Your Gaming Diary 2023

[WackerJr]

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX (PS5)

The initial bars of the intro music brought a smile to my face, as I owned a Sega Master System and spent many hours playing the original Alex Kidd in Miracle World.  Being built into the console, the music would start up if there wasn’t a game inserted, and over the years I used to be surprised to hear it as the console all-too-regularly failed to recognise the game I was trying to play, and so reverted to starting Alex Kidd up instead!

Sadly, this remake was a huge disappointment for me.  Poor controls and very questionable collision detection made it a frustrating experience.  The developers kept this aspect faithful to the original, and while 30 years ago it was acceptable, it’s just puts a dampener on the whole thing.

The development team did update the graphics now, and the colours are much more vibrant and have heaps more character than the original sprites.  The only downside to this is that I occasionally lost enemies, who became fairly camouflaged in the new backgrounds. 

There are a few short extra levels, to help make it a more “deluxe” version, and while keeping with the tone, are largely insignificant.  Most levels have new music too, although it feels very generic and a little bland compared to the original.

The only other extras are some collectables hidden throughout the game (which are for achievements only), a slight change to some of the later boss patterns to make them more challenging, and a ‘boss rush’ mode.  This would be ok, if it not for the fact there are only 4 bosses included, it takes one hit to die and, most importantly, each battle is preceded by a 40-second unskippable game of rock, paper, scissors!

I know the rock, paper, scissors was a key component of the original, but I didn’t understand the need for it then, and I still don’t see the need for it now!

Deluxe in name only, and for me a missed opportunity.  Not even my rose-tinted glasses could make me recommend this now.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by WackerJr
My phone was doing funny things to the formatting!

[Dcubed]

Righto! Time for an update!

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

 

Released at the very tail end of 2017, I honestly thought for sure that it'd end up getting delayed into 2018.  Surely there's no way that Monolith Soft could possibly crank out a full sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii and Xenoblade X on Wii U (See! I didn't forget about it!) in just a hair over 2 years!?

Well it turns out that they kind of didn't...

 

This game was buggy as fuck when it first released in 2017.  Tons of crash bugs and memory leak issues reared their ugly head.  While Monolith Soft managed to rush the game out just in time for Xmas, it came at a price.  And with a mountain of DLC & bug fixes on the way? It was then that I decided to skip playing it and to just wait for them to eventually finish the game and get it into a decent state down the line.

It's now 2023 and the game has received many, many updates, additional DLC content and fixes.  Surely it's now a much better game than it was back in 2017 right?  Well, yes and no.

Throughout my time playing the game, I had precisely one hard crash while playing and lost roughly 2 hours of progress because of this.  Now that's much better than the constant crashes that plagued the game upon release, but unfortunately that's just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the game's technical and design problems.  Ultimately, I feel that Monolith Soft simply bit off more than they could chew with this game.

Let's not sugar coat things.  This game is a bit of a technical disaster on Switch.  It runs very poorly and has fucking AWFUL image quality.  In handheld mode? It legitimately might well be one of the ugliest games I've ever played, it literally can look worse than some PS1 games; and that is NOT an exaggeration!   Here's a couple of screenshots I took while playing in handheld mode that represents just how bad it can get...

MY EYES!!! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!!!!

 

Honestly? I would not consider handheld mode to really be playable.  It's such a soupy mess that I literally can't tell what's going on during a fight.  It's hard enough to tell what's going on while playing on the TV, but when you're dealing with a HD game that is being squashed down to just barely above 3DS resolution? Yeah, it's basically unplayable.  Oh, and the framerate is donkey shit too to boot!

I'm not one to really rag on about technical performance this much usually, but this really is just unacceptable; especially as an important first party production.  And to think that this is after all of the billion and one updates that the game has had!? Fuck me! How bad was it back in 2017!? Monolith Soft simply had all the wrong priorities when making this game, it really does seem like they developed the game primarily for more powerful hardware than the Switch and then tried to squash it down to make it work.  Sure, it technically runs on the machine, but when it's basically unplayable in handheld mode, you've kind of defeated the point of even making a Switch exclusive in the first place.

So how's the game itself? Well... it's very much a mixed bag... but ultimately it's a gigantic step down from the original Wii game in every single way.

Let's start with the good.  The battle system is actually quite fun... eventually.  Building on the combat system from the first Xenoblade, it's focused around a new elemental combo system whereby chain attacks can be generated by continuing down a predetermined chain of elements.  Use the right attacks in the right order and you can unleash powerful combo moves; a bit like Chrono Cross actually.  You also have the same set of Break/Topple combo attacks as in Xenoblade 1, now augmented with the new Launch command (which comes with a hilarious animation of your launched foe spinning around like crazy that always makes me laugh).  Unfortunately, it takes a really long time for the game to actually allow you to really take advantage of the combo system as it simply doesn't give you the tools you need to unleash the combos on offer until a good way into the game.  Speaking of which... another problem lies in just how much of an utter slog the first half of the game ends up being because everything is a massive damage sponge.  Until you finally get the ability to cancel arts into arts (which happens about 20 hours in or so), everything takes a fucking eternity to kill, and levelling up takes bloody forever.  A further problem is that the battle system ultimately ends up being a very restrictive one trick pony by the end.  Once you gain that ability to cancel arts into arts, there's very little further development with the battle system (save for one cool thing that is a spoiler), and every battle basically devolves into a race to activate your elemental chain attack over and over again.  It's all very one note and rote by the end, with little room for real experimentation or player expression, and it does become quite dull.

The level design is also a big step down from the original Xenoblade, though to be fair, that's a real fucking high bar to achieve; so I can't complain too much about this.  It's still a big step up over most other 3D RPGs (especially HD ones), but the landmarking and setpieces fall way short of the Wii game, as environments become disorientating and confusing to navigate without a guide.  Now here is where I talk about a system that sounds great on paper, but falls well short of its potential in practice... the Field Skills.

Oh how this broke me...

 

I love Golden Sun.  One of the very best things about Golden Sun was how your psynergy skills could be used not just in battles, but also in the overworld to solve puzzles, remove obstacles and traverse the world around you.  So when I heard about the idea of Field Skills in Xenoblade 2? I was really excited! Using your characters' unique skills to get around the world and destroy obstacles!? That sounds like Golden Sun!!! Oh boy!!!

And then it ended up being tied to the absolute worst thing in the world... The Gacha Machine...

0.1% chance baby!

 

This mechanic has no place in a full-priced retail game.  There is no reasonable justification for its inclusion.  It absolutely ruins all exploration in this game because progression is tied to your ability to get lucky enough with the gacha to pull the right Blade that has the field skill that you need to progress.  And unfortunately? These field skills are mandatory to progress.  It's absolute shite, I hate it.  I hate everything about this system.  It makes me honestly question if Xenoblade 2 was originally planned to be a F2P mobile game before it was moved to Switch after it ended up being a surprise success; it would honestly explain a lot about the design choices behind this game if that were the case.  You know what makes things even better? The paid DLC comes along with free spins of the gacha, it's literally taken straight out of the evil F2P mobile handbook.  And at that point? I gave up.  I literally asked @Glen-i to grind for me, because I couldn't take any more of this game's stupid shit.

Speaking of stupid shit, the amount of utterly superfluous mechanics in this game is just mindboggling.  There is so much utterly unneccessary shit in this game that serves no purpose but to waste your fucking time that it's absurd.  All the crafting crap, per-character AND BLADE skill trees (oh, and you have to manually trigger them in the menu; can't be having them passively activate now!), Meowster Hunter ripoffs, useless sidequests that don't passively complete as you play the game (nah, that was just too good an idea in Xenoblade 1 to carry on with), every single fucking thing involving Poppi (including a minigame that should be fun, but is turned into a PTSD nightmare through sheer grindy repetition).  It's all busywork timewasting crap and bloat that doesn't serve the main gameplay whatsoever.  ALL of this should've been exorcised from the game, it would've been far better off without it.  Oh, and just to make my life even more miserable? The map is completely and utterly useless, with completely misleading topography, icons that don't represent anything, landmarks not visible, a Fast Travel system where everything is nested in endless menus (making your desired location a nightmare to find), elevation not being accurately or clearly defined...  How on Alrest they managed to fuck up the map when they had it perfect with Xenoblade 1 is absoutely beyond me! When you have such large scale maps as well? The poor quality mapping system makes the world an utter chore to navigate!  Thank you so much @Glen-i for helping me get past all of this crap.  Without you being there to grind this stupid crap for me and helping me to figure out where I was supposed to go? I honestly would've just dropped this game and watched a story recap on Youtube.

Oh... there's a story? Could've fooled me...

Cue the porno music!

This is Saturday Morning Xenoblade.  The entire game is basically like a series of cartoon episodes strung together, with none of the gravitas, philosophical exploration of morality or interesting character development that defined the original Xenoblade.  I'd even go so far as to say that it's outright insulting that this is the (kind of... spoilers though!) follow up to that game.  The story starts off stupid and goes downhill from there; and there is almost zero noteworthy character development, as each character gets reduced to a series of recycled anime tropes (Including Rex himself, who is a complete wet tissue of a character).  It's a mess of hodgepodge concepts, cartoon villains and anime tropes that belong moreso in a Tales of game than a Xeno title.  And fuck me is this game horny! I'm sure you're all aware of the online discourse surrounding this game, but it really is just as bad as its made out to be.  This is a game designed by dirty old men, for dirty old men.  It made me feel outright uncomfortable playing this game, and I love Bayonetta for Jubileus' sake!  Save for one single thing (spoilers for that below), the story, storytelling and character development is utter wank (pun most certainly intended)...

Spoiler

So it turns out that Xenoblade 2 doesn't take place in the same timeline as Xenoblade 1 after all... but rather it takes place at the exact same time in an alternate dimension.  And in a similar fashion as in the ending to Eternal Darkness, this simultaneous destruction of Gods in both games triggers the events of Xenoblade 3.  Pretty neat, considering that I had always thought that both games took place in the same timeline; and that Xenoblade 3 was going to be some sort of merging of the worlds of Xenoblade 1 & 2 before I played this game (though it seems I was mostly right, it certainly wasn't in the manner that I had expected at least!).

The penultimate scene with Klaus (as the other half of Zanza from Xenoblade 1) was also really cool.  The moment that you hear the line from Xenoblade 1 where Shulk proclaims "Today, we use our power to fell a god, and then seize our destiny!" was really great.  The subtle ties into Xenoblade X (being in the same timeline as Xenoblade 2, rather than 1) were also pretty well done.  It almost feels like this final section of the game was ripped out of a better game than Xenoblade 2.

Xenoblade 2 is a mess.  Its story is a mess, the game design is a mess, and its technical performance & game engine is a mess.  That's what happens when you try and rush out a large scale HD RPG for a brand new console in just 2 years though.  But it really is shocking just how little confidence the game's own designers had in their own game.  The fact that they added difficulty sliders for every single facet of the gameplay in a DLC update really is the most damning condemnation of all though; because it shows that they gave up on trying to craft an ideal experience for the player, in favour of asking the player to design the game for them.  It's such a shame to see, because for all of my misgivings with this game, it actually is a real miracle of a production.  It's a full-scale HD sequel to one of the most ambitious and critically lauded RPGs ever made, and it was done at a breakneck pace in just two years; while Monolith Soft were also helping Nintendo EAD to make Breath of the Wild.  I admire the ambition on display, and the result is still better than almost every other HD RPG out there not published by Nintendo.  But when even the game's own director acknowledges that Xenoblade 2 falls well short of the original game? You know that it can't be anything other than a massive disappointment... Still, Xenoblade 2 does have a lovely soundtrack, and it did give us this utterly wonderful little gem; so it's not all bad.

Let's hope that Xenoblade 3 finally does justice to the original Xenoblade when I eventually get round to it.

 

Goldeneye 007

 

The seminal FPS game on consoles... actually no it isn't, but it may as well be.  After almost 26 years, the impossible finally happened and the impossible license to release once again became the license to kill on both Xbox and Nintendo Switch!  I played it again via the NSO service and what a treat it was!

The impossible finally happened... The NSO border is finally gone!!

 

Goldeneye 007 receives some real tangible benefits from its Switch re-release.  The game is now rendered in full 720p (including full support for the game's original widescreen mode, newly added to the NSO emulator!), greatly improving the image quality and visibility of in-game objects & enemies over its original 240p N64 release, while the framerate sees a massive bump up from its original unstable 10-20FPS to a now solid 30FPS.  Coupled with an official N64 NSO controller? This means the Goldeneye now plays better than ever before, and the bump in performance really makes a difference in how nice it feels to play.  And it runs just as well in portable mode as on the telly.  What a welcome change from Xenoblade 2 eh?

Anyway, I won't dwell on the game itself too much because you all know this game inside and out by now anyway.  But suffice it to say? I love this game.  Not as much as Perfect Dark mind you, which improved on its predecessor in basically every single way (framerate aside! Man, I can't wait for that game to come to Switch!), but Goldeneye 007 is every bit as good today as it was 26 odd years ago.  The mission-based game structure is still utterly enthralling and sorely missing from modern brainless FPS games, the soundtrack is timeless (and makes the best use of a single repeated song ever!) and the gunplay is utterly superb.  There's a reason why it spawned one of the longest running speedrun communities of all time, and it's because it's a cracker of a game; impeccably designed from top to bottom (ok... maybe the landmarking in the Statue level could've been better) and rightfully one of the most influential and important games ever made.

 

The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog

See Glen-i's writeup here.  I played it together with him and I have nothing else to add that he hasn't already said.  It's a surprisingly solid little gem of a game!

 

Professor Layton And The Azran Legacy

 

Keep an eye on that puzzle count... it's gonna be important for later...

 

So I have a confession to make.  I have played through every single mainline Professor Layton game... except for the last one.  After playing 5 very similar Layton games back to back, I had just simply had enough.  I couldn't take another puzzle.  Much like with the original Mega Man series, the series had become pretty stale at this point.  Sure, the quality of the puzzles was still there, and the production values and stories were still fun, but there's only so much Layton a guy can take before they just need a break.

So I took that break.  And the break carried on... and on... and on...

It took almost 10 years, but following the announcement of Professor Layton and the New World of Steam? I finally felt ready to conclude the professor's story.

God I wish I hadn't...

Still one of the best comics they ever did

 

So things start out just fine.  I settle back into the saddle and I'm enjoying seeing our wonderful Perfect Gentleman and his dodgy companions back in action again.  The game starts out with impressive production values (God I forgot just how utterly gorgeous the visuals of the 3DS Layton games were!), a wonderfully baroque musical score and some perfectly fine puzzles.  There's even a rather clever one involving a birthday present sent inside of an ice cube (yeah, that's pretty typical for Professor Layton And His Garbage World) that I really enjoyed solving.  The story starts out innocuous enough, with the discovery of an archeological site housing a frozen girl and some sombre tones.  We have the makings of a trademark Layton mystery!

... except that it turns out that there is no mystery.  She really is a girl who was magically cryogenically frozen in ice, who has amnesia and magical powers involving Azran artefacts.  Ok.

So some nasty dudes called Targent are after her because they want her magic powers for themselves, and naturally you run away with her because... you want her magic powers for yourself... fair.

From here though, the story kind of... stops? You're tasked to run around the world and collect a bunch of plot souvenirs in order to unlock THE AZRAN LEGACY: THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN 2! And from this point onwards, the game turns into a level select where you go to different areas and run through little mini stories that may or may not involve a mystery? (Spoilers... Save for one of these little vignettes, there is no real mystery.  Sense a running theme yet?).  Structurally, this is actually quite a welcome change of pace, and I appreciate the change in approach.  After all, I previously lavished praise on Octopath Traveller for this very same thing! Unfortunately, the execution ends up being woefully lacking, because this is a series that is designed around presenting lavish and ridiculously convoluted mysteries; it's literally half of the series' appeal! (Even the original game's boxart agrees with me!).

Your reward for collecting these plot souvenirs? Well...

Spoiler

An insulting excuse for a glorified Lore Dump.

As it turns out, magic is real and everything is as it appears at face value.  There is no mystery this time, and this game's pathetic excuse for a "mystery" turns out to be a contrivance for lore dumping Hershel Layton's real name (Theodore Bronev).  Oh, Emmy also turns out to be a secret Targent agent and also Layton's cousin. Descole? Yeah, he's Hershel's brother; and he was originally supposed to have inherited the title of "Hershel Layton" but gave it up to his brother in order to give him a better life.  Oh and the big bad? Yeah, he's Hershel's (the fake one, not the real one) biological father.  Everyone is related to everyone because the Layton world is so fucking tiny and inconsequential!

Oh yeah.  Also the Rocky VII: Adrien's Revenge also turns out to be a magical doomsday weapon that was made to destroy the world because People Bad.  Everyone dies and is then brought back to life by magic.  Then our favourite English Gentleman says Fuck You to his dad and makes up with his brother and cousin... who then decide to bugger off and never be seen again for... reasons?

It's crap.  There's no bloody mystery to solve! The entire game is just an excuse to lore dump Layton's name and relationships!

It is deeply unsatisfying as a "conclusion" to Top Hat's story, and it lacks half of the entire appeal of the series.  So what about the other half then?  Oh boy...

Remember how I said that the game got off to a good start with its puzzles?  Take another look at the game's boxart above (go ahead, I'll wait).  Does its focus on quantity bother you? If it doesn't now? It will in a few minutes...

As I'm playing through the game, a sense of deja vu starts to kick in... Wait a minute... haven't I already done this puzzle before? Hmm...

Ok, this is the 3rd time I've done this bloody clown puzzle, I'm getting pretty sick of... wait, WHAT!? THERE'S A FOURTH VERSION!?

Oh my God... ANOTHER FUCKING SLIDING BLOCK PUZZLE!?

This... this is just Pentominoes! It's just another thinly veiled varient of fucking Pentominoes! No... this can't be right...

THE SAME FUCKING ARRANGEMENT PUZZLE AGAIN?! Am I... am I going insane!? SURELY previous Layton games didn't feature THIS many recycled puzzles!?

So I dug in.  I did the math.  As soon as I finished the game, I cross-checked the Professor Layton wiki for all 6 mainline titles to figure out how many puzzles were rearranged/recycled/duplicated across all 6 mainline games.  And the results will SHOCK you... 

Quote

For the record, I am considering sliding block puzzles and pentominoes/jigsaw based puzzles to all be duplicates, because they all essentially play out in more or less exactly the same way.  This list only counts puzzles that appear as part of the main story (so no downloadable puzzles or any of the unlockable Layton's Challenges puzzles are included).

Professor Layton and the Curious Village: 120 Puzzles Total, 23 Duplicates Total (14 Repeats + 9 sliding block puzzles)

Professor Layton and Pandora's Box: 138 Puzzles Total, 22 Duplicates Total (13 Repeats + 9 -1 Sliding Block puzzles; one sliding block puzzle is a repeat and already counted in the Repeats total)

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future: 153 Puzzles Total, 8 Duplicates Total (3 Repeats, 5 Sliding Block Puzzles)

Professor Layton and the Last Spectre: 155 Puzzles Total, 16 Duplicates Total (4 Repeats, 3 Sliding Block Puzzles,  9 Pentominoes Puzzles)

Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracles: 135 Puzzles Total, 24 Duplicates Total (18 Repeats, 2 Sliding Block Puzzles, 2 Pentominoes Puzzles, 2 Jigsaw Puzzles)

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy: 150 Puzzles Total, 73 Duplicates Total (50 Repeats!, 11 Sliding Block Puzzles, 18 Pentominoes Puzzles; of which 6 are repeats and already counted in the Repeat Puzzles total)

 

HOLY FUCKING SHIT! I knew I wasn't crazy! Literally 48.7% of ALL puzzles in this game are duplicates!! That is outrageous! I couldn't believe it! Azran Legacy alone has almost as many duplicate puzzles as the rest of the entire mainline series combined!

No fucking wonder the series was put on ice after this game!! The puzzle designers at Level 5 were clearly spent.  And this game even happened to enjoy the longest development cycle of any Layton game with 2 years of development under its belt! (Ok, granted, Level 5 were also making Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney at the same time... and also Layton Brothers for mobile phones... and also the international versions of both Last Spectre and Mask of Miracles... ok, maybe Level 5 had stretched themselves thin a bit after all...).

But ultimately, a Layton game where the puzzles are complete shite doesn't really hold much appeal anymore... When the entire point of the game is to present high quality brainteaser puzzles and you can't deliver on that? There really isn't much point.  This is the worst game in the mainline series by a country mile.  A massive disappointment that emphasises quantity over quality.  I can only hope that the 10 year hiatus and the injection of new blood in the form of Quizknock can result in Professor Layton and the New World of Steam being a far better game.  The Professor deserves better.

A game so ice cold that it put the series on ice

 

 

And with that?

Spoiler

Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Goldeneye 007
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Dcubed

[nekunando]

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

MY EYES!!! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!!!!

I just wanted to show my appreciation for this quote 😄

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[martinist]

Been working my way through the Yakuza games. Beaten 0, Kiwami 1 and Kiwami 2 so far. Working on 3 at the moment. Will only move onot the next once Amon is beaten in each game which requires me to use a guide to find all the substories but I'm having fun with it. Can be a little tedious though since some substories are gated behid some pretty substantial side content.

[Glen-i]

Octopath Traveler II is the sequel to best open-world game ever, Octopath Traveler. It's a turn-based RPG published by Square Enix and released back in Feburary this year.

I'm sure all of you know of it. The first game kicked off the string of HD-2D games that we've been seeing from Team Asano, the team behind Bravely Default. This sequel, much like the first game, embraces retro style turn-based combat while subverting some traditional RPG tropes by having 8 seperate stories following 8 different characters as they tackle their own personal problems.

You kick the game off by selecting one of these characters to act as your main hero, each one has a "job" which determines what their general role is in fights. I started with Temenos, the Cleric. Because you can't go wrong with a bit of healing, can you? Whoever you choose, you complete the first chapter of their story, and then the game sets you loose in the continent of Solistia to go almost anywhere you like. Whether that be running off to explore the world, or meeting up with the other 7 characters to help you out, or play through their story. Or you could do what I do, and steal everything I could from every NPC I found. It's not quite as open as the first game, as more areas are gated behind story progress, or neccessary party members, but eh, the open world was never the point.

One of the new features is a day and night system. At the press of a button, you can swap between the two. The time of the day has a variety of effects. Different NPC's appear, enemies show up more often at night, even the path actions (An ability each character has that let them interact with NPC's in various ways) each character has changes. By day, Temenos can guide NPC's around the world and have them assist him in battle, while by night, he can get information from them by whacking them really hard with his staff. Yeah, he's kind of the worst Cleric ever, and it's hilarious!

He runs around up in the rafters, for Christ's sake!

The first Octopath game had a medieval setting, but this one seems to be set on the cusp of an industrial revolution, but, you know, with more monsters and magic and stuff. The voice acting really elevates the plots here, but the first game had stellar voice work anyway, so I'm not too surprised. What did surprise me was the jump in quality of the sprite animations. Enemies have attack animations for their more brutal attacks, while your party members have far more elaborate movement themselves. The majority of abilities have special animations depending on which character is using them. It's a vast improvement.

A common complaint with the first game was that the party members didn't interact with each other much. Well, the sequel addresses this by having characters comment on stuff other characters do during battle, as well as special chapters that focus on 2 characters working together toward a common goal. You're not gonna see them interact in the main story cutscenes, but I'm fine with that, then again, I never had much of a problem with this in the first place.

Of course, the real star of the show is the combat. It revolves around the "Break-Boost system". Best post a picture to make it easier to follow.

Nothing special going on here, no sir!

Every enemy has various weaknesses to specific weapons and elements, and nailing these weaknesses lowers their shield points. Lower these shield points to 0, and the enemy becomes broken, making them miss all of the turns you can see at the top of the screen, as well as lowering their defenses, making it the prime opportunity to let rip with your strongest attacks or heal up or whatever you think is appropriate. To help really lay on the hurt, you have the boost system. At the start of every turn, each character gets a "Boost Point" (BP, represented by the orange circles next to a party member's name on the right), you can spend up to 3 BP at once to increase the effectiveness of your next action. This creates an immensely satisfying loop of exploiting weaknesses to break enemies and then whaling on them by spending BP for immense bursts of damage. Of course, that's only the most simple of applications. Some skills use BP to increase the amount of times you attack in 1 turn, making them good options for breaking quickly, or you can spend BP to apply longer lasting buffs. Or you can spend BP to kill yourself in embarrassing ways.

Bewildering Grace is always a source of laughs.

The "Break-Boost" system is only the center of the combat in this. There's a job system in this game. As you explore, you'll find licenses that allow characters to equip a "secondary job" This lets a character acquire the abilities of another job. So while Temenos will always have Cleric skills, as that's his Primary job, he can use a license to get the skills of a Warrior, or a Dancer, or a Merchant. Experimentation with job combinations is the name of the game here, and you're going need to find some proper good combinations, as this is not one of those RPG's where you can just cruise by without a thought for strategy.

Sure, you can somewhat get away with it during random encounters, but figuring out a good strategy will take you further then anything else. Grinding levels is helpful, but it isn't efficient. Keeping up to date with equipment and utitlising the skills of your party members as well as being efficient with turns is far more effective. And I just love that. I love finding new and powerful combinations that I think are way broken, only to find a boss that makes me rethink my approach. It's great when I beat a troublesome boss by changing up my strategy, which happened often, because a lot of them will introduce some kind of new mechanic to mess with you. It's not quite like Octopath 1, where pretty much every boss had a new gimmick to deal with, but the amount of times I looked on in despair as some new mechanic popped up to shake things up was impressive.

So yeah, I love this game. It's more Octopath Traveler, it's better Octopath Traveler. Various quality of life improvements and visual upgrades all serve to enhance the solid gamplay structure. It honestly might be the best game on Switch. It's that good. Even if getting 100% is somehow even more brutally impossible then the first game.

Got the Pimp Crown to prove it though!

Spoiler

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land

Oh right, I also finished Kirby's Dream Land again.

[martinist]

Forgot to post this when i did it back in April but Yakuza 3 is done. Pretty easy Amon fight too. Working through Yakuza 4 at the moment kind of almost done with Tanimura's story so I'm about half way through the game. Just have to do Kiryu and the finale then beat Amon and finish. The thing is there are four Amon fights in this game which kinda sucks. One Amon for each playable character. Guess what happens in five!. even more Amons!

Edited May 5, 2023 by martinist

[martinist]

Finished about 30 minutes ago. It's really nice how stuff from the previous games get referenced a lot. I seem to remember enjoying Yakuza 5 a lot more than the rest of them so i'm looking forward to playing through that. Mostly for the hunting and taxi stuff.

[Glen-i]

Metroid Prime Remastered is... well, the clue is in the name, isn't it? It's an adventure game played from a first person perspective made by Retro Studios. It was released back in March.

You don't need me to tell you that this is one of the critical darlings of the Gamecube Era. Loads of people speak highly of it.
Me? It's good, but I feel it's the weakest of the Metroid Prime games. I prefer 2 and 3.

For the sake of not repeating myself, because I have definitely talked about this game before, I'm gonna focus on the differences that this remastered version offers.

The game features more standardised controls that you'd expect from a first person game. Thankfully, the game also offers gyro aiming options, so that's me satisfied... Mostly.

You see, because the right stick handles where Samus is pointing her arm cannon, it's no longer used to change what beam you're using, instead you hold X, and then press the corresponding direction on the D-Pad. Visor switching is still done by just pressing the D-Pad. This just doesn't feel as fluid as how the Gamecube game handles it. It also doesn't feel nearly as fluid as how the Wii Trilogy handles it. (Holding - or +, then moving the pointer towards what you want to switch to)
It is an unavoidable situation here, but I never got used to it, it feels clunky. A weird thing that is omitted from the Trilogy that would've helped was the ability to tap the beam/visor button to revert back to the Power Beam. It wouldn't completely solve it, but it'd help.

The other thing that irks me is the brightness of the game. It's really dark. Like, really dark. Even in rooms that aren't meant to be hard to see in, I found it hard to see at times. Shooting your beam doesn't light up the environment in this version, so you can't do that to help things.

Other then that? It does look gorgeous. It's a really massive glow-up compared to the non HD versions. But I can't really see myself choosing to play this version in the future. The Trilogy version on WiiU will still be my preferred method of playing it. I mean, come on, Remastered doesn't even have the Fusion Suit.

Xenoblade Chronicles still holds the "Switch remaster" crown. That's a really great example.

Also, I played through Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap after @Dcubed booted up the Master System version, which is literally the worst thing you can do.

Spoiler

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Glen-i

[Glen-i]

Here I am, once again, getting my face kicked in by insomnia, and I can't add to the Kirby lore thread I made yet. 100%-ing Returns to Dream Land Deluxe is bloody hard!

But I have a game to write about here.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is a remake of classic PS1 turn based RPG, Final Fantasy VII. However, in Square Enix's continued quest to remove itself from the genre that made it famous, this is very much an action RPG game. It was first released on the PS4 in 2020. I played the Intergrade version on Steam, which has the DLC packed in and was released in 2021.

I'm sure you all remember that I'm on a mission to play every non-MMO mainline Final Fantasy game, and I bet some of you remember that Final Fantasy XIII-2 was the latest one I did.

Well, yeah. What happened to Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII? I gave up on it. It's managed to beat Final Fantasy XIII as the worst FF game! An action RPG so incredibly awful, I'd rather play a game about Lightning returning her copy of FF XIII to a branch of Tescos. So yeah, despite thinking FF7 Remake looked cool back when I first saw gameplay of it, I wasn't going into this one with high hopes.

The game follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary with impossibly spiky hair who has been hired by eco-terrorists, AVALANCHE, to help them on a bombing mission on one of the reactors owned by Shinra, a big time electric power company. Shinra are harvesting Mako, an energy source that AVALANCHE claims the depletion of which is destroying the planet.

This remake doesn't cover the entire story, it only goes up to the point where Cloud leaves the city of Midgar, which normally takes around 10 hours in the PS1 game.

Spoiler

Fair warning, spoilers not just for this game.

This is pretty common knowledge at this point, I guess. But this remake takes more then a few liberties with the source material, and I don't just mean stretching a 10 hour section over an entire game.

Throughout the game, there are these Dementor rip-off's called "Whispers" that seem to show up whenever the game starts to deviate too far from the original plot and force Cloud and friends back on track.

I'm assuming some people didn't appreciate this addition, which kinda makes the whole thing accurately meta if you see the Whispers as fans of FF7 who want the remake to stick rigidly to the plot.
I already was a little aware of this before hand, so I was somewhat prepared for retcons. Weirdly enough, there weren't that many, outside of Sephiroth showing up way too early, thanks to those Whispers.

Well, you know until the end of this game, when Sephiroth somehow opens up a time portal, allowing Cloud and pals to go back to the past, kill the Whispers, which inadvertently changes the ending of spin-off game Crisis Core, allowing Zack to live through his ordeal.

With no more Whispers, the next entry of this remake effectively has free reign to do whatever the hell it likes, and I'm all in on it. Aerith's totally going to not die, and there's nothing you can do about it.

The game handles batles nothing like the turn-based RPG it's based on. The action unfolds in real time, as you land hits or block enemy attacks, that character's ATB gauge fills up. You can spend said ATB to pull off various abilities. The other key feature is that enemies have a stagger bar. Different enemies have different methods of getting that stagger bar up, and if you pull it off, they get stunned and take increased damage for a bit.

The mad thing is, it's not terrible! I really liked how fighting is done here, even if the dodge maneuver is useless. The four characters you can play as (Red XIII isn't playable here) have different gimmicks to them, Tifa was the one I gelled with the most. Punching things is fun! The only thing I found annoying is that bosses have multiple phases, and the stagger bar resets between them, there were a lot of times when I stagger a boss, only for a cutscene to kick in and reset it.

I don't know? Try shooting it?

The soundtrack is insanely good in this game, granted it had a great base to work from, but boss fights in particular make great use of dynamic music. The game obviously looks gorgeous as well.

After Lightning Returns, I was pretty convinced that Square just can't make Final Fantasy work as an action game, but you know what? They might finally be getting the hang of it, and I have higher hopes for Final Fantasy XVI.

As for me? I only have FF XV to play. Much to my dismay though, that's an open-world game... I really don't want to torture myself with that. If only there was a way that I could play it without that open-world nonsense...

Huh... Well, isn't that convenient?

I also just recently got all 96 exits in Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World, purely so I could faff about with glitches.

Worth it.

Spoiler

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World

 

[Glen-i]

Me again, eh? Guess I'm the only one finishing games, huh? How's that ridiculously massive open world treating you lot?

Why is Raven (Bottom right) so white in this picture? That's iffy as hell, and it rubs me the wrong way.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is an expanded port of an action RPG that originally released for the XBox 360 in 2009. The definitive edition was released on various consoles in 2019.

The game follows Yuri Lowell, a former knight living his life in the slums of Zaphias. The water source there busts a pipe and leaks water everywhere, eventually sending Yuri, and his faithful canine companion, and best character in the game, Repede, on a journey to find the person who stole the part that keeps the water flowing properly. It's an RPG, so naturally, things soon escalate.

Boy, do I have some issues with this plot...

Spoiler

Ignoring the fact that the end conflict ends up being a glorified green aesop, a tired concept, even 13 years ago, this game suffers from a lot of typical JRPG tropes. It's a "Tales of" game, so I'm well aware of the series' trappings. It's notorious for that, but it actively works against the more positive aspects.

Take Raven, for instance, he's a sarcastic, yet funny guy in his mid 30's. He would've been my favourite character, if it wasn't for the fact that he's a massive pervert.
And then we have Patty, the pirate girl, cool idea, but why does she hit on Yuri? She's, like, half the age of him! It's so creepy.

The most egregious thing though is Yuri himself, he's great, but his plot arc goes absolutely nowhere, getting dropped in favour of the female lead, Estelle. A shame too, because it's legitmately the most unique thing this game does.

Partway through the game, one of the villains manages to evade capture by the Knights using his political influence, so Yuri decides to take matters in his own hands and deliver vigilante justice by killing him. A lot of the conflict focuses on Yuri and childhood friend, Flynn, disagreeing on this. It's a very interesting idea, but again, it goes nowhere eventually. Yuri never truly deals with the consequences of his actions, and he's just let off the hook. It's a wet fart, and a real shame.

I'm not kidding when I say the dog is the best character.

Tales of Vesperia plays like a typical RPG, except that the battles take place in real time, with a control scheme somewhat similar to a fighting game. Different characters have different strengths and weaknesses, although you'll likely just play as Yuri, because he's far and away better then mostly everyone else. Considering that this game supports multiplayer, I can imagine all sorts of arguments over who gets lumped with Estelle, but that's part of the fun.

The gameplay is solid, it's fun figuring out the best way to string together different attacks into combos as you progress, and the game has a cool system where you can gain different passive benefits from weapons you find. Yeah, it's ripping off that system from Final Fantasy IX, but that's fine.

You shouldn't crush Eagles, they're endangered.

The game runs smoothly on Switch. 60 FPS throughout. I mean, it's an XBox 360 game, so you'd think that would be a given, but after the shambolic state of the Tales of Symphonia port, this seems like a miracle port in comparison. That said, the sound mixing is all over the place. Some voices are at a very low volume compared to others in the very same scene, there are typos and incorrect dialogue throughout. It looks really sloppy.

Still, it's not a bad game. I enjoyed it, but it's not as good as the other two Tales of games I played.

Spoiler

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Glen-i

[WackerJr]

On 20/05/2023 at 1:43 AM, Glen-i said:

 

Also, I played through Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap after @Dcubed booted up the Master System version, which is literally the worst thing you can do.

  Games Glen has played in 2023 (Reveal hidden contents)

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

 

In what way out of interest?  Just playing it in general?  Only as I have fond memories of the SMS version and have the Switch 'remaster' but haven't touched it yet... 

[WackerJr]

Slay the Spire (PS4)

Finally got around to playing it after getting it on PSPlus and having friends recommend it.  Combining a roguelike with a deck-building card game seemed like an ideal match to me, and the developers did a great job with this - it's really good!

I was a little overwhelmed at first and it seemed really difficult to come up with an effective strategy, but once you started deciding on a particular way to play depending on what cards the RNG Gods decided to offer you on each run, it got slightly easier and is great at giving you that feeling of satisfaction (and relief!) when a plan pays off and you win a battle against seemingly overwhelming odds!

Each run is a little long for my liking, taking potentially a couple of hours if you manage to make it to the final boss at the top of the spire.  I enjoyed it enough to play it enough to beat the final final boss, although not enough to beat the 'ascension' challenges with any character, which are different rules for a playthrough (such as enemies dealing more damage, shops charging more, more bosses, etc.) of which there are 20!

Ultimately it is repetitive, it is effectively a lot of turn-based battles where you choose what cards to play each turn, I enjoyed it.

Spoiler

 

 

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, WackerJr said:

In what way out of interest?  Just playing it in general?  Only as I have fond memories of the SMS version and have the Switch 'remaster' but haven't touched it yet... 

Yup. Visually, and audibly, it's such a vast improvement, that the in-game feature to seamlessly swap between retro and modern graphics, while very cool, feels unnecessary, because I would never want to stay in the retro style for long.

It's the kind of remake where I feel it's "perfect", not as in, it's suddenly the greatest game ever made, but there is no real reason to play the older version if you own this one.

You should try it, I feel it retains the gameplay feel of the original game, the only real difference is that they added some difficulty options, and the original difficulty is still there, it's just the hardest difficulty now.

[drahkon]

2 hours ago, WackerJr said:

having friends recommend it.

Hold on to them. These are great friends.

[Glen-i]

This one is not going to be pretty...

Pokémon Scarlet is one half of the games that have kick started the ninth generation of monster collecting RPG behemoth, Pokémon. After Pokémon Legends: Arceus treaded the waters of an open world, this game took the plunge and is fully open-world. You can just imagine my absolute delight with that news.

The game takes place in the Paldea region, mostly inspired by Spain, but with hints of Portugal and Andorra thrown in, you play as a new trainer who enrolls in the Naranja Academy, a school that teaches kids rubbish subjects like maths alongside actual good subjects like Pokémon battling. Part of this curriculum involves sending the kids out to explore Paldea and figure out their "treasure". It's a metaphorical treasure, don't worry about it.

Your circumstance is a little special, however, as before you reach the school, you tumble down a cliff, and discover an injured Pokémon, Koraidon (Unless you chose Violet, like a loser). After giving a sandwich to Koraidon, the dragon-motorcycle (Yes, really, it's awesome) quickly becomes your best friend and tags along, it doesn't battle though.

I suppose I should put my thoughts down on the plot in spoilers, despite me knowing full well that anyone who would care finished this game loooong before I did. Speaking of...

Quote

It's nearly 3 hours past midnight. I assume @Glen-i has completed the Pokedex by now.  

Boy, that was incredibly off the mark, huh? I've still got 40 Pokémon left, and that's only because I transferred most of them from previous games. Getting ahead of myself though.

Spoiler

You know what? It wasn't bad. It wasn't amazing, mind, it's not as good as Black/White's, but it has some decent NPC's, Koraidon being around all the time helps makes the cover legendary more integral to the plot. Also, the legendary Pokémon being a massive sandwich-obsessed goofball is great, helped to make it feel more like a character, rather then something you just catch along the way.

Best moment was when I realised that the Professor of this game was dead all along, a legit surprise. There's a decent bit of foreshadowing for this, a very well earned plot twist.

It's a Pokémon game, so it'd be weird not to post my Hall of Fame team.

Oh right, they cut the Hall of Fame... So the standard menu screen will have to do.

People who played this game will probably notice something wrong with my team, half my team aren't native to Paldea, and they are vastly overleveled.
Yeah, I transferred over my competitive Pokémon from Shield and Ultra Sun and used them to blitz through the last 25% of the game. It's the first time I've completed a new generation of Pokémon without a single new Pokémon in my team. Why did I do it? You know the answer, but I'll spell it out, anyway.

The game is effing boring!

The cardinal sin of games, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it's the open world's fault, because the battle system is still top notch, but there's a severe lack of trainers to fight as you explore the region, and they never had more then 3 Pokémon. This means that the level curve is far too low for the average player to keep up with the mandatory fights, forcing you to use wild Pokémon to level up your team. And that takes forever! It's why I dropped the game back when it released.

So when the game got an update to be compatible with HOME, I decided to finally get it over with and get to the credits.

Not gonna lie though, it was very satisfying freeing my Greninja from the 3DS after 6 years.

The game has 18 "badges" to collect, split into three plotlines, 8 Gym badges, 5 Titan Badges, gotten by finding and defeating really strong Pokémon, and 5 Team Star badges. You can technically do these in any order you like, but this doesn't work in practice, as this is a turn-based RPG, which means if your Pokémon are underleveled, you're gonna get battered. Which is a real problem, because the level curve distribution of the Paldea region is all over the place. It is not even remotely intutitive, leading to loads of moments where you can wander into an area that is far too dangerous for you, or moments where you inadvertently skip a badge you could get at your current level, meaning you come back to it vastly overpowered, and it's not satisfying.

18 badges sounds like a lot, but really they just took the typical plot arcs and made them badges, you've got your Gyms, your villain team, and the legendary Pokémon arc. It's not really any more then you'd expect from a standard Pokémon game, which only serves to stretch the empty open world even thinner.

Spoiler

Getting all the badges and finishing each of the three plots, lets you enter Area Zero, where the finale of the game takes place. And you know what? It was the first time I had fun outside of battle. Area Zero tasks you with working your way down a big massive hole, and finding research labs to unlock the big lab at the bottom.

But unlike the rest of the game, which obviously apes BotW's overworld, Area Zero is structured more like Xenoblade. A linear goal, with lots of avenue for exploration.
I wish the entire game was like this, I would've really liked this game in that case.

It's not just the utter boredom that ruined this game for me. The game is a technical nightmare, framerate drops, glitches, and other oddities are abound. Ranging from the funny invisible Koraidon quirk, to other, more terrifying horrors.

It's what happens when you try a HD open-world game with the complexity of Pokémon in the same strict deadlines Game Freak get with making other Pokémon games. Something has to give, because this is getting ridiculous at this point. It's not sustainable.
But this game sold an insane amount at launch, so that's not happening anytime soon.

I low key love the feature that let's you tweak your trainer's default expression. It's really funny.

Apart from the Pokémon models themselves, as well as some important NPC's, the game doesn't look great. It's honestly the least of this game's problems, though. The music is surprisingly good, however. Amazingly not taking cues from BotW, the soundtrack is not minimalist, and can stand proud amongst other Pokémon soundtracks. Toby Fox (Of Undertale fame) helped with the soundtrack, and it shows, so at least some things didn't change. Sword/Shield does have better songs, but still.

It's not enough though. I didn't enjoy this game. And if the next generation is open-world again (And let's face it, it will be), then I can't justify buying it.
It's kinda depressing that in a single console generation, two of my favourite Nintendo series have fallen out of my favour...

Still, at least it's better then Legends Arceus...

Anyway, I also played through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (I was Splinter) alongside @BowserBasher (Leo) and @Dufniall (Raph). Game is still amazing.

Spoiler

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Pokémon Scarlet
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Glen-i

[BowserBasher]

8 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Anyway, I also played through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (I was Splinter) alongside @BowserBasher (Leo) and @Dufniall (Raph). Game is still amazing.

That roll in to your high fives was just too perfect. 

[Glen-i]

Lil Gator Game is a 3D platformer open world game developed by MegaWobble and published by Playtonic Games, as part of their Playtonic Friends program. It was released for Switch in 2022

You play as "Lil Gator" (It's a nickname, you don't know his actual name) an impossibly cute alligator kid, whose older sister has come home from college. Lil Gator wants to play a live action role play of a game awfully similar to The Legend of Zelda. However, his sister has assignments to work on, and blows Lil Gator off. Lil Gator decides to expand the scope of this game with the help of his friends, while also making a lot more friends around the island to help him with his ambition. All to entice his sister into joining in.

The game does a fantastic job of framing the whole thing through a child's perspective. Make-believe powers everything in this game, with seemingly non-sensical occurences being explained by "Just go with it". It's really quite funny, as well. What I didn't expect was to actually tear up a little at the end. It's a heartfelt plot and expertly told. I won't spoil why, obviously.

I know what you're thinking, now. "But this is an open-world game, right? You surely can't have enjoyed it?" Well, yeah... Where Xenoblade, Zelda, and Pokémon have all failed spectacularly in getting me to see any benefit to open-world games, it's a small little indie game that actually manages to *gasp* not bore me to tears! I put it down to one incredibly key difference between this and it's bigger counterparts, and that's the size of it. Lil Gator Game took me about 9 hours to 100% complete, and 2 of those were me faffing about with the ragdoll item. (A completely useless item that lets you subject Lil Gator to ragdoll physics at the press of a button)

Geez, it's mad to think that if BotW was less then 20 hours long, it might not be the worst Zelda game I've ever played.

The game is one big Banjo-Kazooie style collectathon. Friends function as the main collectable, with scraps of paper acting as the less substantial collectible. Scraps of paper can be used as currency to unlock various tools to use. Some are helpful, like the bubble gum that lets you drift upwards, while others are, well, like the ragdoll. The game takes a lot of cues from Zelda games, especially BotW, with climbing being limited by a stamina wheel, and shield surfing. Climbing is a lot quicker, mind, which is nice. And that sums up the game nicely. It won't take more then 5 minutes to get from one side of the open-world to the other.

The game employs a relatively low polygon look (One of the options even makes the game a lower resolution) with a cel-shaded style, it looks great. Then again, I've always been a fan of the low-poly aesthetic. The music is probably the weakest aspect, it's not bad, but it doesn't stand out compared to the rest of the game.

Anyway, straight after that, I played...

In quite possibly the biggest form of mood whiplash you could ever do in gaming, I played through Disco Elysium: The Final Cut. It's a tabletop role-playing style game developed by ZA/UM. It was first released on PC in 2019, and then came out on Switch in 2021.

The game takes place in fictional seaside town, Martinaise. You play as a person who has had such a massive drug and alcohol bender, that he's completely forgotten everything about himself. It's up to you to guide this wretch of a man on his journey to discover who he is and what he's doing there.

Suffice to say, this game is depressing at times, and at other times, bloody hilarious. It's all very surreal and absurd, which probably comes down to the 24 voices in your head.
Yes, instead of a typical Dungeons & Dragons style party, you're guided by various aspects of our drug addicted amnesiac's psyche. Authority, hand-eye coordination, and logic are some of the things that help you on your quest, or not. You level up mostly by completing side tasks. And you can use the level up points you accumalate to improve these 24 parts of yourself. But you need to be careful, if you lopside too many upgrades to one particular part of you, it could become overpowering and end up being detrimental to you. You need to thread the needle, and it's an interesting dynamic. Also, these 24 voices in your head all have opinions. Some of them are.. to the point.

These 24 aspects of you also determine how successful you are at skill checks decided, fittingly, by dice rolls. High stats in the corresponding skill will make these dice rolls more in your favour. (Although a double 1 will always result in a failure, double 6 is a guaranteed success) You can use clothing you gather to help bolster these stats, and if you're really desperate, you can use drugs, but this can have some negative side effects.

The plot is captivating, no other words for it, really. I was engaged throughout. It's philosophical, and the tone of it all is oppressing. Also, I got the best ending on my first attempt. Nailed it!

Unfortunately, and I don't know if this is a thing in other versions, but the Switch version is prone to crashing... a lot. It got me really in the habit of saving after every conversation. It got to a ridiculous peak when the game crashed during the credits. Luckily, there was no post credits scene, so I didn't miss anything at least.

Despite that, I recommend Disco Elysium. Just, maybe not the Switch version.

Spoiler

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Pokémon Scarlet
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
Lil Gator Game
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

 

[drahkon]

Looking at my Excel sheet...
I've finished 22 games from January until April.

And since then...4.

Not sure what happened/is happening.

[Glen-i]

2 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Looking at my Excel sheet...
I've finished 22 games from January until April.

And since then...4.

Not sure what happened/is happening.

Wait, I know this one!

Ok, I've got it! What's happened is that you... have played less games.

[bob]

21 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Wait, I know this one!

Ok, I've got it! What's happened is that you... have played less games.

Fewer.

[EEVILMURRAY]

On 6/18/2023 at 8:10 AM, Glen-i said:

 

Shizzle about Violent/Scarlet

  Games Glen has played in 2023 (Reveal hidden contents)

Fire Emblem Engage
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgames
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Metroid Fusion
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog
Octopath Traveler II
Kirby's Dream Land
Metroid Prime Remastered
Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Pokémon Scarlet
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

 

All the agrees. Except I didn't find myself underlevelled, Actually more than enough for the Elite Four but failed once due to some sneaky move action on their part. 

I think they didn't think about the execution properly here. In practice an open world Pokémon game could be fun, but I think they made it too open. Plus the environments were plain as fuck, open fields and caves that generally went nowhere most of the time. The main killer for me was approaching somewhere and watching the animations go from jerky to fluid very slowly. Or in the background during cutscenes. It also made the smaller towns look stupid by comparison. Having a "town" or "city" in the older games consisting of a Pokémon Centre, Pokémart and about 2 other houses excluding a gym felt more normal because most RPGs had this sort of thing going. Now having a sprinkle of houses in the middle of an open field just makes me wonder how this stuff got built (this has extended to the older games too, an airport?! c'maahn)

I think if they did something similar to Arceus (which I think I preferred but they're a little too different for me to compare properly), with smaller connected environments and not a hub town and pick somewhere - a bit like Skyward Sword but less shit. 

I imagine if they scaled up Red/Blue for example, made Viridian Forest a big size in relation to your character was, kinda like Xenoblade's world, would be a far better game.

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, bob said:

Fewer.

Luckily, it was a maths problem, so it didn't matter.

[bob]

Grammar always matters Glen.

[Glen-i]

7 minutes ago, bob said:

Grammar always matters Glen.

Then where's the comma, Bob. Where's the comma!?

[bob]

Then where's the comma, Bob. Where's the comma!?

Punctuation doesn't matter.