every option has downsides to it, and it's an interesting dive into what constitutes a just and fair world. 6 different endings are available, but I only went for whichever one I ended up with first.

Spoiler

I kinda thought everyone's reasonings sucked, and ended up siding with no-one. With all the candidates being dead, and the half-demon thing being irreversible, there's no-one left to recreate the world.

Oopsies?

Shin Megami Tensei III plays out like your standard RPG, except with the twist that the majority of your party is made up of demons you recruit along the way. You recruit them with negotiations and bribery. They'll badger you for cash and items, ask you philosophical questions, that kind of stuff. Demons quickly become outclassed as you progress, so you're constantly recruiting new ones, and fusing them together to make stronger ones. And you really need to make sure that your party is well built. Because it won't be long before you hit an absolutely ridiculous spike in difficulty.

This game doesn't eff around. It's proper hard! There's always a chance that an enemy can blindside you and make you face the dreaded notion of reloading a save. You just have to suck it up and prepare better next time. The HD Remaster does have some quality of life tweaks, but it's not quite enough to get me to want to play it twice, despite the multiple endings. I first tried the series with the 3DS entries, and let me tell you, the game not keeping track of enemy weaknesses sucks, it sucks hard. It's not like Pokémon, where there's a universal type chart. It's not obvious what's weak to what, and hitting an enemy with the wrong thing can really ruin you. I can't be bothered keeping track of that.

And that's the main issue with this game. It's a solid PS2 RPG, arguably one of the best, but unlike Dragon Quest VIII, it's a lot more antiquated compared to more modern SMT games. It's quite startling how much SMT IV improved on it. It was fun, but I can't see myself going back to it any time soon.

Spoiler

I am Setsuna
Metroid Dread, minus the Dread
Banjo-Kazooie (One hundred and Tooie %)
Banjo-Kazooie (100%, but faster)
Final Fantasy XIII-2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
EarthBound Beginnings
EarthBound
Hades
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Ys Origin
Triangle Strategy (All Endings)
Grandia HD
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
NEO: The World Ends With You (100%)
Death's Door (100%)
Pokémon Shining Pearl (100%)
Donkey Kong Country 2
Super Mario World
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
Live A Live
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (Credits seen)
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Cuphead (Credits Seen)
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (All endings)
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: HD Remaster

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

On 23/12/2022 at 8:55 AM, drahkon said:

Fine....

Happy now?  

Man, that Ghostwire: Tokyo platinum was a grind. Donkey Kong 64 has got nothing on this in terms of collectibles. I had to find...

• 52 Jizo Statues
• 20 KK’s Investigation Notes
• 31 Landmarks
• 50 Food and Drink Items
• 40 Magatama
• 25 Missing Tanuki
• 31 Music Tracks
• 50 Outfits
• 33 Prayer Beads
• 123 Relics
• 42 Side Missions
• 29 Torii Gates
• 23 Visitors 
• 17 Voice Logs

You then have to find 240,000 spirits that are scattered around the map. The average amount you get from each spirit you find is around 150. Yeah, you do the math. I'm quite surprised the platinum is that percentage level. Comforting to know that there are plenty of others out there who are as crazy as me.  

The other game I played was A Short Hike. It's exactly what I needed after playing Ghostwire. I loved it back when it was first released on the Switch and have just been waiting for it to go on sale on the PS4. Such and delightful and cozy game.

[drahkon]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Happy now?  

Yes.  

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

have just been waiting for it to go on sale on the PS4.

Oh, its on sale? 
This might be my final gaming purchase of the year.

 

[WackerJr]

Thomas Was Alone (Switch)

So I'm around 10 years too late, but I finally got around to playing Thomas Was Alone following its Switch release (despite being available on virtually every platform available in the last decade!).

I can see why this won a BAFTA, as somehow the writing and Danny Wallace's narration give personality to a bunch of quadrilaterals!

A 2D puzzle-platformer, where each 4-sided shape has distinct controls (e.g., one may jump high, one is small, one floats in water, etc.) and you have to utilise their skills to reach the goal in each of the 100 mostly well-designed courses.

Each level is short, and the whole game only took a few hours as it's more about solving how to get each shape to the exit as opposed to challenging platforming (well, except for the DLC).  I played this with my wife and we both enjoyed this and its charming writing.   

 

Spoiler